NFP lyrics
NFP lyrics use unusual metaphors and imagery as new ways of thinking about the self. When Billy Corgan starts “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by stating that “the world is a vampire,” it’s that sort of thing.
With Ne on top, there will be more of an outward focus on the personal possibilities for the future. With Fi on top, it will more likely be the possibilities and the unusual serving self-expression. That tracks with the ENFP having Te third and the INFP having Si third; ENFP lyrics will have a bit more accomplishment-based oomph to them, while the INFP is more content to sit and reflect with the data.
NFP music
High Ne means NFP music can go all over the place. It’s common for a song to be NFP by putting Fi lyrics on a bed of Ne music. That allows an Fi story to be complicated, because the music is allowed to serve the story. To go back to my Ne example of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” there’s a highly personal story that courses through the song and unifies the various movements of the piece. Said story is not that unified as a story, but the level of personal sharing stays consistent throughout. It’s like the listener is the therapist, and the fact that you’re staying in one chair is the lone bit of consistency you get. That’s NFP music for you – if the element of the personal stays strong throughout, that might be all you can hold on to.
If you want to read a good INFP music book, James Acaster’s Perfect Sound Whatever connects some of his favorite albums from 2016 – in 2017, he bought 366 albums from 2016, one for each day of the year – to his mental health discoveries. And usually what he gets excited about in telling the albums’ stories is how the artist got a chance to express themselves. Personality-database.com says James Acaster is an INTP, seemingly conflating cleverness with T, but it is hard to imagine a more INFP music discussion than what’s in that book.
Some ENFP songs
“Sky Full of Diamonds” by Hybrid (Lyric and music typing)
This is one of the few happy songs that hits me in the feels – it’s the optimistic end to the claustrophobic Black Halo album. The expansive orchestral sound already sets a bright Ne tone before the vocals come in, and then the lyrical sentiment lives up to that expansiveness (you’d hope a title like that would be about the bright possibilities ahead).
Open up the windows, beckon a new day
I’ll never have to be just what you see.
And please don’t get me wrong this isn’t about you,
This is about what this means to me.
And in this sky so full of diamonds this is where you’ll hear my song
And in this sky so full of diamonds I can see where I belong
And in this sky so full of diamonds I know I’m not the only one
In this sky, so full of diamonds I can see how far I’ve come
At the end of the second verse, Charlotte Truman sings that
When the days are black I have to remember
There’s a million diamonds in the sky
One of the interesting bits about typing this song is that there’s a lot of talk about living today rather than focusing on the past. It’s important not to mistake talk of this sort for S dominance. The reason she’s not worried about the future is because she can see it has so many possibilities. Although Ne users can daydream about the future, it’s also possible for them to care about living in the moment, because they’re not using Ni. Especially for me, where Ne is my parent and Ni is my critical parent, I have to think about the future with a sky full of diamonds mentality, because my intuition goes increasingly negative the more I zoom in with it. So it’s possible for people reputed to live in the moment to be high N users rather than high S users. Low Ni is too quiet to be heard; critical parent Ni needs its microphone turned off. They both can reach the same point of present focus.
“Towerblock” by Frost* (Lyric and music typing)
The other of my two favorite songs from 2016 (James Acaster doesn’t know this album, unless he’s listened to the playlist he received from me through his agent in 2021), it’s an Fi story about his childhood apartment getting torn down and all his memories there. That by itself would be an INFP song. But the music is so Ne that it bludgeons the story into submission. As a band, Frost* also has a Te ethos relative to progressive rock, as there’s an emphasis on tighter songcraft (bandleader Jem Godfrey came from the world of pop production wanting to make the prog of his youth, so he just listened to a ton of recent CDs, called up the musicians he liked, and assembled a band). So the ENFP side of the music being more noticeable than the more INFP story puts it in this category for me.
Note that you don’t find out that it is progressive rock until 2 minutes 30 seconds in for all the other stuff it throws in. Ne is rarely more fun than this.
(“Signs,” the next song on the album, doesn’t fit into a type category, but it fits into personal growth, as it captures the difficulty of midlife changes from when you were younger in a way I haven’t heard another song try to do. I highly recommend it.)
“ONDA” by Jambinai (Partial lyric and full music typing)
Jambinai are a bunch of traditional Korean instrument players that add a post-rock metal flair. It would take me awhile to explain all the ways that plays out, but this article describes a lot of it. In particular, Korean orchestras don’t have a conductor, so everyone plays off each other, basically in the feel of it. It’s considered a good thing if everybody’s playing the melody a bit differently (“heterophony” being the English term for this). This hits me as an Fi-positive approach; the group never loses its individuals.
To my Western ears, it’s this mesh of Korean styles and gothic textures that hits first – that surprise of Ne that doesn’t seem to be following anything in particular but the players’ hearts. While I haven’t found a full lyric translation, what’s mentioned on the Bandcamp site is enough for our purposes:
“Onda means ‘come’ in Korean. The title track has the lyric, ‘At the end of your darkness, pain will turn into the shining stars and it’s going to come to you.’ I want to cheer people up when they hear that track. Onda also means ‘wave’ in Spanish, and I also want to say the third big wave of Jambinai is coming!”
A bilingual, future-focused explanation on your individual pain turning to stars has Ne and Fi all up and down it. I’ve mentioned the heavy Si component in the world music that Western ears get, but I think Jambinai cuts through that by placing the Fi much higher than the Si. And a lot of people have felt this song cutting through it as well. As one YouTube user comments, “Even my goosebumps’ goosebumps have goosebumps.”
