Venus in music - conclusions

Venus by Pietro Vannucci

Now that all the 12 signs have been looked at through the light of Venus and music lyrics, it's time to wrap it up with a few conclusions.

The aim of this study was to verify the influence of the songwriters' Venus signs in their musical lyrics. I wanted to know if the way they love (Venus) was translated in what they wrote about love. But as I wrote the articles, my goal was more and more about explaining each Venus sign while using the lyrics to illustrate it. The verification part became secondary, particularly because to my surprise, the correspondence between lyrics and astrology wasn't that hard to find, resulting in my having to eliminate large amounts of selected lyrics because including them all was impossible.

So this is the final distributions to the Venus signs of all the 76 songwriters put under my microscope (the list suffered minor adjustments, when I realized some artists didn't compose the majority of their lyrics and had to be replaced with others):

Aries 10
Taurus 8
Gemini 4
Cancer 2
Leo 6
Virgo 8
Libra 5
Scorpio 10
Sagittarius 5
Capricorn 6
Aquarius 6
Pisces 6


As mentioned in the first post, Earth (22) and Fire (21) signs take the lead, while Air (15) is the least represented group. Water have only 18. Cardinal and Mutable signs are equally represented with 23 songwriters each, while Fixed signs are predominant (30). Both these incidences have been addressed in the inaugural post.

But what got my greatest attention on this revision were the aspects Venus formed with other planets (meaning the degrees by which Venus is separated from the other planets in the chart*). This was also something I had hinted at in the beginning but this time I took a closer look. I made some statistics and found that 86% of the songwriters' Venus had at least one aspect with the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) and in 96% of the cases Venus had at least one aspect to social or outer planets (that adds Jupiter and Saturn, the social planets). That means that only 3 of the songwriters had Venus without any kind of aspect to social and outer planets. So, for starters, if someone asked me about one of the things that define a successful songwriter I would have to say: take a look at that Venus and see if it's in aspect to the social or/and outer planets.

Why is this of any relevance? As I've mentioned previously, the outer planets are that trio far-away that move really slowly and isolatedly reflect not something personal in someone's chart but the frame of mind, the currents of a particular generation. And when a planet as personal as Venus has a lot of connections with these transpersonal planets then the way they love and express this love will be affected by these currents. If we interpret Venus as Art, it's easy to understand that these artists' creations will reflect their generation, be in-tune with the great trends of their time. It isn't thus surprising that their music is popular (in the sense of sucess and recognition by others).

The outer planets also symbolise a collective awareness, the need for a collective preoccupation in the way they live and so this Venus will gain an extra layer of complexity, many times making their love life more challenging, since none of these aspects are purely easy. Perhaps it is also the case that when one's love life is challenging it becomes an extra reason to think, talk, complain, be creative about it. Music, writing, Art in general are often ways to be creative about these issues, which I'm certain happens to a lot of these songwriters.

As for the social planets, Jupiter and Saturn, they make the transition from the personal to the transpersonal, reflecting the integration of a person's motivations and needs into what society presents to them. This also makes for a Venus that is more aware of the conditions surrounding them.

One staggering 45% of the songwriters had Venus in a major aspect to Saturn (while 54% had a minor or major aspect to Saturn). Saturn adds a big dose of reality to love; it means a committed and responsible love but also that relationships involve hard work, struggle, insecurities. Could this lead people to write songs? Possibly. From another perspective, as mentioned in the first post, it allows the Art and the Love (Venus) to gain a structure, a format and it makes people committed (Saturn) to their Art. In another words, people with Venus-Saturn aspects take love and art very seriously.

Venus in aspect to Jupiter, on the other hand, will be more open to adventures in love because love is seen as an opportunity to grow and develop. This optimism may lead the person to excess in the name of love (love is the ultimate truth in this case) and songs about love, no doubt. 49% of the songwriters had Venus in aspect to Jupiter, but only 37% had a major aspect.

Going back to the outer planets, Venus-Uranus contacts will imprint a very particular aspect to one's love: love as an expression of freedom and individuality, love for the unconventional and the varieties of life. Could this mean these people's music will be unconventional too? 40% of the analysed Venus had a major aspect to Uranus (45% all aspects).

With Venus in aspect to Neptune, love is all-accepting and encompassing, it's a Universal love and an ideal love. It's a love full of illusions and disillusions. Furthermore, Neptune represents music and an aspect between these two more artistic icons can only be beneficial in creativity and poeticness. Not surprising then that 61% of the subjects had Venus in a minor or major aspect to Neptune (42% of them had a major aspect).

That leads us to Venus-Pluto connection which define love as a life-transforming reality and the contact with deep, intense emotions as part of the process of relationships. It is also no wonder that these emotions need to find an outlet and with the Venus in the equation, Art might be it. The percentages of artists with this kind of aspect are identical to the Saturn percentages (43% major aspects and 54% all aspects), assuming an important place in all the Venus aspects.

I'll leave you with a few good examples of the correlation between Venus and Outer-planet aspects and successful songwriting: Bob Marley had Venus in Aries with the following aspects - square Saturn, opposition Neptune and Jupiter, trine Pluto and sextile Uranus. Kurt Cobain had Venus in Pisces, conjunct Saturn, opposite Uranus and Pluto, trine Jupiter and Neptune. (As you can see, both of them have Venus aspecting all the social and outer planets and I think it's safe to say that they marked generations with their music.)

Paul Simon with Venus opposite Uranus and Saturn, trine Pluto and sextil Neptune. Stevie Wonder has Venus in Aries, opposite Neptune, square Uranus and trine Pluto. Jeff Buckley had Venus in Scorpio (Pluto), conjunct Neptune, trine Jupiter and Saturn and sextile Uranus. Bjork has Venus trine Pluto and Uranus and sextile Neptune and Saturn. The list goes on...

Anything else you'd like to add?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*these degrees have specific interpretations in Astrology, for instance a 90 degree angle of separation between planets forms a square (a harsh aspect) while a 120 degree of separation forms a trine (harmonious aspect). Aspects can be divided between major and minor aspects, the former being interpreted as having more strength in the chart and include: conjuction, sextile, square, trine, opposition (I also included inconjunct in this category).