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NWT #5: Desert Island Discs - Outlandos d'Amour

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chiscotheque
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NWT #5: Desert Island Discs - Outlandos d'Amour

Post by chiscotheque »

Question: Life is not justification; life is illumination. Discuss.

Card: 9 of Water Message in a Bottle The Police
9 w.jpg

Answer: In the song Message in a Bottle, the narrator is shipwrecked on a deserted island, be it actually or metaphorically. He sends an S.O.S. to alleviate his loneliness and by song's end is inundated not with people but with messages in bottles from millions of people in a similar predicament. Rather than being outrightly rescued, as ideas of "justification" might imply, some of the sting is taken out of the narrator's misery by being shown that everyone is essentially in the same boat. Misery loves company because love is a balm to the sorrows of alienation.

This card itself, the 9/Water (or Cups), is one of bounty. A double irony then that it concerns a song centered around isolation and paucity from a band made up of just 3 members. Not only were The Police one of the most popular and successful bands of the era, but their excellent musicianship and musical creativity allowed their simple instruments - guitar, drums, bass & voice - to sound bigger and better than bands with many instruments and members. Similarly, life is not a zero-sum, quid pro quo game as fusty notions of "justice" would suggest, but rather a series of revelations such as big things come in small packages and we are rescued from isolation by a shared sense of being castaways.

Given the question, there is a final irony here with the band's name. Ostensibly, the police enforce the rule of law and so facilitate justice. Here, the "justice" The Police bring about is the solace of togetherness illuminated through the communal medium of music.


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