Blogging about Tarot is not all essays and analysis. Sometimes, it’s about finding fun and silly ways to relate to the cards like my occasional humor posts. Yesterday, I took a couple of hours to put together a playlist of twenty-two songs that make me think of the Major Arcana, so I wanted to share it here today. Obviously, musical taste is subjective, so there may be songs on this list that people don’t like, but for each song I’ll include a short lyrical quote that (hopefully) justifies why I associate that song with a particular card. (It’s usually just the chorus.) This is not an exhaustive or definitive list, just my personal list; there are about a billion songs that I could have chosen for the Devil, because it turns out that materialism, addiction, and bondage are popular subject matters in the music industry. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy my selections.
[Update: My friend Tom McArthur has compiled the playlist on Spotify, if you prefer that to my antiquated YouTube ways: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/53mPioWf3iwEODsiwgmoQe?si=dw6uJ3-NSe-Y-8LZLmUyZQ]
Are there particular songs you associate with the Major Arcana? If so, what are they and why? Feel free to share them in the comments on this post! Here’s my playlist:
The Fool – Alanis Morisette, “Hand In My Pocket”
What it all comes down to
Is that I haven’t got it all figured out just yet
‘Cause I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a peace sign.
The Magician – Queen, “Don’t Stop Me Now”
I’m a shooting star leaping through the sky
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity
I’m a racing car passing like Lady Godiva
I’m gonna go, go, go
There’s no stopping me
The High Priestess – Fleetwood Mac, “Sisters of the Moon”
Some call her sister of the moon
Some say illusions are her game
Wrap her in velvet
Does anyone, ah, know her name?
The Empress – Dishwalla, “Counting Blue Cars”
Tell me all your thoughts on God
‘Cause I’d really like to meet her
And ask her why we’re who we are
The Emperor – Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
I can’t stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision
Everybody wants to rule the world
The Hierophant – R.E.M., “Losing My Religion”
Every whisper, of every waking hour
I’m choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
The Lovers – Peter Gabriel, “In Your Eyes”
In your eyes
The light, the heat
I am complete
I see the doorway
To a thousand churches
The resolution
Of all the fruitless searches
The Chariot – Incubus, “Drive”
But lately I’m beginning to find that I
Should be the one behind the wheel
Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes, yeah
Strength – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “I Won’t Back Down”
Well, I know what’s right
I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground
The Hermit – Simon & Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence”
“Fools,” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence
The Wheel of Fortune – David Bowie, “Changes”
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
There’s gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
Justice – The Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, well, you find
You get what you need
The Hanged Man – Tori Amos, “Crucify”
Why do we crucify ourselves
Every day
I crucify myself
Death – Semisonic, “Closing Time”
So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time, every new beginning
Comes from some other beginning’s end, yeah
Temperance – The Beatles, “Come Together”
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together, right now, over me
The Devil – Third Eye Blind, “Semi-Charmed Life”
The sky was gold, it was rose
I was taking sips of it through my nose
And I wish I could get back there, someplace back there
Smiling in the pictures you would take
Doing crystal meth, will lift you up until you break
The Tower – Linkin Park, “In the End”
I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn’t even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn’t even matter
The Star – Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ In the Wind”
Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
The Moon – U2, “Mysterious Ways”
Johnny, take a walk with your sister the moon
Let her pale light in to fill up your room
You’ve been living underground, eating from a can
You’ve been running away, from what you don’t understand
The Sun – Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun”
Black hole sun
Won’t you come
And wash away the rain?
Judgment – Kansas, “Carry On Wayward Son”
Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
Now your life’s no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you
The World – Tracy Chapman, “Dreaming On a World”
We must always be thinking of a world
As a place of infinite possibilities
Always keep thinking
No matter how hopeless
Or foolish it may seem
Jack Chanek 