STJ lyrics
“Are there that many lyrics that talk about fulfilling one’s duty or meeting standards? I don’t know, but those seem to be Te-Si’s lyrical habitat.”
That quote is how I started the first edition (and clearly how I started the second edition.) It turns out there are such lyrics, and my ESTJ friend Libby Mitchem shared with me two songs that mean a lot to her and clearly fit what I was thinking. So I’m highly appreciative of her selections and the chance to make this book a lot better by including them.
Beyond that part of the palette, there will be good chances to talk about the past and how it influences what to do right now. It’s not an Ni vision, where life has been leading to this point; it’s more about getting in tune with how the world works, or maybe how to learn from mistakes. Probably the easiest way to start checking if lyrics are STJ is if they don’t talk much about the future. The future is the least real reality – the past has happened; the present is happening – so why are we talking about it?
STJ music
Don’t expect any reinvented wheels, but maybe there can be some lesser-known wheels. Good STJ music will curate well from the past; the Si will have a good sense of what types of things are available for the idea, while Te’s love of directness will keep it from being too ponderous.
That can make STJ music very mainstream, but it doesn’t have to be; if the Ne is developed well, it can go a few different places. At least going off my likely-ISTJ mom and getting her music as gifts over the years (music’s nearly the only gift I know how to give), modernized world music can score super-highly with ISTJs, because there’s a cultural component that appeals to both Si and Te while some tasteful additions can be an acceptable dose of Ne. If that world music is also written in Western scales rather than its native scales, that can help Si to the Western listener even though maybe it shouldn’t; if Si has some compositional rules from the dominant culture, grafting into that culture will sound more “correct.” Maybe it’s not Ti-accurate world music at that point, but it’s a safe Ne jump-off point for the STJs. And if that’s true and the music sounds good, that works by me.
Some ESTJ songs
“Earn Enough for Us” by XTC (Lyric and music typing) (submitted by ESTJ Libby Mitchem)
More Te beat and guitar pop with most things rhythmically tight, these lyrics are incredibly straightforwardly about worries as an ESTJ.
The protagonist’s worries are that “I can keep you and […] earn enough for us.” He “can take humiliation and hurtful comments from the boss,” and the “house that won’t repair itself” has multiple issues, and a baby is coming and might necessitate a night job. But it’s a mixture of worry and hope:
Just because we’re on the bottom of the ladder
We shouldn’t be sadder than others like us
Who have goals for the betterment of life
Glad that you want to be my wife
In fine Te fashion, there’s no other subject or musical theme beyond what you get at the beginning – the song does its job and no other job.
“Capacity” by Charly Bliss (Lyric and music typing) (also submitted by ESTJ Libby Mitchem)
Starting with the Te beat exactly as I’ve described it – setting up as extremely functional and reliable, so you know the rest of the song can be built on it – and being a kind of synth-y power pop (the notion of power pop is Te, come to think of it), the music is perfectly suited to discussing ESTJ’s emotional frailty. It’s wonderful to have this song to go above the stereotype that ESTJs are all about getting things done and value that in itself. Not quite; they value it because of the people they love.
(Verse 1)
I used to think that I should be good at everything – Now I know I was wrong
I used to think that I should do right by everyone – Now I know I was wrong
A couple of things is enough
(Pre-chorus)
Sever every microscopic atom of connection to:
“I can barely keep myself afloat when I’m not saving you”
And in the chorus, we learn that “I’m at capacity, I’m spilling out of me – it’s got nothing to do with me.” It’s the Si standards that are driving her to Te so hard – driving singer Eva Hendricks to save people – not an Fe urge.
If it wasn’t clear from those lyrics, she actually lays out the Si standards for us!
I was raised an East Coast witch like
Doing nothing’s sacrilegious
Triple overtime ambitious
Sentimental, anxious kid
The Pitchfork review of this song describes it as about people-pleasing. It’s an interesting observation, because that term sounds like an Fe thing. But it can be as much of an Si thing, because Si sometimes leads to conclusions about which people need to be pleased as a matter of duty and standards, like family or co-workers. Hierarchy can be about people-pleasing too.
