https://youtu.be/P-EyfRqKGP4

"Oh good, my way ... which way's my way?"

Thank you for sharing that. I can totally relate to that this-world-and-that, mind-body struggle heroically waged toward a just resolution that seems to lie always just beyond the dim horizon: thus the need for momentum, to drive the cart ahead of the horse if possible, only it isn't.

Life is motion, and this rock track has motion in spades, but the plaint is never resolved, we remain in purgatory, implying no resolution possible on earth (but there's always the peace of the grave to look forward to).

[If you're offended by my musings on what may for you be sacred ground, I will tactfully leave you to your own take-away, but most heavy or prog-rock expresses to my mind a worldly-supernaturalism, endless time but limited space pushing one ever-forward.]

The above I draw abstractly from the logic but static uniformity of the progressive motion. Life IS motion, and progress IS perfection, but only if one's sense of "perfection" is real (i.e., is attainable on earth and in one's lifetime).

And I can readily appreciate the derivative sense of free will that religion instills, as having been brought up very religiously myself. I always had to have a Platonic/Heroic archetype and really assign John Galt this role.

My advice, if you are open to it, would be to wrap your eyeballs as quickly as you are able around a book called "Understanding Objectivism," listening to the course on tape back in the "90s pulled me out of that meta-ethical battlefield and malaise forever.

And I very much enjoyed listening to that and following the Jeckyll and Hyde tortured-idealism ready to endure the storm forever and ever like a Hank Rearden too proud to betray his solemn duty to the very end (and "beyond"). Only there is no "beyond."

https://youtu.be/-8Ramwd35kA

"She's tough -- but these days you never know."

B^|)

https://youtu.be/tJ2qi9KfEZ8

"They trip through the day and waste all their thoughts at night." [but if you] "Hang on to your ego, then I know you're NOT gonna lose the fight."

-Egopriest ("...you gotta wield it with an axe, son!").

I agree, excellent lyric reminiscent of Galt's case against the mystics of spirit, teachers and worshippers of self-inflicted wounds.

I also recognize the excellent bassist from Brian Wilson's "Smile."

That was one of the very first bass lines I had to master in high school back in the summer of "89. It was so beyond me at first, but yeah, Black Sabbath and Ozzy's songs contain some great motivational anthems for the John Galt Revolution.

I particularly like a song what might describe some of your better (History?) students: https://youtu.be/Q3gQSPMHPm0 (I'll be doing a more general post with the proto-DIM plot-theme).

I love that song! George Martin's baroque harpsichord interlude was genius, perfectly integrated with the rest. I can't say enough good things about this perfect gem (partly because I'm running out the door).

But here's another George Martin produced song (Abbey Road in the "80s) that expresses my feeling for our romantic-revolution for pure laissez-faire capitalism and maximal individual liberty: come fly the just & friendly skies with me:

https://youtu.be/nf8PNsOn6w8

Egopriest! B)

Yes, in my mind are always the three-fold division of your mind and your convictions, the world in which you live and the life you live in it.

So there are, according to Leonard Peikoff's DIM Hypothesis, three modes of integration that may apply to your three areas differently (for instance, I work to stay Integrated [I], but I live in a Disintegrating world [D}, and my life is compartmentalized as a result [d]. So my "DIM Key-Code" is [idD], not too pretty. :^/

To counter that, I (and most people probably) pull more toward rationalism or stoicism [m], but that only gives credence to the full-blown mystics [M], the zero, rather than the hero, in my soul.

That was okay! :^D

That doesn't answer the question. I have literally thousands of classical cds, but those works are not (hierarchically) comparable with the popular genres that are rooted in pre-philosophical culture (see The Golden Bough).

Classical music began where philosophy began: with the Ancient Greek Parmenides' school and others. In that sense, popular music describes, it does not create but is necessary to that subsequent hierarchical development.

That said, Rachmaninoff was the soundtrack of my life before and during my naval training in Great Lakes (having the slow movement from his Second Symphony No. 2 on replay in my brain for two months saw me through what might have been otherwise unendurable).

When I read Atlas Shrugged for the first time in early '94, I had Philip Glass' "Glassworks" on repeat. But had I been asked specifically about the song that described, not the state of my mind, but of my day-to-day life, I would likely have picked UMF by Duran Duran or Not my Slave by Oingo Boing (rather than Danny Elfman), or maybe Your Own Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode (replacing Je-sus with John Galt).

Now, today, what is the song with lyrics that best sums up your life, your social sphere. Only popular song has the empirical concreteness (not necessarily concrete-boundedness) for that.

Actual music (i.e., classical, or other abstract ad libitum forms) is too personal, too metaphysical to be discursive. I also think, due to the spiral, abstract music sets the standard for all more "primal" forms, global, urban, or suburban.

Also, although I do not doubt your sincerity or honest appreciation of that great masterpiece, apart from additional context giving it particular meaning and connection to your "moment" of some 2 or three hours ago, it strikes this interlocutor as a cliche' or virtue-signaling.

So please correct me if my speculation based on absent information is unjust or off-the-mark please. As you can see, I take music very seriously (I'm too old for "whimsy").

(:-D).

And yes, such questions and discussions take honesty and courage with an art-form as personal as music and song. In order that something be "music of the world" as distinguished from your life, it has to be music you don't like, however ubiquitous.

If you only like abstract music, I would be happy with art-song (e.g., Philip Glass's "Liquid Days," which I love though it expresses a quasi-worldly/quasi-mystical longing for a world of A and non-A).

Benevolently,

Ego-P Jae, of the
John Galt Brigade [GSS-106]