Strangelove moves in the hidden room where pleasure and pain become one breath. It is a song clothed in the lexicon of human desire, but beneath it runs the profound current of the soul’s encounter with the Divine. The repeated invocation “Strangelove, strange highs and strange lows” speaks of a love that wounds and heals in the same gesture; a love that calls the beloved into surrender, stripping away the safety of familiar affection to reveal the naked bond between soul and source. The eroticism of the lyric is more than flesh; it is the mystic’s recognition that the wound is also the place of union, and that the Bridegroom’s hand, whether gentle or fierce, draws the soul toward its own transfiguration.
When the first video was released on April 13, 1987, the sky revealed a Moon that stood exiled in Venusian Libra, the sign of the 2 of Swords, the Sephira of Chokmah within Yetzirah; a place where the mind is in equilibrium, holding the tension between opposites. Venus was exalted in Pisces, the final house of the zodiac, in Briah’s waters, marking an exile-exaltation axis that wrapped the song in lunar-venusian splendour. Such a configuration speaks to the work of transmuting desire into vision; it frames the song as a vessel for that delicate marriage where longing and serenity intertwine. The original clip’s black-and-white imagery carried this undercurrent with its play of shadow and light, suggesting that what is hidden in shadow has the power to guide the soul into radiance.
I. The Alchemy of Pleasure and Pain
The lyric’s confession, “Pain, will you return it? I’ll say it again, pain!”, is more than indulgence in sensation; it is the mystic’s bargaining with the angel who wounds. In tantric union, pleasure and pain are phases of the same current. The hand that caresses may also strike, but both are movements of love’s discipline. This is the path where the libido is led, like a wild animal, into the temple, until its roar becomes liturgy.
The soul offers itself wholly: “I’ll make it all worthwhile, I’ll make your heart smile.” This is covenant language, echoing the Divine promise to turn sorrow into joy. In such a frame, the song becomes a litany to the strange Beloved who demands the whole self, body and will, in an embrace that burns and redeems. The imagery is bridal in the high mystical sense, where union comes through a consenting passion that consumes impurity and leaves only the bond. The tantric dimension lies in this: to remain present in the fire until it turns to light, and to see in the very sharpness of desire the tool of sanctification.
II. The Venusian Cipher of 1988
The second video, released in 1988, wrapped the song in new symbols. The play of fashion, geometry, and controlled sensuality placed Venus at the centre; her dominion is beauty, balance, and the art of attraction bound to law. The presence of the zodiac as an aesthetic motif reminded the viewer that love’s fire moves from the fiery innocence of Aries to the surrender of Pisces. The number 8 stood out; in the year, in design elements, and in the song’s pulse. The Ogdoad is the number of regeneration, of a cycle renewed beyond the completeness of 7; it speaks of resurrection and of the soul’s passage into a higher octave of being.
This is the same 8 of Isaiah 8:8, where the name Emmanuel is invoked as the flood reaches up to the neck; a vision of peril that is also the promise of God-with-us. In Strangelove, the repetition of the refrain carries this same flood; it overwhelms, it rises beyond comfort, yet it is the very sign of the Presence. The Venusian feel of the imagery deepens the song’s role as a cipher for the strange marriage between the soul and its Lord; a marriage in which beauty is the bait and the bond, leading the soul willingly into captivity that is also its liberty.
Coda – A Brief Meditation
The 2 of Swords, corresponding to the Moon exiled in Libra, holds the still point at the heart of this song’s storm. It is the place where the mind is silent through balance. In its guardianship stand the Cherubins Iezalel (13) and Mebahel (14), whose gifts are fidelity, union, and truth spoken without malice. To meditate on this card in the light of Strangelove is to enter the court of the strange Beloved, to feel the pull of the flood and the gentleness of the hand that guides through it.
Fiat Lux.