5

I suppose any song with a refrain is a kind of loop...or spiral, really. (After all, a spiral suggests motion, progress, either into the depths of the abyss or, up, out, above, beyond, towards something higher, whatever that may be.) The Greeks knew all about refrains. So does Bob Dylan. And Laurie Anderson. If a song is the world (i.e. the human soul) - or a piece of it - in microcosm, the refrain can be seen as the crucial touchstone. In the Kali Yuga, American-style, the need for a refrain often manifests as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Or generalized anxiety. Or the weight of the "depressed" psyche sinking. The refrain's a place to catch your breath and recoup awhile, make sense of things. The space between breaths where a crucial nothingness can happen. If something like it isn't found, watch out: a real, true personal insanity (as insanity within an insanity) will bloom within the psyche. Nothing (not even C.R.E.A.M.) can cure insanity within insanity, except maybe a tonic exposure to the Wilderness - someplace far from man's combustible machinations. If this all makes the human psyche of modern man seem delicately poised, well...so it is. I don't know anyone that doesn't seem like they're on the brink of falling apart. You?