Apologia pro scriptura mia: I am presenting something unusual this week. While heretofore I have always put nonfiction on this substack, I have decided, for Reasons, to put this odd little piece of fiction up today (standing in for one of the more substantive essays). One of those reasons is that it is a very nonfictional scrap of imagination, simply telling the story of the career of the rock star Juno Rose Floy, who sadly never achieved existence. I am not sure what anyone will make of it; I am not sure what there is to be made. I hope you enjoy it.
The musician Juno Rose Floy—universally known by her first name, Juno—released her first album in 1990 at the age of 19. It was titled The Fool. The cover was a photograph of the singer, as is of course the norm, but in this case the pose which Juno took was clearly meant to mimic the classic design of the Tarot card "The Fool". The first song on the album was the title song, and was a typical (albeit elegant) folk rock song about how she was a fool in love, crushing on a man who didn't love her back. Perhaps the most conceptually interesting song on the album, however, was its final song, which was called "The Fool (Reversed)" and was the same story as the opening song told from the point of view of the man. While this last song had a great deal of bite (the subject of unrequited crushes being an unusual viewpoint for a song, and the music being less happy-go-lucky and more pained than the rest of the album), overall the album’s songs were optimistic, often silly, and very catchy. The Fool was popular and got Juno’;s career off to a strong start, but the overall impression of her work was as a pop signer without a great deal of musicial sophistication. It also should be noted that the general assumption, which Juno didn't contradict in any of the publicity surrounding the album, was that the title song came first, and the album title and cover art followed, and that it was little more than an idle conceit.
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When Juno released her second album the next year, however, it was titled The Magician. Again the first song of the album shared the albums title; again the final song of the album was named in a parallel fashion, in this case called "The Magician (Reversed)". As with her first album, the cover art was a photograph of Juno, this time in a clear adaptation of the famous magician card from the Waite-Smith tarot deck (the best-known tarot deck, then as now). The songs on the album tended to be mysterious, full of charlatans and tricksters and unsolved mysteries; while not quite as bright and cheery as her first album, it was vastly more complex muscially, and got a lot of serious attention from music critics, and even the public embraced it (it sold abotu equally well). With The Magician, Juno established herself as an enduring new voice, dispelling the early impression of her as shallow and a probable one-hit wonder. The title of the album was, in fact, taken as a sly refutaiton of the dismissal of her first album: you thought I was a fool? Nay, I am a magician! A clever reworking, to be sure, but few thought it was more.
It was only with the release of Juno’s third album, The High Priestess (1992), with the first song sharing the title and the final song being "The High Priestess (Reversed)", and a cover based upon the image from the Waite-Smith deck, that people finally realized that the conceits of her first two works were more deeply intended than had yet been guessed. This time the album explored religious themes, speaking of Juno’s adolescent crisis of faith and her eventual return to a more sophisticated religious belief. While the public simply embraced it as interesting music, a number of critics wondered how long she could keep this up. Surely she would not title all her albums in like fashion?
This question was seemingly answered with Juno’s fourth album which, as many expected, was in fact titled The Empress (1993). It, too, followed the by-now familiar patterns, with the opening song sharing the album’s title, and the final song closing with it reversed (in this case, “The Empress (Reversed”), and with the cover image being a photograph of Juno in a pose and setting closely based on the famous art of Pamela Coleman Smith. The themes this time were women's power, and the album was widely hailed as a feminist statement. It was also around this time that Juno began to be regularly asked whether, and with what degree of determination, she intended to keep this up, but she invariably dodged the question or deflected it with a joke.
By this point everyone was certain they could predict the title of her fifth album; everyone was, however, wrong. Rather than the expected title The Emperor, the album was instead called Wands. None of the songs bore the album title; rather the fourteen songs on the album were simply numbered, 1 to 14, in order. The album’s cover was, as usual, a close pastiche of a card from the Waite-Smith tarot, this time the the two of wands:
Some critics said that Wands lacked the thematic unity of her first four albums, but others detected themes of energy and passion dominating, as well as an unusual number of invocations of fire. Certainly it was no less popular than her earlier work, although radio DJs apparently found it weird to refer to the songs just by numbers (“Here’s the latest single off Juno’s new album, 7….”) and began referring to them instead as “the 7 of Wands”, “the 12 of Wands”, and so forth.
