Interpretation of “Andromeda” by Thanasis Papakonstantinou
In this entry, I interpret one of my favourite songs from the works of songmaker Thanasis Papakonstantinou. Andromeda is a joy to listen to even if you do not pay attention to the lyrics or, indeed, understand a word of Greek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H8uvGJBSkM. The instrumentation alone is awesome.
This is how I experience these songs. They engender feelings, subject to the prevailing conditions. Only once I appreciate them at the level of aesthetics do I attempt to parse them with a cooler head. At that point, I am reducing the phenomenon to a matter of reasonableness. “Reduce” is the operative term. My interpretations are taking something away from the totality of the lived moment for the sake of making a commentary that has applications beyond the confines of art.
Below are the original lyrics, my faithful translation of them, and some further commentary on what I think the meaning is.
Ανδρομέδα
Ερμηνεία: Θανάσης Παπακωνσταντίνου
Στίχοι: Θανάσης Παπακωνσταντίνου
Μουσική: Θανάσης Παπακωνσταντίνου
Άιντε μες της γης το πυρωμένο κέντρο
άιντε δυο πουλιά φιλιούνται σ'ένα δέντρο
Άιντε πέφτει λάβα, λάβα απ'τα φιλιά τους
άιντε και φτερά απολιθωμένα απ'τα κορμιά τους
Άιντε εκεί μακριά, μακριά στην Ανδρομέδα
άιντε πίνουν τσίπουρο και τρων λακέρδα
Άιντε κάτι όντα περίεργα κι ωραία
άιντε που είναι μόνα και ψάχνουν για παρέα
Άιντε εκεί ψηλά στην άκαρπη Μελούνα
άιντε φύτρωσε, φύτρωσε μια παπαρούνα
Άιντε που'χει στόμα, στόμα και δαγκάνει
άιντε κι όλο λέει πως δεν το ξανακάνει
Άιντε εκεί βαθιά, βαθιά στα σωθικά μου
άιντε κάτι γίνεται κυρά μου
Άιντε χίλια άλογα τυφλά γυρίζουν
άιντε έξοδο ζητάν και μ'αλωνίζουν
Άιντε εδώ σιμά κοντά δυο μέτρα βάθος
άιντε λεν πως φυλακίζουνε το πάθος
Άιντε ρίχνουν χώμα, με λουλούδια ραίνουν
άιντε και θαρρούν, θαρρούν πως ξεμπερδεύουν
Andromeda
Singer: Thanasis Papakonstantinou
Lyrics: Thanasis Papakonstantinou
Music: Thanasis Papakonstantinou
Hey in the earth's fiery centre
hey two birds kiss on a tree
Hey lava flows, lava from their kisses
hey and fossilised feathers from their bodies
Hey there far, far in Andromeda
hey they drink tsipouro and eat lakerda
Hey some beings strange and nice
hey who are alone and seek company
Hey there high at fruitless Melouna
hey sprung, sprung a poppy
Hey which has a mouth, a mouth that bites
hey and says it will not do it again
Hey there deep, deep in my guts
hey something is happening my lady
Hey a thousand blind horses roam
hey they seek an exit and flatten me
Hey near here about two metres deep
hey they say they imprison the passion
Hey they throw soil, with flowers they decorate
hey and believe, believe they are done with it
The artist masterfully takes us through the highs and lows of the Earth all the way to the furthest stretches of the universe. There is something to be said about the depths of the planet, the reality in Andromeda, the changing circumstances at the Greek highlands, and the facts in the immediate milieu of the poetic first person.
What all these magnitudes have in common is their presence on a continuum of life. The cosmos is consistent throughout. It exhibits pattern and structure, it is underpinned by computation, it sustains feedback loops of cause and effect, and therein it creates what effectively is communication and thus language. Why does this consistency matter? Because it makes the experiences of one person relatable. We can tell what passion is like. And we may feel for those Andromedan folk who are lonely and seek company, even though we have never met them.
The hope, then, of the poetic first person is to communicate the feeling of attraction to the third person of the song, who is described as a lady. The “I” is in love though is facing certain unnamed constraints which make a potential relationship unlikely or, indeed, prohibitive. The last verse gives us a clue about the “should not” norms that prevail and how individuals there suppress their feelings while pretending nothing is happening.
To the author this state of affairs must be strange, given that love is age-old and ubiquitous. This is why we learn about the fossils and then the creatures of the far away galaxy who are ultimately like us. We also hear about the barren hills of Melouna, a place in central Greece, where even there we find something fecund and, thus, realise the potential for new beginnings out of existing ones.
Ultimately, Andromeda, carries a straightforward message: “I like you, so if you like me let us not overthink it, my lady, because this is how it is everywhere and has always been”.
To my mind, love is simple and it never hurts. What is difficult, and what ultimately can cause trouble, is everything else around it. Love brings people together from where arises the need to manage shared resources. This is now a matter of economics, not benevolent feelings. The word “economy” comes from the Greek terms for house (οίκος) and law or rule more broadly (νόμος). Wherever many agents of action deal with their affairs in concert, there are emergent patterns of behaviour for accessing, distributing, and using the available resources.
We then understand why we are sometimes willing to hide our wants: they can be inconvenient. To have a child or not, for example, is an economic decision with far-reaching implications. This is true in agrarian societies whose mode of production is a function of land and manual labour. Families must have lots of children because they need the extra pairs of hands. It is also true in the modern industrialised and digitised world even though the forces at play are different: the society still needs injections of youth to fund the social safety net, to care for the elderly, to run businesses, to do all the work that cannot be automated, and to be consumers.
Yes, there is love and caring and the joy of having kids, but those cannot operate outside the ironclad laws that govern scarcity. For most people in the part of world Thanasis Papakonstantinou comes from, the decision to have a child comes at a high cost. The mother will, for example, take time off work and, perhaps, give up on her career altogether. Materially this is doable, especially if those involved are willing to change their ways and adjust their expectations. Though it is culturally out of fashion.
Perhaps, then, the poetic “I” is at odds with the underlying values of this culture that prioritise the career aspect, its derivative trends, and ideological underpinnings. Those are jobs which typically are bureaucratic in nature and all-too-often complete bullshit in their utility. Yet they somehow take priority over sociocultural rejuvenation. So here we are, overthinking the simple things, making the natural controversial, and decorating our graves in the process.