Stephen Overy (Newcastle University) 
(w/ Kenneth Smith, University of Liverpool)



Pop Music as Another Road to the Unconscious


Our aims in this paper are threefold. Firstly, we will trace the history of the (non)engagement with music in Freud's work. Secondly, we make a distinction between the classical forms of music which were prevalent within Freud's lifetime and the contemporary mode of pop music that emerges in the 1960s. What is it, we ask, about pop music that makes it amenable to psychoanalytic application? Thirdly, we will compare pop music to five other modes through which Freud claims the unconscious’ work can be seen: jokes, parapraxes, dreams, sublimation, and the analytic experience. After this comparison, we ask if we may be able to think of pop music as a sixth ‘road to the unconscious’. We conclude by examining some musical examples, particularly from the works of Conor Oberst.