“If She Knew What She Wants” by the Bangles Lyric and music typing
This is an excellent example of an ESTJ sincerely wanting to help. A lot of songs point out the ESTJ’s excesses (like “Big Time” by Peter Gabriel or “Beat the Clock” by Sparks), but I suspect many healthy ESTJs have thought something like this song regarding the people they care about.
Songwriter Jules Shear is quoted on Wikipedia as saying it’s about someone “who wants to satisfy someone else but doesn’t quite know how to do it because the other person is capricious.” For purposes of this writeup, it doesn’t matter if the other person is capricious, and it’s not like the song nails anything down in that regard. But it’s clear that the Te urge to fix comes up against a lack of standardized behavior; there’s no lock for the ESTJ’s key. Putting the verses next to each other to bring this out:
I’d say her values are corrupted, but she’s open to change
Then one day she’s satisfied and the next I find her crying, and it’s nothing she can explain
Some have a style they work hard to refine, so they walk a crooked line
But she won’t understand why anyone would have to try to walk a line when they could fly
No sense thinking I could rehabilitate her when she’s fine, fine, fine
She’s got so many ideas traveling around in her head
She doesn’t need nothing from mine
Against a sturdy, pop-rock backdrop, there’s a warm pathos that balances the lyrics well. Maybe the lyrics undersell the girl, but I think the specifics humanize her. They allow you to sympathize with her, which allows you to sympathize with the entire situation.
“Sharp Dressed Man” by ZZ Top (Lyric and music typing)
The way I read this, the point of being a sharp dressed man is to achieve something. Even though he “don’t need a reason why,” he gives the reason he’s doing it: “every girl crazy ‘bout a sharp-dressed man.” Te is looking for love. Si dress standards will find him some.
Note that he mentions well-known sharp dress items; he’s not trying to innovate. “I ain’t missin’ not a single thing” implies a checklist of things to become sharply dressed. This separates it from someone dressing up in an individually expressive Se-Fi way.
Also, bluesy rock of this sort is Te-Si candy. There’s a long line of songs laid out like this, there’s the solid Te groove…it all adds up. Every ESTJ crazy ‘bout a song like this.
Some ISTJ songs
“The Old Apartment” by Barenaked Ladies Lyric and music typing
[Upfront note: I consider the breaking in this song describes to be figurative – what he’d see if he went into his old apartment. I do not think of ISTJs as trespassers. If anything, they’re putting up the signs forbidding it.]
I hadn’t thought about it before this writeup, but a lot of Barenaked Ladies songs are built on Si-style details. This is one of the most transparent of them – a recitation of all the features of the last place he lived. He’s gone in and is wondering why so many things have changed – normal things to change when you’re a new tenant (like “clean the floor”) – and why some things haven’t (like the dish rack). “These things used to be mine; I guess they still are; I want them back.”
Why does he care so much about an apartment that’s not impressive?
Only memories, fading memories, blending into dull tableaux
I want them back (This is where we used to live)
This might be gazing too deeply into things, but he doesn’t want the apartment (singular) back – he wants the memories (plural) back. That’s a distinction a nuanced Si-dom 100% would make.
Just like with the lyrics, there is a lot more straightforward seriousness here than in a lot of famous BNL songs. There’s more Te energy than the usual pervading Ne energy. Stack-wise, that makes it at least a contextual ISTJ song for the band, even if maybe other songs in the universe (that I don’t know yet) are more directly ISTJ.
“Endless Skies” by VNV Nation (Lyric and music typing)
This one’s rare in the book for coming from the third and fourth functions. While discussing endless skies sounds mightily Ne dominant, what Ronan Harris is asking is when the last time was that this person had stared at one. There are many references to that staring letting the person lose “all sense of time” or allowing time not to matter.
No need to fear, no need to worry
About years that passed, about time you lost
So it isn’t exactly a call to Se; it isn’t just doing any particular sensory thing. It’s embracing a particular part of nature – the horizon – that will be a counterpoint to an unhealthy preoccupation with the past and time. I read that as inferior Ne being requested to be a balance to Si – which is what the ISxJ is aiming for.
