Music for my Inner Queendom

Aurora: Infections of a Different Kind

So, first things first, with a title like that: I am a guy.

I like a lot of guy things. I like sport. I used to like beer. I like expressing my point of view to people regardless of whether they asked for it. I like women — like, as in that way, not that it matters, and not that many people haven’t suspected otherwise.

Although, it also seems like I ‘like women’ in other ways.

When I think back on the patterns that my friendships have taken over my life, there is a definite feminine theme.

Apart from my core group of school friends, basically all my meaningful friendships have been with women. You know, the friendships that aren’t defined by or require the presence of other people: ones that you feel comfortable being vulnerable in, overshare to, learn the most from.

Look, maybe this is just the same as having a female partner: which — incels aside — most guys have, or have had for fairly lengthy periods of time, and do far more successfully than me (read: do at all). But they also get, well, other benefits out of it (as long as they are playing their cards right, one assumes).

So it may well be saying something about me that I have had many of these friendships, really from the time I worked out how to talk to women (back when they were still girls), without these added benefits. Not that I haven’t tried my luck a few times in this regard. Probably a good time to move on…

The first time I did an archetype card reading (it is good fun, I recommend doing one), I got Networker, Servant and Queen. The first two I was fine with, and I felt fairly well summed up my personality — they basically explain themselves. I didn’t quite get the Queen part, although my mum thought it was fantastic and hilarious. Apparently, it was on the nose. On the light side, the manifestation of positive arrogance in the expression of power and authority whilst also fiercely protecting one’s self emotionally. On the dark side, to slip into aggression or destructive patterns of behaviour when this power and authority is threatened.

Well that was some food for thought. Was this a sign to better acknowledge this inner Queen within me, an archetype that I was obviously expressing but probably hadn’t fully come to grips with?

The evidence is also there in my music tastes. Sure, I have lots of sad, melancholic, sometimes downright depressing music crossing genres of classical, ambient and post rock that is almost exclusively written by men (we really can be a bit of drag, hey). But I also love me some good pop — music that seeks emboldenment from rather than compliance to this emotional state, and almost all of this music is written by women.

Given I’m already putting my manhood on the line here, I may as well just jump straight into the deep end and start with Carly Rae Jepsen. This seems appropriate, given the internet has declared her the Queen of various aspects of subjective reality.

I can’t really imagine how a better un-ironic romantic pop song could be written than Run Away With Me, iconic saxophone line and all. The album it comes from is simply titled Emotion, albeit with some ambiguous punctuation mixed in. This pretty much sums it up: an upfront and honest display of emotion.

She is a marvel in her consistency to channel a range of emotions into the form of un-ironic romantic pop. It takes an impressive amount of self-belief, self-awareness and above all authenticity to stay solely within that lane, likely forgoing the greater commercial success that would have been available to her if she became ‘serious’. Added bonus: as far as I can tell, she appears to have resisted eye-rolling pop music cliches of flashing the all-seeing eye, giving the vow of silence, or making veiled references to Lucifer/Satan. Big tick.

Aside from Rae-J, there are many female artists that at various times and for varying periods of time have channelled my inner queendom. Sia, Kimbra, Lorde, Grimes — even some with two names. I am embarrassed by none of them, with the glaring exception of Ariana Grande.

No serious discussion of uni-named musical matriarchs could occur without Bjork. Although, I have already written about her here, and don’t really have much more to add, except to say that she was responsible for reviving within me a femininity that I didn’t really know was there.

So with that in mind, staying with a Scandinavian flavour (does Iceland count as Scandinavia?), I will finish with perhaps my favourite current musical Queen: the Norwegian artist Aurora.

Her first album slapped hard. It’s a bit dark, a bit wild, but deeply spiritual, starkly vulnerable, always grounded in nature with the moods and metaphors it evokes.

The best songs — all her best songs that I have come across — are odes to fierce emotional empowerment. Conqueror, Running with the Wolves, Forgotten Love, The River. Warrior, in particular, essentially sums up her vibe and ethos, and why I unashamedly love her: be a warrior of love, always, especially in the dark. The fact that she has a song called ‘Queendom’ is the cherry on top.

But none of her songs have hit me harder than All is Soft Inside, from her second album Infections of Different Kind from 2018 (did she know something was coming that we didn’t?). The song seems to describe a moment of vulnerability, when all outside barriers are stripped away, and the truth that one finds within themselves at these times.

All that I know

Lies within emotion

Words remain unspoken

Lead me through the dark

I’m not going to designate absolute meaning to someone else’s song, but this is what I take out of it. When all the bullshit of the world gets too much, all we have left as truth — to guide us forwards and upwards — is our emotions. If we don’t acknowledge how we are feeling in these dark times, then what do we have left to fall back on?

Of course, if we grant ourselves this emotional respect, we are obliged to grant it to others. This is an obvious if radical form of compassion: that to respect my own emotions, I must respect yours. I may feel no resonance with your emotions. I may disagree with how you express you emotions. I may believe that your emotions are even being manipulated and used against your best interests. But I will always acknowledge the truth of those emotions, and your sovereignty to feel what you are feeling and form a truth out of it.

Maybe that’s what it is to be a Queen: to be so absolutely in control of your own emotions, both the positive and the negative, that it grants you the capacity to respect absolutely the emotions of others. Who wouldn’t be happy to be ruled by that person.