Another attempt at Jungian (or Gnostic) interpretation. This time of a new song from MUSE that I really enjoyed hearing. While listening, I found that it also has a lot of archetypal phrases/imagery.
The singer is male, so Anima (Sophia) and the Shadow (Demiurge) are the two in dialogue.
Background Information:
At the advice of my psychologist friends, I looked up the context of the song after I did the interpretation, and it seems to be consistent with the song:
Matt said The Dark Side is a song that contains ‘angry lyrics’ and has the common Muse themes of frustration and loneliness.
He said this about the song on a Kerrang interview “Some people will listen to Dark Side and think it’s a story about battling with mental illness“.
Source: http://www.musewiki.org/The_Dark_Side_(song)
The Video:
Video Interpretation: The mountains represent the Jungian Self or a numinous value. The grid at the bottom represents the physical reality we measure by cutting up into small chunks of data, for observation.
The blueish sky is the conscious ego, and the darkening sky is the unconscious, going to black; the collective unconscious.
In the middle of the song, three (the trinity; need to integrate the Anima/Animus, Shadow, Self, into consciousness to start to create a Transcendent Function (3+1 which creates the whole, a quaternity) ) lighting strikes hit from above. The Collective Unconscious is the psychological God-Image which sends inspiration/force/libido, that ultimately connects heaven and earth. It can also be the representation of the skill of Active imagination, or the “Transcendent Function”, which is the skill of Revelation, or soothsaying/seeing.
Song Interpretation:
(Anima) Female: I have lived in Darkness. For all my life, I’ve been pursued. You’d be afraid, if you could feel my pain, and if you could see the things I am able to see.
(Anima) Female: Break me out, Break me out, let me flee, break me out, break me out, set me free.
Interpretation: The “soul” that is pursued by man via megantic attraction. It is currently lost in the unconscious and in pain at the things it sees, which would scare us.
The soul wants to be broken out and set free so it can escape the confines of the unconscious.
(There is a connection made with the unconscious with a force, or libido. Something like the Transcendent Function?)
(Shadow) Male: I hail from the dark side. For all my life, I’ve been besieged. You’d be scared, living with my despair, and if you could feel the things I am able to feel.
(Shadow) Male: Break me out, Break me out, let me flee, break me out, break me out, set me free.
Interpretation: The Shadow is home in the unconscious, but it has been trapped there, and it feels hopeless of ever breaking out. It wants to be broken out and set free so it can escape the confines of the unconscious.
(Anima) Female: Break me out, Break me out, let me flee, break me out, break me out, set me free.
(Shadow)Male: Break me out, Break me out, let me flee, break me out, break me out, set me free.(Anima) Female: Save me from the dark side.
(Shadow) Male: Break me out, Break me out, let me flee, break me out, break me out, set me free.
Interpretation: For it to be our saving grace, from what it sees, we need to save it first, and in an enantiodromic reversal the saviour will be the saved. For this to happen, we need to break out the shadow, and set it free so it can escape the confines of the unconscious.
My (amature) Opinion: Matt is doing artistic channeling to the collective unconscious.
Muse’s Matt Bellamy: ‘There’s a time-lag with fans, where five years later they get it’