Juno's sixth album, however, returned to her earlier pattern: The Emperor (1995) had her on the cover, in drag (she wore a men's suit), on a chair, in the pattern of Smith’s Emperor card. The first and last songs were once again titled after the album, with the second being "The Emperor (Reversed)". The theme of the album was power: "The Emperor" was a oblique critique of American militarism, while "The Emperor (Reversed)" was an anthem about the triumph of popular movements and the tidal force of history.
By this point the arc of Juno’s career seemed well established, and no one was surprised at the title of her seventh album, The Heirophant, nor by its cover art, nor by the fact that it was a conscious return to the religious themes of her third album. During the recording and production of the album, Juno met and had a (much publicized) whirlwind romance with producer Bill Woltondowski; they married just before jointly producing Juno’s eighth album, The Lovers. The songs on the album told the story of their meeting, courtship, and marriage. The album’s final song, “The Lovers (Reversed)” provided a dark ending to the otherwise overwhelmingly joyful album, bitterly narrating their first major fight from alternating points of view (Woltondowksi went so far as to personally sing his own verses on the album, the rawness of his unpracticed voice coming across as more authentic than amateurish The cover image of that album was, for once, not a close pastiche of the Waite-Smith card, but was nevertheless clearly meant as a version of the tarot theme: it was from their wedding, a kiss at the altar, with the minister (perhaps standing in for Smith’s angel) standing behind them having just pronounced them Woman and Husband. Notwithstanding the final song, the album as a whole radiated joy and happiness, and was her best-selling album to date.
By now the gimmick was firmly established in everyone’s mind, and both Juno’s ninth and tenth albums, respectively The Chariot and Strength, continued the pattern of initial titular songs and concluding reverses, pastiching covers, and matching themes. Juno’s eleventh album was entitled Cups (2000), the second of what she admitted (in a rare moment of speaking undisguisedly on the matter) were to be four “minor” albums, which she would mix into the rest “when the time seems ripe”. Similarly to Wands, the fourteen tracks on the album were numbered rather than named, but this time the titles were spelled out (e.g. “Two” instead of “2”), which helped visually distinguish them from the similarly-titled songs off of Wands. Furrther, five of the songs were actually named for the cards directly: the opening song, “Ace”, was a sweet song about Juno's first child, then a young boy, while "Queen" was another feminist anthem and was the biggest hit from the album. The cover art for Cups was based on the three of cups card from the Waite-Smith deck:
—with the other two women being her long-time drummer (with Juno since The Fool), and a keyboardist who had played on every album since Wands . The album was millennial, filled with compassion, both optimistic (as in "Ace") and with sorrow for the sufferings of humanity in its long, tortured journey.
By now, of course, people could see the arc of her career, and began to wonder what her twenty-seventh album might be titled. When asked, she simply laughed and said she hoped she'd make it that far. Her twelfth through fifteenth albums— The Hermit, The Wheel of Fortune, Justice, and The Hanged Man—continued the now-familiar pattern. The most notable of them, perhaps, was the fifteenth, The Hanged Man (2004), an album all about reversals and betrayals (some critics got hints of the beginning of problems in her marriage). The darkness continued on the searing album Swords (2005), which included songs of deep personal distress, such as the long and agonized "Swords: Nine" (the titles all followed a similar format). Other songs, such as "Swords: Knight", were about the American war in Iraq, with "Swords: King" in particular being a scathing anti-Bush song which became a big hit when released as a single shortly after Katrina. The album’s cover art was based on the nine of swords:
It was during the tour for Swords that Juno announced her divorce.
