New Music on Untangled Strings

Since seeing the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer for the first (but certainly not last) time this morning, I've had its eerie rendition of Pinocchio's "I Got No Strings" stuck in my head.

 

It's a brilliantly subversive use of a classic Disney tune for a modern Disney film.  The revamped tune's tone is perfect for the bleak emotional landscape we're seeing as the foundation of Age of Ultron. 

More than that, though, it speaks to one of the core, defining dichotomies of human nature; the urge to be independent and to create, but the fear that our creations may cut their own umbilical cords and maybe not evolve the way we might want them to.

 

Different is all-too-often equated with evil, or even eerie.  Change is frightening.  Loss of control is frightening.

 

Of course, fear (and all our other limbic programming, including hate) is the puppet master.  We are none of us free while we play by rules that predate us by millions of years of evolution.  Of course, we can't cut those cords, either - they are a necessary part of our construct.

What we can do, when we consciously work at it, is learn the notes our emotional chords are capable of hitting, then teaching ourselves how to play them.  That's when we can take the old tunes and create something new, but rooted out of them.

 

When we can write our own music with the notes that are given to us, that's when we're free.

 

I'm going to play you something beautiful; everyone singing grace.  We want to be part of the world; we know we need to change.  We're all strings on a divine instrument; when we play together with harmony, it's a wondrous thing.