As for whether it’s ISTJ or ISFJ, I read it as ISTJ for some of the chorus lyrics:
Surrender and be witness to this rarest of moments
Where you live within the sense of the order of things
What is truth, what is important, what defines you
That last line is something that a child Fi (ISTJ) is going to take from the activity in a way that a critical parent (ISFJ) is less likely to. Put it all together, and you have a lovely reminder to the ISTJ – put in some super-clean, super-clear, and straightforward music – to embrace their entire stack.
“On the Shoreline” by Genesis (Lyric typing)
I’ve avoided linking the same artist twice in the 16 personalities part of this book until now. In my logical defense, Genesis is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and had a long career with diverse lyrics. In my illogical defense, Genesis is my favorite band. More importantly, these lyrics capture an ISTJ’s child Fi – and frame it musically – in a way I haven’t heard from other songs.
Well, there’s a place where two worlds collide
The pile of stone against the pull of the tide
You can stay with your feet on the ground
Or step into the water, leave the dry behind
On the shoreline – meet me on the shoreline
Where you can only swim if you try
The shoreline represents decision-making. This is more metaphorical than an ideal ISTJ song, but we have clear Te at least.
Well, if there’s somewhere on the other side
It might be better, it might be as bad
Someday soon you’ll have to make a move
‘Coz you can’t stay forever, ah, just waiting
On the shoreline – Meet me on the shoreline
The second line of this second verse sorta disavows any intuition. You will have decisions where you don’t know how it’s going to go, but you have to do something. I see that as some Si working with the Te, but I might be reading into it.
Then the music changes keys and instruments (not what the ISTJ is looking for, but at least it keeps the same basic rhythm, and there is Ne in the stack a little), and we get a new perspective:
Take me over, lead me through
Well, can you take me there, to the other side
Where everything is new, uncertain, and strange?
Don’t ever let me go until we’re there
I don’t know what it is I’m looking for
And until it’s found I won’t be sure
So we’ve had a lot of Te energy, but now there’s tertiary Fi – the protagonist knows he has to make a decision and that he can’t stay where he is, but he’s just plain scared. He’s not ready for the future; he doesn’t have a read on it at all. And he needs a companion to make the leap he knows he needs to take.
The music then goes back to how it was, and we go back to Te:
Well, there are squares in the game of life
When you can keep on moving or turn aside
Yes, there are times when you have to decide
To put your feet in the water, or stay
On the shoreline – Meet me on the shoreline
Where you can only swim if you try
I’ll be there – on the shoreline
We end on some of that Si tug to doing what you’re supposed to do, in the form of loyalty. Now, maybe the person in the middle is a different person from the rest of the music, and they’re having a dialogue, e.g.,
Person A: “You have to move.”
Person B: “But I’m scared!”
Person A: “Don’t worry; I’ll be there.”
As a B-side, we don’t have much to go on. I have always assumed that it’s the same person talking the whole time, in which case it’s an ISTJ wanting to act, knowing what he’s supposed to do, but trying to find resolve against being scared. Whatever it exactly is, I think we get more Si than Te, even though I’ve been highlighting the Te, because there’s this underlying focus on what you have to do, which practically is a lot of people’s framing of what you’re supposed to do (because who determines “have to”?). And then there’s a bit of Fi that pipes up and needs resolving. That child Fi is half of why I’m calling this ISTJ, especially because “new, uncertain, and strange” are the three scary things. That seems more Fi-Ne than Ne-Fi at the bottom.
“Return of the She-King” by Dead Can Dance (Music typing [it’s an instrumental])
Singer Lisa Gerrard – who usually sings in glossolalia – said in an interview (that I didn’t pull off a Wikipedia page!) that there is a “mythological side” to the song. If the title didn’t give that away, the martial snare drums with the many other ancient-sounding acoustic instruments would. This song sounds as regal and stately as all that implies, and what does a returning she-king signify other than a return to order (assuming she’s a competent she-king)? If you know an ISTJ who likes reading historical fiction or watching period pieces, this song is for them.
Next part: ESTP and ISTP
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