Juno's seventeenth album, Death (2006), came out in the wake of this news, and tells the story of the marraige’s dissolution. The songs were haunting, agonized, all about the painful end of one part of life and the necessity to begin again. The cover, unusually, was not closely based on the similarly-titled art by Pamela Colman Smith, but simply showed Juno, against a bleak background, holding a skull. (One of the songs on the album, about the agony of indecision and uncertainty, and the hesitation before what was becoming clear necessity, was titled "Yorick", and the image was understood as illustrating Hamlet’s famous scene in the graveyard.) Despite, or perhaps because of, its pain, in both popular polls and critics' lists of Juno's best work, it is often one of the top choices.
While Temperance (2007) was a quiet and reflective album, The Devil (2008) was an album burning with anger and evil, including a searing song, "Sympathy", retelling the story of her divorce from her husband's point of view. The cover was astonishing, including a remarkable image of a devil figure with Juno at his feet in chains. It was rumored that she had asked her ex-husband to pose for the cover with her, but he had, apparently, refused; in the end, the image used—with the empty chain and empty spot where, in a strict parallel to the Waite-Smith image, Juno's ex ought to have been, was perhaps more powerful than it would have been had he cooperated.
And then, less than a month after the release of her nineteenth album, her son (whose life was chronicled in so many of her songs, from Cups's "Ace" onward) was hit by a drunk driver while riding his bike, and instantly killed.
If people had thought some of her earlier albums were bleak, then The Tower (2009) made even the darkest of them look cheery. The title track was all about fall and ruin; the cover image showed Juno hurling herself from the high window of a burning building, in a pose that suggested suicide as much as an attempt at escape. Only the final song—"The Tower (Reversed)"—gave the slightest hint of hope amidst the album's bleakness. While critics have frequently hailed it as one of Juno's finest works, it was largely too bleak for the popular taste, and did not sell as well as was usual for her work.
In contrast The Star— whose cover had Juno, discretely posed but clearly nude, kneeling besides a stream, dipping a pitcher of water into it, beneath a broad canopy of stars—was a gentle album, an album of healing and renewal. It is another popular favorite, with the title track being one of her biggest single hits.
2011's Pentacles was at the time of its release thought to be Juno's weakest album; its themes were less lofty than her usual work, and some critics grumbled that she only released the album for money. (In later years its reception has improved.) Its songs were again just titled with numbers, although in this case they were Roman numerals, distinguishing them from the otherwise identically-titled songs on Wands; also, for the first time, the tracks were not presented in numerical order, with the opening track being "V" and the song "I" coming in second-to-last. The cover art was based on Smith’s image from the five of pentacles:
with the other character portrayed by Juno's surviving child, her then nine-year-old daughter.
Juno's twenty-third and twenty-fourth albums—The Moon and The Sun—were thoughtful, complex, low-key albums, that critics adored (it was some of the most sophisticated work of Juno's career, both musically and lyrically) but which were not as popular as some of her earlier work, and there were some speculations that her career had stalled since the death of her son.
Juno's twenty-fifth album, however, Judgement (which was spelled in the British style, with an "e", as is usual on the tarot card) was a full return to form, a powerful album in which Juno seemed to reflect on and sum up her whole life. It was her best-selling album to date, and is (along with Death) among her most popular works. The cover, while clearly modeled on the Waite-Smith image, focused only on one person (Juno herself) rising from the grave towards a whole host of angels in the sky above her. The popular success and musical vitality of Judgement built excitement for her twenty-sixth album, which was expected to be the culmination of her work to date.
The World (2015) did not disappoint,. Although it ran over an hour, it contained only four songs, with the title track, "The World", running a full thirty-one minutes, an extraordinary musical epic, almost symphonic in its scale, scope, and ambition. The other three songs were shorter, but still quite long, with only one song—the final track, "The World (Reversed)"—being of ordinary radio length: it ran just over five minutes, and was quirky and funny and reminded a lot of listeners of Juno's first, innocent album. The cover image, with Juno in a flowing white robe surrounded by a garland of flowers, was remarkable as well. The biggest surprise, however, was in the interviews Juno gave to support the album's release. To the inevitable question about her next album, she answered simply that there wasn't going to be one; The World was her final musical statement, and that she was at this point going to retire. She had fulfilled the journey she had begun twenty-six years before, and that was enough.
