Signs of the Zodiac

Kesha’s Saturn Return
Los Angeles will eat you. The LA music biz specialises in packaging young girls into pop stars — Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Nicky Minaj, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears. The singer-songwriter Kesha is one of those. Spotted by producer Dr Luke at the age of 17,  she was [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: Maurice Ravel & An Astro-Musical Quiz
The composer, Maurice Ravel, was born on March 7, 1875 into a musical family in the town of Ciboure, where the River Nivelle meets the Atlantic Ocean in the Basque country. (We are catching up with some missed dates for In The Key Of Pisces…) He was an innovator and a rebel. Rejected by the [...]
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In the Key of Pisces: Kiri Te Kanawa Sings Villa-Lobos, Segovia Plays & A Bonus
I think we’re beginning to get a feeling for the weaving, watery, complex Piscean sound. The work of Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5), probably Latin America’s most famous 20th century composer, exemplifies this in many works. Many of his compositions are so woven into the soundtracks of our lives [...]
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In the Key of Pisces: Tre Italiani
Thanks to my friend and reader, Sabrina, for pointing out that the late-lamented Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla was born on March 4, 1943. He has a solo Sun in Pisces with other planets extraordinarily evenly spread through his chart. Sun does make a lovely trine to Jupiter in [...]
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In the Key of Pisces: Miriam Makeba
Mama Africa: Miriam Makeba. Born on March 4, 1932. Makeba, along with her husband Hugh Masakela, was one of the most prominent artistic exiles from South Africa during the apartheid era. Although South Africa revoked her passport, 10 other countries stepped in to offer her citizenship. So she [...]
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In the Key of Pisces: Chris Martin
“I definitely believe in God. How can you look at anything and not be overwhelmed by the miraculousness of it?” said Pisces singer-songwriter and Coldplay frontman, Chris Martin. There you have it. The sound of Coldplay has woven its way into the fabric of the past decade and a half — [...]
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In the Key of Pisces: Bedrich Smetana
This first fortnight of March is composers’ week. Yesterday was Chopin’s birthday; today the “father of Czech music”, Bedrich Smetana, was born in 1824. Smetana was a Czech patriot and one of the generation that rose up against the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Revolutions of 1848. The [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: Chopin
Beauty, mystery, melancholy, passion, melody: let Chopin’s music take you into a wordless place. There is some dispute about his birthday, but I am sure it is today, March 1. Of course, his work endures for all time and all cultures — Neptune conjunct Saturn. His music makes private emotion [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: Johnny Cash and Erykah Badu
Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash. Pisces Rising, Pisces Sun-Mercury-Mars opposite Neptune in Virgo. It was all about the music. The drink nearly killed him. Love saved him. He hurt. Oh and that black shirt? Moon in Scorpio — so deep and yet so simple. Born February 26, [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: Abida Parveen
So far, we’ve been looking at a musician (or two) for the correct day of the Pisces, but today we’ll digress a little. Yesterday’s musician, George Harrison, is credited with popularising Indian music in the West. One of his most beautiful compositions My Sweet Lord, is a [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: George Harrison
Today’s musician: George Harrison, the most sensitive Beatle, the one who found God and made a garden — for more on his astrology, click here. He was born either on February 24 or 25, give or take half an hour. But the 24th gives him a Rising Moon. Harrison’s only planet in [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: Handel
Imagine a time when the Thames was the busiest highway in London, and the king’s barge a most glorious water-borne rolls-royce of golden curlicues. What could be a lovelier accompaniment to a balmy summer evening bobbing along the river than music wafting across the water. King George I [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: James Blunt
English singer-songwriter James Blunt must have been eating Neptune crackers when he made this unbelievably Piscean video for his huge hit You’re Beautiful. He’s soaking wet for most of the performance, his shoes seem to play a central role and it ends with a dip in the ocean. He [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: Nina Simone, Gifted and Black
Nina Simone — singer, composer and activist — was born on February 21, 1933 in North Carolina. She has Moon in Capricorn — a singer’s placement (read more on this here), Sun, North Node, Mercury and the Part of Fortune in Pisces in the first house of self and cusp of [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: Kurt Cobain and Randy California
Kurt Cobain, lead singer and songwriter for the group Nirvana, probably doesn’t need much introduction. He died at 27 from a heroin overdose after making some of the most angst ridden, crazy, intense music of the late 20th century. How many Pisces things in that paragraph? Nirvana, crazy [...]
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In The Key Of Pisces: Seal
Pisces, ruled as it is by Neptune, the planet of pure music, is a sign stuffed full of singers, composers, songwriters and probably maraca players and backing singers too. Starting today, I’ll try and find a Pisces for each day of this sign this year and see if we can hear a silvery [...]
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Solstice Greetings
Velvety magic at the winter solstice. Light of the Sun swallowed, we spend a long night of darkness, but there is comfort in the night’s embrace. Even in these modern times, we can turn out the electric lights and gather round the fire, letting the dark cushion our backs. We are in a [...]
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Astrology of Now: Facing The Music
If you know your astrological symbolism, you will have realised that The Eagles of Death Metal*, who were playing at the Bataclan in Paris when it was attacked last month, are a Scorpio band. The eagle is one of the symbols of Scorpio, along with the scorpion and the snake. It is also used as [...]
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The Passion Of Modigliani
Yesterday this painting was sold to Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian for $170m. Think about that for a moment. One hundred and seventy million dollars. Extraordinary. Christie’s chose the right month in which to sell it, with the Sun in Scorpio, since the subject of this picture is [...]
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Astrology of Now: Love Subdues Anger
“Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation.” ― Jeanette Winterson, Venus and Mars in Virgo “The kiss itself is immortal. It travels from lip to lip, century to century, from age to age. Men and women garner these kisses, offer them to others and [...]
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