By The Landlord
“The collective unconscious consists of the sum of the instincts and their correlates, the archetypes. Just as everybody possesses instincts, so he also possesses a stock of archetypal images.” – Carl Jung
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.” – Bertrand Russell
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” – H. L. Mencken
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.” – William Wordsworth
“There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.” – Sir Thomas Beecham
An armoury of aardvarks to a stagger, or perhaps stench, of zombies. Evocative, descriptive, alliterative, metaphorical, amusingly anachronistic, or sometimes, quite frankly, just made up, collective nouns often create a vivid spark for the brain. Perhaps that's because they are, by their very nature, collective, and reach into a sense of togetherness and belonging that's deep within our evolved ancient psyche of families, gangs, troupes or groups or indeed ‘shrewdnesses’ of apes that clamber, swing and howl, deep in the forests of our imagination.
Living creatures, plants or objects take on a new identity when there’s several of them. So then, it seems like a fun opportunity to examine song lyrics that exploit this part of our human language, whether in English or other tongues, not so much any old examples of more common words such as groups or bands or crowds or herds, but the more colourful and evocative ones, certainly vivid, perhaps even poetic.
Parliament and Flock of Seagulls are examples of band names that employ collective nouns, but unleash many other associations. The flamboyant George Clinton may sometimes wear feathers and have a penetrative gaze, but perhaps the meaning was more musical than avian or politically collective. As well as owls, parliament has also been used, at various points in history as the collective noun for ravens and rooks, whores and beggars, but also pedants and ptarmigans. Perhaps then particularly, er, rock ptarmigans?
Another Parliament …
Meanwhile the 1980s Liverpool synth-pop / new wave band of Mike Score and co’s name may have been inspired by the sight of birds following boats on the River Mersey, but they could have alternatively been called a Flotilla, Screech, Squabble, or Scavenging of Seagulls, which at times could also perfectly fit the politics of pop bands.
What's more, this entire virtual Bar brings together a brilliant hive mind of knowledge, banter, wisdom, or madness, depending on how you look at it, thematically gathering groups and strings of songs as playlists in a convivial choir of collectivism, so it couldn't be more appropriate. As well as albums, or EPs, songs themselves can be part of a canon, or in more archaic terms a slew, a rope, or even a colourful nye, though that word is more commonly associated with colourful pheasants. Squawk.
Around the edge of songs themselves, what about musicians and musical instruments, and other connections? A slide of trombonists, a rumble of bassists, a pound of pianists, a guild of guitarists with a rack of guitars, a twangle of harps, a cord of woodwinds, a phalanx of flautists.
Big hit? A record-breaking roll of drummers …
And as for drummers, there seem to be many words playing their kettle of instruments – a roll, descriptively yes. An asylum of drummers? That maybe sounds somewhat judgemental, or is it simply mental, like The Muppets’ Animal? But another word for drummers is fagot. In modern terms that has homophobic associations, but it's actually from the alternative spelling, faggot, an older word which also means bundle of sticks, so fair enough, and could also be connected to a bigger branch of wood used to create a grand, more bassy woodwind instrument – the Italian word, fagotto, for bassoon.
And then there's linked musical metaphors – an orchestra of crickets, a quaver of coloraturas, a chime of wrens, a choir of angels, but strangely just a company of angel fish. Perhaps because we perceive animals, birds and other species in multitudes most commonly, there seems to be a greater variety of collective nouns for them than anything else, especially flocks of our feathered friends.
Because of their gathering and group intelligence, crows can be a cauldron, a caucus, a congress, a cowardice, a hover, a muster, a parcel, a rather exciting 'storytelling', and of course a murder. Some of these seem a bit strange, but crows are very clever indeed. There's daft "Crowning" in Netflix's Schitt's Creek of course, but far more pertinent to this range of collective nouns, Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 thriller, The Birds. In this brilliantly edited scene, they slowly and subtely gather outside the school. So watch out, Tippi Hedron. “Why do birds suddenly appear …” Cor blimey, indeed.
Your song lyric ideas might spread their metaphorical wings in all directions, avian or otherwise, but as ever, the examples must be a good, standout lyric not just a passing phrase. There could be aerie, army, convocation, jubilee, soar, or spread of eagles, a flamboyance, a flurry, regiment, skein, or stand of flamingos; a flock, a gaggle , nide, skein, team, trip, wedge (when flying in a V-formation) of geese; a drum, charm, glister, chattering, troubling, or vein of goldfinches; a charm, shimmer, glittering, bouquet, chattering, or drum, of hummingbirds; a muster, ostentation, pride, or pulchritude of peacocks; and also due to their particular behaviour, an impression, a plagiary, exactness, echo, precision, ridicule of mockingbirds. Does this make your imagination take flight.
Part of a pulchritude of peacocks
There are also many unusual animal examples, from a church, dray or scurry of squirrels to an implausibility, herd of gnus, a congress, flange, or rumpus of baboons to a troop, whoop, family, cartload of chimpanzees. There's a blaze of dragons, a caravan or tower of giraffes, congregation of alligators, a romp of otters, cete of badgers, a crafty conspiracy of lemurs, a smack of jellyfish, rumble, a thunder or bloat hippos, a cackle of hyenas, a surfeit of skunks, beyond a herd, also memory of elephants (naturally), and not just pods of dolphins or whales, but also blessings of narwhals.
Who us? A conspiracy of lemurs …
Collective nouns are used by us not just positively but negatively. When describing, for example, flies, ants or rats (colony, horde, kingdom, mischief, pack, nest, plague, rabble or swarm), such words have been interchangeably used, by fascists and others, in the pejorative sense towards enemies or other nations as propaganda.
But groups of humans can evocatively also come under many other descriptive forms, from a gang or knuckle of gangsters to a sprinkling of gardeners, a pack or peloton of cyclists to a troupe of float of dancers, a brace of dentists to a conclave of cardinals, a pratfall of clowns to a harem of courtesans, a ring of jewellers to a clutch of wrestlers.
Float of dancers?
The choices are infinitely out there for you to peruse and choose. Animals, birds, plants, people, objects, the world is your oyster (a bed), with (strings or beds of) pearls aplenty. From a twinkling of todays, to flights of yesterdays, how will it all turn out? Try to find the most colourful, poetic, striking examples.
And so then, among our congregating constellation of regular stars, casting a learned eye and ear over the collective proceedings, I'm delighted to welcome back to the guest chair, the marvellous Maki! Place your song suggestions below in comments for the deadline at 11pm UK time (British Summer Time), or playlists published next week. Let's gather strings of the pearlescent, enjoy a round of drinks, and hopefully it will all take flight …
A flutter, flight or rainbow of monarch butterflies
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