Not a whole lot of people know this, but the “M” in MTV really did stand for music. Sounds kind of cliche but it’s true, back in the day before YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Music you’d get your source of new music from MTV.
Wrapped Around Your Finger came out in 1983. The song is about control and overcoming the control and reversing the tables. The song was inspired by a poem called Sorcerer’s Apprentice written by Goethe in 1797. The poem was adapted into a short animation by Disney called Fantasia.
The plot of the poem is about a young apprentice studying under a skilled wizard. The wizard leaves to do whatever wizards do and leaves the apprentice alone with a bunch of chores to do. The apprentice not wanting to drudge through manual labor of fetching water from the river and bringing it back to the dwelling decides to instead animate a broom and have it fetch the water for him. The process starts off slow and the time it would take to bring in the amount of water demanded was too short, so the apprentice creates some more animated brooms to speed things up.
The plan starts off great the broom has purpose and takes the burden away from the apprentice. Once the necessary amount of water had been fetched the gig was up for the broom and their friends they were no longer needed to perform the fetching. The apprentice tries to stop them, but he does not know the magic for that. The brooms continue to bring water until there is so much water the river itself might as well been moved into the wizards lab.
The wizard arrives and commands the brooms to stop. The apprentice can only cringe and look back at the wizard in shame, it seemed like a good idea.
The lesson here is that our ambition can get the best of us.
Think of an example of a father son fishing bout. The dad has taught junior everything he knows, where to fish, what bait to use, his tackle box is pristinely organized, the fish don’t stand a chance. If there is a snag, the dad knows exactly which tray to lift to expose which compartment that holds the instrument to undo the snagging. Junior can barely cast the line, but he thinks he knows best.
A mother daughter garden grow-off. Mom has showed her daughter which soil produces the best roses, ones that find their way on magazine covers. She knows when to start potting when the snow is really done this time, and which gloves won’t mess up her nails. However her daughter just loves to play in the dirt and has a thing or two to show.
I think the candles in the music video represent the knowledge that has been acquired. The symbolism of the candle usually indicates experience or knowledge. We put them on cakes to represent the time spent, or experience gained and they are used to light a darkened quarter. The unknown can be considered as this unexplored cave and the candle lights the way. However in the end of the song it appears that apprentice decided he had had enough and starts knocking down those candles, maybe to light his own and learn his own way.
Author: admin
Obviously my interests include philosophy. I think thinking and thought are the beginning of every great thing. It’s how we understand and perceive the world. Periodically I’ll change things up and blog about something math or computer science related or even a blog about mythology. I am not political, trendy, or savvy, but I do like a good story. That is why I try and find a movie clip that hints or encompasses what I want to blog about. Sometimes the relevance is there, sometimes it’s a reach and I just really love the movie that I put in the post. The intent and purpose of my blog is to make you think, make me think and together our thoughts can be shared in a collection of material.