Companion Stories Series: Installment 8 - Pedagogy of the Oppressed

This Companion Stories Series features essays which look at my album The Work and each of its songs in detail, going behind the scenes to de-mystify what artists too often try to keep mysterious.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Listen on Spotify here.

I started writing the lyrics to this song a few days after Trump was elected. I was trying to find words for what I thought about him, but I wanted them to be different than what I was hearing all around me. I didn’t, and still don’t, think it’s accurate to simply call the man an “asshole” or an “idiot”. There’s more there, and I’m convinced that whatever it is gives us clues to more than just his particular pathology.

But all I really knew at the time was that I was frustrated. His self-centeredness was clearly covering up major insecurities that now the world was going to have to deal with because he hadn’t. His ego seemed impermeable and dangerously bottomless. So I started writing what his ego seemed to be saying:
 
Give me a face
And give me a name
Give me a pathway
To fortune and fame
 
But then I thought: that sentiment isn’t only reflective of Trump. There are so many rich, greedy rulers and business types in the world who embody this, aren’t there?
 
Give me a country
A room with a view
Give me a world
That owes me what I’m due
 
Give me the moon
And I’ll force in my flag
But give space to think
And I’ll give it right back
 
And then I thought: it encompasses even more than them. Lethal preoccupation with ego takes so many oppressing forms:
 
Give me a church
And I’ll pray for the lost
Get me elected
No matter the cost
 
Give me cocaine
And I’ll sing like a bird
Give me a medal
And I’ll show you my worth
 
Give me a badge
And give me a gun
Give me a slave
Or give me a son
 
And as words began to flow thinking about these kinds of people, I found that it all circled back to something. These people I denigrated because of their egos… are me. Are all of us. I’m talking about everyone. I can’t honestly talk about Trump’s damage without talking about my own, without talking about the collective damage we’ve been inflicting on ourselves since time immemorial.
 
Give me a stage
And watch me play the part
Give me a love
And watch me break his heart
 
While the verses of this song are the voice of the ego, the chorus is the voice of the unconscious, translating what the ego actually means. As I realized how universal the ego is, I had to admit that so is what it’s covering up. The verses are in a minor key - intimidating and a little scary and sad, while the chorus brightens into a major key to signify the illumination of truth in its words. The lyrics of the chorus might be my favorite of all I’ve written:
 
Oh, please
I need it
I need to feel great
I need to make profit
From somebody’s pain
‘Cause if love ain’t the horse
That will bear me away
Then let ‘em cower with the power
That’s holding the reins
 
I need you to be less
So that I can be more
For you to drown in the ocean
So I can savor the shore
‘Cause if you ain’t the target
For all of my fear
I’ll have to admit
I don’t know what I’m doing here
 
The title of the piece comes from a book by Paulo Freire, which provided the basis for a revolutionary theatre methodology by Augusto Boal in which the audience are co-creators of the work onstage. In his book, Freire questions the dynamics between those with power and those being “colonized” by the powerful. He illustrates how oppression is perpetuated, whether with “good” intentions or “bad”, by referencing education - how by attempting to fill their poor student vessels with knowledge, assuming those vessels are powerless, teachers may be rendering them so. Boal took this to art, emphasizing that audiences are only expected to sit passively and be (or pretend to be) filled with “something”, then leave. So audiences become passive. This pattern is played out in so many ways in the world. Perhaps I’m even doing it with this song.

So ego begets power begets oppression, willingly or not. And we all have egos. But we also all have other parts of us that can counteract the ego. We can, I believe, decolonize ourselves and help decolonize the world.
 
Keep your eyes peeled for next week’s installment of my Companion Stories Series when we’ll delve into my song In the Bedroom. Download all the songs in this series by searching for Carly Z in the iTunes Store.