The violent and the voluntary

Brian Weatherson links to this brilliant Guardian piece: the 'never trust anyone over ten' set rate classic rock tunes. It's amazing, you know, the range of bizarrely precise, non-musical associations music can evoke. From, "It’s making me think about doing bad things like putting snowballs down my sister’s back," to "It's too pointy" to "It sounds like when your wee goes back up." And the intensity of it. Why, just this morning I was playing The Eels, "Daisies of the Galaxy", and Zoë spontaneously burst into tears, "It's tooooo saaaaad"; so I had to click quickly over to The Fifth Dimension, "Carpet Man", which perked her right up. (Zoë is heavy into the Fifth Dimension.)

Shift into University of Chicago mode:

All of which puts me in mind of a passage from Plato's "Republic", with which I trust you are all intimately familiar, but I'll just quote it anyway:

I don’t know the musical modes, I said, but leave me the one that would best evoke the tone of voice of a brave man in the heat of battle or violent action – also, of one whose strength fails, who is soon to suffer wounds, death or terrible misfortune but remains steadfast and stalwart in the face of fate. Leave me as well another mode, evoking a man engaged in peaceful, harmonious, voluntary action. Let the man be engaged in persuasion, asking a favor of a god through prayer or a mortal through teaching and exhortation; or, on the other hand, let him be attending to the teachings and persuasive urgings of one who would change his mind. And in all this let him act as he should, not arrogantly but reasonably and moderately, accepting of all consequences. Leave me these two modes, the violent and the voluntary, which best imitate the tone of voice of brave and moderate men, in success or misfortune. (399b)

I taught this once and parodied it in some such terms as these: leave me the musical mode that best evokes the feeling of having left your car keys somewhere unusual and forgettable, yet convinced that you have left them in this precise spot before; and also the mode that best evokes the feeling that you have written a philosophy paper in which there is an error you have papered over with a passage from John McDowell's Mind and World. In which McDowell simply makes the same error.

The comment box is open: what classic rock tunes meet Socrates' specifications? The violent and the voluntary.

Comments

[Jeffrey Kramer]

One whose strength fails, who is soon to suffer wounds, death or terrible misfortune but remains steadfast and stalwart in the face of fate.

If you don't want to limit it to rock, I'd definitely say the final movement of Brahms' Symphony #4. Within that limit, maybe Don McLean, American Pie

[Adam Kotsko]

Would "Comfortably Numb" work?

[Mrs Tilton]

The violent:

'Anal Injury' by Lubricated Goat.

The voluntary:

'I Drink Alone' by George Thorogood.

[Dell Adams]

Violent: The Doors, "Five to One".
Voluntary: Grateful Dead, "Touch of Gray".

[drapetomaniac]

remains steadfast and stalwart in the face of fate

slipping/dmx, not rock but that only makes it better.