Petula Clark: 2021's Cassandra

Clark's mega hit Downtown announced the end of one era and the start of a new one

“When you’re alone and life is making you crazy…”

You have to be slightly unhinged to forge connections like this, but, damn, I’m gonna give it my best shot.

The Christmas conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius is (nearly) exactly conjunct the singer Petula Clark's natal Saturn. Her chart is below (Rodden rating is a ‘C’, so tread lightly)

And, bizarrely, her mega-hit from 1964, Downtown, was played in tandem with the thoughtfully compiled warning created by the Nashville bomber for his Christmas morning surprise.

After a recording of some random woman’s voice announced: PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM VEHICLE. EXPLOSION IMMINENT. EVACUATE NOW. STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE.

The dire alert then segued directly into Clark’s mega pop hit from 1964. And then…

“We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares and go…”

BOOM!

When was the last time you thought of Petula Clark, who is nearing 90?

And why is this significant?

Saturn’s position in the birth chart carves out the most memorable mark you will create in the culture you are born into. Of course, Pet Clark was a worldwide phenomenon at the time, so her Saturn reached out beyond the UK and into radios everywhere.

Clark's signature song, a purely Aquarian message that beckoned people to leave the confines of their homes to get out and mingle with other human beings (downtown) was suddenly, explosively, shoved back into worldwide attention once again.

But the song, despite its bright Burt Bacharach-ish lilt had been caught up in cultural shockers before.

In 1964, several years after that 1961 Jupiter Saturn conjunction in Capricorn (again conjunct Clark’s natal Saturn at her first Saturn return)—the song triumphed over the Beatles and took home the Grammy as the Best Rock and Roll record of the year. (WTF?)

Beatle maniacs (3/4 of the entire planet at the time) considered this a travesty—a triumph of the old square world over the ‘youthquake’ Zeitgeist that the Beatles were harbingers of.

Not surprisingly, this typifies the natal position of Clark’s Saturn at the very cusp of Aquarius—a metaphoric threshold between encrusted conservative values (29 degrees of Capricorn) and the nascent Promethean spirit (which the Beatles typified) of zero degrees Aquarius.

Somehow in the crazy-ass thinking of the Nashville bomber’s brainpan, he was able to rally the old echoes of a Jupiter Saturn conjunction from decades prior and apply its dissonance to the current moment, another threshold between worlds.

His muse? Petula Clark. Who said the other day, “The song should be associated with joy and celebration.”

(Well, I was certainly as happy as fuck to see 2020 annihilated. So again, no accidents.)

You’re welcome.

Love,