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Hell, what a title, huh? Only a madman like myself could find a connection between Romantic poets and a modern band like Jinjer. But before we talk about Jinjer’s “Pisces”, meaning, duality, and the human tragedy, there’s something you need to know about Romantic poets.

They were bad-ass motherfuckers.

They were obviously the rock stars of their day – including drug use – in that they talked about things nobody else dared to. Romantic poets, in general, had the personal integrity to express what they believed. As a result of this integrity, they also often shared another characteristic.

They were tormented souls.

Perhaps it feels confusing to you to hear that. Can a bad-ass really be a frail, introvert creature, haunted and often misunderstood by society?

That’s what we’ll be talking about today. Drawing from Romantic poets such as William Blake as well as a song by a modern band, Jinjer’s “Pisces”, meaning, duality, and the tragedy of human existence will come full circle.

Jinjer’s “Pisces”: Meaning in the Time of Mediocrity

Before we take another step, it’s important to bring the song to the foreground. Later on I will do the same with William Blake.

If you are familiar with Jinjer’s “Pisces”, meaning and duality must be something you can relate to – in the sense that you probably have a clue where I’m getting at. Feel free to listen to this masterpiece once more, though!

If you are not familiar with the song, sit back, relax, and listen to the end. Then do take as much time as you need to wonder what the hell just happened, and come back to hear all about it.

Click to display the embedded YouTube video

OK, so you’re back.

All good?

Now, let’s talk about it.

What you just experienced is a 5-minute symbolic condensation of the core tragic element of the human experience. Poets (indeed, William Blake himself), artists, and philosophers have spent countless words and images describing the two interconnected pieces of the human tragedy:

• Our existence is a constant battle between opposing forces.
• Vast numbers of humans, to avoid facing this battle, impose their constructed viewpoints on others.

Jinjer’s “Pisces”: Meaning of Lyrics

First of all, a disclaimer. As I have mentioned many times before, meaning can never be objective and it can never be the artist’s prerogative.

In other words, the following is not “the” interpretation, only “an” interpretation.

Taking a quick look at the lyrics of Jinjer’s “Pisces”, meaning seems to revolve around the concepts of power, duality, and exploitation.

Step forward and meet a new sunrise
A coward is shivering inside
Today I’ll be a friend of mine who swallows
Suffering with smile
I drew a different reality
With unconditional loyalty
Ego hardly can be piqued ’cause I’m selfless

Jinjer, “Pisces”

As you noticed from the song, the verse is sung with clean vocals. Indeed, one could call the vocalist’s style sensitive, fragile, and introvert. It’s almost as if you can detect some timidness there.

Needless to say, this is in perfect balance with the lyrical themes so far.

Things change in the verse, both in terms of lyrics and vocal style.

Scale armour beliesSome sources claim the word here is "blaze".
Virgin innocence
One being brings life
Another runs for death
Scale armour belies
Virgin innocence
One being brings life
Another runs for death

Jinjer, “Pisces”

The theme of duality pervades the song. “Scale armour belies”… “virgin innocence”. Whereas “one being brings life”, “another runs for death”.

Obviously, you can find many different metaphors related to power structures there. The latter pair in particular (“one being brings life”, “another runs for death”) is hard not to associate with gender.

But regardless of any specifics, it all resolves through the prism of duality, power, and exploitation. The conclusion of the song is tellingly revealing.

Pisces swimming through the river
All their life against the stream
Searching for a hook to catch on
And see their sun beam
Then suffocate in painful tortures
On cutting tables of callous men
Under a knife of handsome butchers emeralds are ripped away

Jinjer, “Pisces”

As I said, this is the tragedy of the human experience condensed. For what is human history if not a long series of frail, sensitive, beautiful creatures that swim “against the stream” (against insufferable mediocrity), “searching for a hook to catch on” (naively being fooled by those promising a “sun beam”), only to end up “on cutting tables of callous men”, where “under a knife of handsome (!) butchers emeralds are ripped away” (this really requires no explanation).

“Pisces”, Duality, and Hegelian Dialectics

In Jinjer’s “Pisces”, meaning heavily revolves around duality – which the masterful vocals reaffirm – particularly hinting at the duality of human existence.

Humans have to deal with forms of duality every moment of every hour. Our entire existence revolves around oppositions. Can there be life without death? Can there be beauty without ugliness?

More importantly, can there be a way to resolve such predicaments? Hegel approached the issue from a synthetic perspective, incorporating thesis and antithesis into something new. The details go beyond the scope of this post, but feel free to take a look at my article on Neo-Hegelianism and the meaning of the Absolute.

Ultimately, everyone has to deal with opposing forces (might one not think of them as an ocean wave, coming and going?) but the tragedy lies in how those who try to face them are treated by those who don’t. This is how I interpret Jinjer’s “Pisces”.

Perhaps a pessimistic view, certainly different from William Blake’s outlook.

One of the most important Romantic poets, William Blake, approaches such issues from a more optimistic perspective.

In Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (the title should give you a clear idea about what I just said), the author indeed embraces these oppositions, in the sense that, as he sees it, they should be precisely considered equal parts of being human.

Just in case you haven’t yet fathomed how bad-ass a feat it was to write this book, let me remind you that Blake wrote The Marriage of Heaven and Hell – in which he basically uses Satan as a role model for reason – in the late 18th century. Though not exactly a time where you could get burned as a witch, the political connotations (at the time of the French Revolution) and the concepts of revolt, anti-conservatism, and, well, duality, were all very volatile ingredients.

There is a delightful collection of “hellish proverbs” in the short volume – which, parenthetically, is free to read online – and most of them sound like what our world would need more of today.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

How delightfully refreshing for our time, a time full of (hurt) feelings instead of facts, a time brimming with “friends”!

As I mentioned further above, Blake – as a typical Romantic poet – seems to be more optimistic about the opposing forces surrounding the human experience. Indeed, at a certain part of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell he suggests that “truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ’d.”

I’m not entirely convinced this is the case today.

What Can We Learn from Blake and Jinjer’s “Pisces”: Meaning and Human Duality Today

Of course the word “today” just above is misleading. There is no “today” with timeless things, and the concepts presented in this post are definitely timeless.

What differs from one epoch to another are the manifestations of these concepts, together with approaches and reflections depending on the cultural momentum.

For Blake and the Romantics in general, there seemed to be no limit to enlightenment. If anything, it almost felt like an inevitable consequence.

Indeed, although Matthew Arnold wrote his essay on poetry several decades later, a similar spirit of optimism seems to be infused in terms of human thought becoming liberated.

The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay …

This prediction remains unfulfilled in our time, which seems to be a time of stupidity, simple-mindedness, and self-deception. It’s also a time (like every time preceding it) of “Pisces swimming through the river/ All their life against the stream”.

To be a bad-ass is not to be a loudmouth bully. To be a bad-ass is to have the integrity and personal freedom to express yourself regardless of the consequences.

Perhaps it’s time we stopped thinking we should find “a hook to catch on”.

Perhaps it’s time we started focusing on our swimming instead. For what else is there?