Soundtrack to Human Development
One of my favorite things to do is analyze song lyrics and search for meaning and connection. For the past dozen years, I have created music mixes that reflect songs that I am delighting in and lyrics that relate to my own human development. Over the years, it’s become quite a collection of “audio journals” to reflect various stages of growth and becoming. I knew that I wanted to put these lyric-hunting, song-obsessed skills to use as my “gift” to my colleagues and educators in LEAD 619. I hope you find a song that you love, a song that supports your continued development, or at least, that this collection reminds you of the fun times we shared being grilled by Dr. Green about the particulars of all the various theories.
Soundtrack to Human Development: Volume 1 - Erikson’s Stages & Various Theories
#1 TILTED — CHRISTINE & THE QUEENS
French singer Héloïse Letissier has this to say about the song’s meaning, which has been translated into English from the French: “It’s about feeling out of place, not finding your balance, or being depressed even, but with playful images, with a song you can dance on.” While not explicitly about the subject-object shift, this song always reminds me of Kegan, Winnicott, & Erikson, and the dynamic way that we live between stages as we continue becoming ourselves. “I am naturally good can’t help it if I’m tilted.”
#2 SWEET REFUGE — ROO PANES
Erikson’s 1st stage — Trust vs Mistrust: This song is about finding trust: “I know the wolves keep circling but we’ll leave them chasing tails… cause you are my sweet refuge.” Ultimately, this song seems to refer to a higher power, which may be the real crisis of trust into which we emerge when we enter this world.
#3 TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN — CLOUD CULT
Erikson’s 2nd stage — Autonomy vs Shame: Cloud Cult’s music always seems to touch on deep issues in the human experience, as their music became transformed through the untimely death of the lead singer’s first-born child. This song describes a child coming from the “great unknown” and beginning to live into their own autonomy, the second crisis in Erikson’s stages. “You’ve got to sing the kind of song that you like singing.”
#4 NO ROOM FOR DOUBT — LIANNE LA HAVAS (FEAT. WILLY MASON)
Erikson’s 3rd stage — Initiative vs Guilt: This song tiptoes gently around issues of guilt, mistakes, and not being quite sure what to do. “We all make mistakes, we do, I learnt from you.” The British singer-songwriter eventually takes initiative to change her situation, but continues to wrestle with whether it’s the right thing to do.
#5 CAPABLE OF ANYTHING — BEN FOLDS
Erikson’s 4th stage — Industry vs Inferiority: In the fourth stage, we have to our sense of industry or capability. In this song, Ben Folds describes the tilt between the person feeling capable, and also a sense of feeling like they aren’t good for anything. “I stopped caring what you think about me, I gave up. We’re told we’re capable of anything, but you don’t seem to think that you are.”
#6 DANCING NANCIES — DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
Erikson’s 5th stage — Ego Identity vs Role Confusion: When I was actually going through Erikson’s 5th stage, I remembering listening to this song and having my mind blown. Could I have been anyone other than me? This song is a playful way of considering our shifting identities, and trying to resolve who they really are.
#7 WE ARE THE LOVE WE GIVE — IMAGINARY FUTURE
Erikson’s 6th stage — Intimacy vs Isolation: I love the way this song addresses issues of intimacy. Going through this stage, I remember finally arriving at the conclusion that love is something that I could choose, even if I didn’t have “the one” right person to give it to. Every relationship I had could be opportunities for intimacy and connection. “This is not some one way mirror looking at the world we’re in, we are the love, we are the love we give.”
#8 SHATTERED & HOLLOW — FIRST AID KIT
Erikson’s 7th stage — Generativity vs Stagnation: I came across this song the first year that I had left classroom teaching and was beginning to tilt into a new stage of becoming. I was struck by the lyrics: “Now I am tired, but resolute. I’d rather be striving than settled. I’d rather be moving than static.” This song reminds me of the 7th stage, and the ways that sometimes it’s better to keep moving, even when it is difficult, because this is the way that we continue to grow throughout our lives.
#9 CLOUDS — ZACH SOBIECH
Erikson’s 8th stage — Ego Integrity vs Despair: Although Zach Sobiech was a teenager when he wrote this song, it reflects the penultimate (or ultimate, if you disregard Joan Erikson’s final psychosocial stage) stage in development. Zach had been diagnosed with a rare form of fatal bone cancer, and was given a short while to live. He wrote songs for his family and friends as a way of saying goodbye. “And we’ll go up up up, but I’ll fly a little higher.” The lyrics reflect the peace he’d made with the life he’d lived, albeit only for a short while.
#10 I’M NOT THE MAN — BEN FOLDS
Erikson’s 9th stage — Gerotranscendence: In the final stage, Joan Erikson wrote about how very old people must revisit all 8 stages with the negative polarity being primary. Rather than Trust vs Mistrust, they needed to resolve Mistrust vs Trust, and so forth. Arriving at the final stage would bring the individual to a place of peace, and readying to make the final transition to death. In this song, Ben Folds reflects on all the versions of himself he used to be, and finally concludes, “I want to be.”
#11 STONES AROUND THE SUN — LEWIS WATSON
White’s overview effect: The overview effect refers to a cognitive shift in awareness that is reported by astronauts when they witness the earth from space. In Lewis Watson’s song, he seems to reference this effect through the lyrics, “When we look back far enough, we are only stones around the sun.” Perhaps these lyrics can remind us to playfully hold the tension of a global and personal as we consider the intersection of human development and leadership theory for the emerging future.
#12 NOW & THEN — SJOWGREN
Piaget’s Cognitive Stages: This song speaks to the time when we are kids, and we see the world through a certain perspective in which we are totally embedded! The lyrics say, “If I knew then what I know now,” but of course we couldn’t. As we move through the subject-object shift, our perspective changes again, and it even becomes difficult to remember how we saw the world an entirely different way.
#13 NEW RULES — DUA LIPA
Powell’s Developed Consciousness: Besides being ridiculously fun, this song is about a girl who creates a set of rules for her to follow so that she doesn’t get back together with a guy who’s no good for her. In Powell’s concept of developed consciousness, through pattern recognition, we’re able to make different, more educated decisions and evolve our consciousness to new patterns. “Practice makes perfect, I’m still tryna’ learn it by heart. Eat, sleep, and breathe it, rehearse and repeat it.” By the end of the song, she sings triumphantly, “You’re getting over him.”
#14 GRACE KELLY — MIKA
Multiple personas: In MIKA’s pop jam from 2007, he playfully confronts the concept of multiple personas. “I try to be like Grace Kelly, but all her looks were too sad. So I try a little Freddie. I’ve gone identity mad! I could be brown. I could be blue. I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful. I could be purple. I could be anything you like.”
#15 HEY YOU THERE — STACY BARTHE
Winnicott’s True Self/False Self: The opening lyrics deal with how the false self can begin to take over our true self, “When you get the courage to be honest to yourself. You can stop lying to everyone else, yeah. Don’t you ever get tired of pretending?” She writes, “Face yourself in the mirror and say, ‘Is it me you’re looking for?’” Stacy Barthe wrote BEcoming to deal with issues of depression, sobriety, and becoming ourselves, and the whole album beautifully tackles these issues.
#16 SEASONS — AZURA
Freud’s Defense Mechanisms: While there are many more defense mechanisms than are sung in this song, Azura whispers, “Shut your eyes, it’s temporary” which reminds of one of the primary defenses, denial and rationalization. She also sings, “You’ll be alright,” which could be a little wishful thinking. Unfortunately, I actually have quite the affinity for songs that tell me “it’ll be alright” which makes me wonder about my habitual, unconscious defenses.