Some INFP songs
“The Logical Song” by Supertramp (Lyric and music typing)
I’ll let writer Roger Hodgson describe the meaning (as listed on Wikipedia):
“‘The Logical Song’ was born from my questions about what really matters in life. Throughout childhood we are taught all these ways to be and yet we are rarely told anything about our true self. We are taught how to function outwardly, but not guided to who we are inwardly. We go from the innocence and wonder of childhood to the confusion of adolescence that often ends in the cynicism and disillusionment of adulthood. In ‘The Logical Song’, the burning question that came down to its rawest place was ‘please tell me who I am’, and that’s basically what the song is about. I think this eternal question continues to hit such a deep chord in people around the world and why it stays so meaningful.”
The being taught how to function outwardly is very societally-driven and sounds Si-Te in the concerns:
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh, responsible, practical
Then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh, clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical
I get the sense from these lyrics and Roger’s description that society keeps asking him to care about the bottom of his stack as though it’s the top. Crucially from a typing perspective, he doesn’t disagree with dependability or being an intellectual as such; but he says “the questions run so deep for such a simple man.” Pouring himself into Si-Te all the time taxes him – what would give him some energy is finding his self-identity. Well, that’s Fi being placed above Si and Te, and INFPs are the ones doing that.
As for the music, there’s a bit of Ne whimsy in some of the instrument flourishes, and that seems to be important in how he wants to tell this story of the search for self-identity. It’s not necessary and it doesn’t obviously go, but it can be interpreted as push back against how sensible, dependable, and cynical everything has been. It’s a “hey; lighten up!” sentiment to pair with the Fi. That seems Ne to me!
“Crumbling Teeth and the Owl Eyes” by Lunatic Soul (Lyric and music typing)
I find this narrative fascinating and unique. I don’t think the fear side of this is inherent to INFPs at all; what I think is inherent to INFPs from this is the description of how internal feelings morphed by connecting to something else. The protagonist has found relief in parenting his young daughter – a focus that takes him out of the fears in his head – and he hopes that this love for his daughter will continue to bring relief.
Stay with me now – all my dormant fears are coming
Back to my mind – it seems that you’re the only one who can
Help my heart get through the pain
After a few verses of this kind of sentiment, the music goes into an extended instrumental with a bunch of Ne surprises – in the main, this is a gentle progressive rock ballad – and then we go back into a verse. And then the lyrical twist finally arrives, as he sings to his daughter again:
You came to my gloomy world, lightened up my sky
Thanks to you, I’ve realized what I am still afraid of
I’m afraid for you
So, in a starkly honest way, he realizes that his fears didn’t go away with focus – they just moved house. He used to be afraid of the world generally and found relief in parenting; but the fears transferred into protecting his daughter because he didn’t actually deal with them. His self remained intact, in a negative way, through making a leap into a new part of his life.
Besides being a fresh take on parenting – instead of the entitled celebrity singing “I was a hooligan, but I settled down for my kid; I’m so sacrificial; yay for me” – it highlights a big mental health truth: work, be it parenting or a paid job, isn’t therapy. It can reveal truths about you, and it can make you more mature in handling your weaknesses, but it is not the same as processing. And if you do not process, you might find yourself right back where you were. Same song, different verse (so to speak hahaha I’m clever please love me).
“Please Forgive Me” by David Gray (Lyric and music typing)
This would be a fairly normal piano/string confessional love ballad – although done well, as David Gray has especially low levels of pretense for a singer/songwriter. But what brings it into hallowed INFP territory is that being around 140 bpm allows the drums to be played as a shy dance beat (there’s the Ne-Si axis coming in; as an INTP, I recognize that axis a mile away). That makes it a standout on the White Ladder album (better known for “Babylon”) and in my memory. “Please Forgive Me” hit the radio when I was 14, and the acoustic+dance fusion blew my Ne-Si mind away; 22 years later, I can appreciate the Fi lyrics as well.
“I Like to Wear Soft Clothing (Because It Makes Me Feel Rough in Comparison)” by Bill Wurtz (Lyric and music typing) (submitted by Simone Eppler)
This was the first song I was asked to type after writing the first edition. It’s fascinating, because it might seem too scatterbrained, but once you connect all the lyrical dots you find an INFP song.
The music’s a kind of low-key Steve Winwood bossa nova with a few surprise cuts between parts of the song that don’t make any clear structural sense. It doesn’t feel like all the extra production frills are ever reigned in the way this much Ne-Si would feel with an INTP’s production.
But that’s more debatable than the lyrics, whose musings are clearly Si minutiae getting Ne-strung-together to serve an Fi self-description of life. The title line is made up of all three functions; there’s an active imagination about what this sensory information means about himself.
The rest of verse 1 seems unsure about how to handle the feelings, but they are definitely there; they aren’t hard for Bill to spot like they might be with an INTP. They’re intensely private – “nobody knows it except for you, ‘cause I just told you” – but they’re known just the same.
Verse 2 describes Bill’s self-wrestling with his love of soft music. “It makes me want to start a war against angrier music” – this sounds like an IxFP at least. He worries what it might mean: “Got the gold medal, but it’s just pretend, and it might be a losing medal for medals.” This is the only true self-negativity in the song, but it’s fleeting and doesn’t represent a character flaw; I think it is a slight representation of critical parent Ni (I say that because I also have critical parent Ni and I can see myself saying that in the middle of my positive Ne-ing). The outro is similar in tone:
Soft clothing is so untouchable
Especially when it’s juxtaposed with clothes of different roughnesses
Ugh – I’m gonna be sick
I see in these lyrics someone who is working hard at Ne to keep from occasional lapses into Fi-Si loops. I say that to steer away from a possible negative stereotype of INFPs as worriers. A lot of this song seems to be Ne connections to keep the loop at bay, which is completely admirable. That is, if you can remember to admire anything other than the color changes in the daft music video.
Next part: ENTJ and INTJ
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