By The Landlord
“The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.” – Edith Wharton
“If you look at music, you see theme, variation, you see symmetry, asymmetry, you see structure, and these are related to skills in the real world.” – Dave Van Ronk
“The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order symmetry and limitations; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.” – Aristotle
“The musical scale is a convention which circumscribes the area of potentiality and permits construction within those limits in its own particular symmetry.” – Iannis Xenakis
“This is no science, this is art, where equations fall away to elements like resolving chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity.” – Jack Vance
“The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.” – Paul Valéry
“Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.” – Lord Byron, Jon Juan
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” –William Shakespeare, Macbeth
“I wasted time and now doth time waste me.” – William Shakespeare, Richard II
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? – William Blake
“Lying deep within myself, the symmetry of a snowflake spinning above me, intensifying through my lids, I seized a most worthy souvenir, a shard of heaven’s kaleidoscope.” – Patti Smith
“Reality is partial to symmetry and slight anachronisms.” – Jorge Luis Borges
“When you look into a mirror it is not yourself you see, but a kind of apish error posed in fearful symmetry.” – John Updike
So, do we live to work, or work to live so? Do you know what you like, or like what you know? Play on words helps to bring joy. But joy helps to bring on wordplay.
There's something rather pleasing on the eye, and ear, about the symmetrical. Visually, and physically, especially in the face, it's associated with health and beauty, but none of us are perfect. In fact that’s part of the beauty – near-perfection, or impressions of symmetry, can also make anything a little more real rather than artificial. Perhaps that’s partly what makes William Blake’s famous poem slightly strange and memorable - the untameable rhyme of ‘symmetry' with ‘eye'.
And perhaps echoing that line as above from Shakespeare’s Richard II, in a song long previously chosen, unsurprisingly, for the topic of ‘change’, David Bowie rather imperfectly, though with audible neatness, sings: “I said that time may change me. But I can't trace time.” To add to the imperfection of it all, I always used to mishear trace as change.
Lyrical symmetry:
This week then, the eyes and ears work can hopefully work in some unusual harmony as we seek and examine songs in which there’s some form of lyrical symmetry, employing patterns that echo, repeat and invert. There are formal rhetorical terms for this, notably antimetabole, which is the repetition of one or more words in successive clauses, but a transposed order. Famous rhetorical examples include the Ancient Roman declaration: "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno" ("One for all, all for one") and John F. Kennedy’s 1961 speech: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
I might not be alone in wondering now, on the eve of a new US presidency, that the equivalent might now might be: “Ask yourselves not only what these c***s are doing for you, but only for themselves.” It’s a very imperfect world.
Edouard Manet is here in the Bar too, but puts it in more extreme terms: “There’s no symmetry in nature. One eye is never exactly the same as the other. There's always a difference. We all have a more or less crooked nose and an irregular mouth.” Some more crooked than others. And only in this Bar can you have a French impressionist painter comparing an idea with another dapper dresser, the LA rapper in the form of Snoop Dogg, who suddenly decides to get the drinks in for them both, retrieving a stash of cash hidden in his hat: “Yeah. I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.”
But reflecting back on the verbal, nature does have many forms of symmetry in many beautiful ways, though admittedly not to the point of absolute perfection. Tree branches spread uniformly, but with tiny variants. That tiger’s whiskers are slightly different lengths. It depends how deep you want to look. Lyrics can be symmetrical in similar ways. It’s about how we hear them too, chiming musically, and rhythmically.
Nature’s imperfect symmetry
Antimetabole is a particular subset of chiasmus, another broader rhetorical term, from the Greek meaning X or crossing over, which also employs reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words. They might also come into play in this topic, but for a sense of some (imperfect) symmetry, let’s seek out the antimetabolic, as it lends itself to a more pleasing musicality.
Compared to poetry, lyric writing often take a less precise form, created to be heard, not read, so there’s some room for creative looseness. That said, it’s hard not to admire the clever clinical precision of another previously chosen song, They Might Be Giants’ I Palindrome I:
"Son, I am able," she said. "Though you scare me." "Watch" said I. "Beloved," I said, "Watch me scare you, though." Said she, "Able am I, son.”
The lyrical examples that this introduction will hopefully inspire far easier examples, containing at least some repeated inverted words that bring some sense of echoing pleasure.
Previously the topic of mirrors has been looked at in the distant cracked past, and it may be tempting for some to suggest songs on for that general nature, or anything about symmetry, but let’s aim seek the lyrically symmetrical in form rather than pure subject, and please supply phrasal examples.
Check out antimetabole. then you’re on the right track
To inspire ideas further there are a few others enjoying the warmth and hospitality of the Bar with more to say on the subject.
On scientific level, we’re joined by two acclaimed physicists, and on a macro and micro American Steven Weinberg summarises that: “The universe is an enormous direct product of representations of symmetry groups.”
And here’s China’s Chen-Ning Yang who brings the subject into a habitual level: “The existence of symmetry laws is in full accordance with our daily experience. The simplest of these symmetries, the isotropy and homogeneity of space, are concepts that date back to the early history of human thought.”
Elevate your mind?
Having explored the nature of thought, here’s the best-selling brain-function author Tony Buzan bringing another side to symmetry:
“The human brain has left and right brain symmetry with its own nature and can process information which initially appears to have no pattern or order. However, the brain has the ability to process visual information much more efficiently.”
Music may help balance the brain’s symmetry
On the outside of the brain is a chief area for this topic: “Yes, our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth,” says Blaise Pascal.
The prolific John Ruskin, who had much to say on every subject, chimes in with this: “No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry … All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections …”
Perhaps as well as lyrical symmetry, some of you might like to accompany this with musical symmetry, though on a deeper, compositional, structural level, that’s perhaps for another topic. Nevertheless Helen Reddy, famous for 60s and 70s pop hits and as an actress, once expressed a craving for a different form: “I don't know if it's a sign of all the chaos that is happening out there or not, but I've lately craved the structure and order of classical music, the balance and symmetry.”
But how then to put all this together. To close, and embracing also imperfection, here’s some advice from the poet Derek Walcott:
“Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.”
So then it’s time to put forward your lyrical symmetrical suggestions, with in shorter or longer phrases, and lyrical examples. Making all of this fit together with no doubt sharp eyed and eared symmetry is the linguistically astute Maki. Deadline is 11pm UK time on Monday, for playlists published next week. So have fun. Now please play your words, and word your play.
May your ideas bear fruit …
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