I can only hope that Peter Vorländer (aka: Cis_Minor) has a sense of humor.
Many thanks to him for these exquisite solo piano offerings.
These three songs are presented together here as “The Sigmund Freud Ballads” and are done in the style of the 20th Century “Art Song”. I hope that although they are clearly tongue-in-cheek- they still have a sense of pathos and poignancy.
Ballad one is “Oedipus” - a comic romp presented as a psychological waltz!
Ballad two is ” Urge” - a melancholic exploration of surreal sexual images exposing urges. And lastly “Sigmund’s Question, or The Ballad of Animal Behavior” in which Sigmund meditates on his famous question “What do women really want?”

Lyrics:
The Sigmund Freud Ballads

Oedipus
Your foot…
A problem.
Leaves your life vexed.
But the Sphinx…sits close by;
clever Gertrude Stein and Alice B. combined…
and for an answer…
beg a question…
to a riddle she’s been pondering…
which no man can seem to answer;

Oh your poor mother maligned queen Jocasta
And your sad father Laius the king
Your mind seized with killing and bungling hubris
to claim your prize complex
heavy baggage that brings
Now on my couch
You spill your fancies
And all because your lame and clubbed foot
expensive analysis… Psychic paralysis
psychoanalysis

If only you’d give up these vain postures and posings
Move to New York or some other grand place
Find some like minded friends and companions
Give up these weird notions of coming of age
Maybe the memory of kinked ancestry
Would get you out here and back on the street
It could restore you – but maybe this bores you
Come back next Wednesday we will resume
Your foot…
A problem.


Urge
A Yohimbe aphrodisiac…
Steve Reeves of carnal chemicals…
Swelled unrestrained he let it loose;
Big-Mac propelled his Cadillac
A Rooster throb…a Truckers smear …
The shaft is shafting in full gear.
A grimy shot…A lifted sheet…
A peek at Onan’s dong replete;
Spotlights a stain…A Kinsey puddle…
A squishy pornographic puzzle.

Urge Urge Urge Urge…

But lest you think its obvious
Don’t slip on your banal appeal
The ever widening gap of gaps
May open wide and suck you in….
And if you’re fearful of the Other
There’s still the all devouring Mother
The Primitive dark dangerous thing
The Phallic eye – your Cyclop’s brother….
Spotlights a stain…A Kinsey puddle…
A squishy pornographic puzzle.
Urge Urge Urge Urge…

Sigmund’s Question (The Ballad of Animal-Behavior)
What do women really want?
There is no answer so far…
A cigar is sometimes only a cigar…
I dreamed last night into the tent crept Animal-behavior…
And his sister Snake motif… their naked forms glowed in the firelight
They came as iconoclasts and saviors….saviors…iconoclasts.
What do women really want?
There is no answer so far…
Under naked feet they trod the id and stripped ego of his title “god”
And with warm and fuzzy incantations – reduced my fears of castration.
Infantile impulses – thumb sucking sublimations
In rapid succession wrought pleasing sensations…
And in between gasps and teeth poised for gnashing
They shattered my reasons and tickled my passions.
And upon leaving with comic reflection
They brought forth a message signed sealed with affection
Yours truly, Love
Sigmund Freud.

What do women really want?