Critics wondered if so dedicated and brilliant an artist would actually quit making music, but for the most part she did. She has released no albums since The World. She has, however, released two singles.
The first of these, "The Obverse Side", came out in 2017, and was an anthem of hope and resistance in the wake of Trump's election. It was incredibly popular and stirred hopes that Juno would change her mind and produce a twenty-seventh album, but she said in an interview that no, the song was a one-off, a specific response to those historical circumstances and one she had no intention of repeating.
Three years later, however, she did release a second single, during the pandemic, "The Happy Squirrel” (2020), which she recorded by herself in her apartment, playing all the instruments and recording it on her own. Like "The World (Reversed)" it felt like a return to her earliest, most innocent style. It was released as a free mp3 online, along with a note describing it as a pandemic gift, not a return to making music.
Just this year, however, Juno announced one final artistic project—not, surprisingly, a musical one. Rather, Juno is publishing a tarot deck, with the major arcana (and the two of wands, the three of cups, the nine of swords and the five of pentacles) all bearing images from the covers of her albums. The other images are photographs taken of Juno, not recently, but over the entirety of her twenty-six year musical career. All of them are clear and unmistakable variations on the images from the Waite-Smith deck, which meant that, far from being simply an selection from publicity stills taken with other ends in mind, they had instead been taken with this end deliberately in mind over the course of the decades. (A recent, post-retirement photo of Juno was used for the extra 79th card that came with the deck, "The Happy Squirrel", and showed Juno and her daughter in the back yard of Juno’s house feeding a squirrel, both visibly happy and contented.)
To accompny the release of the deck, Juno did one final interview (her very first since her "World" tour seven years before). In it she was asked about the coincidences that accompanied her career—her marriage, divorce and son's death all coming, as it seemed, perfectly timed to fit the arc of her career, to say nothing of the aptness of various political events (“Swords: King” as an anti-Bush song, “The Obverse Side” in relation to Trump, etc). In response Juno paused for a moment, and then said the following:
"I have wondered about this myself, as you might expect, turning it over in my mind. My thoughts on it won’t settle; I change my mind on the issue frequently, with different answers seeming more likely at different times. I suppose I'll never really know, not for sure.
"Most of the time I think that it was simply more of an accident than it appears. The tarot is an interpretive lens, not a predictive tool, and I think that I could have shaped any alternative life into a pattern to which fit the archetypes equally well. The tarot images have, after all, evolved (culturally) to help us make sense of life; it is no surprise that a life will then fit them.
“But sometimes I wonder if there was not some sort of subtle cause and effect, whether unconscious on my part or mystically on the part of the universe. I mean, I can't have met Bill because I was coming up to The Lovers, but was I more open to him because of that? I don't know. Now, the thought that I could have had anything to do with Ace's death, even unconsciously, is too horrible to contemplate; I reject that idea unequivocally. But did the universe in some way bend to it because of my choices? I can’t help but wonder. might it be that, having started upon the fool's journey, I was in some way bound to it? Perhaps if you take on the tarot, it takes on you. That's not what I usually think, but I do think that sometimes.
"And then, every once in a long while, I try to imagine myself at eighteen, writing my earliest songs, imagining other things I wanted to try, and I wonder something else. Did I perhaps glimpse what was coming? I mean, of course not. I couldn't. Right? It’s impossible. Clearly. The answer is no.
“So I usually think. But sometimes I wonder... and think, well, maybe. Just maybe. Maybe some part of me knew, in some slight way. It is possible that I already had some presentiment of my future."
That really hit home! I shall explain.