You’re about to read my old friend Michael Ackerman say that Johnny Mercer was the best American songwriter of all times. But if that’s true why isn’t he a household word? All Belgians have heard of Jacques Brel and all Brits have heard of Paul McCartney. Mercer was not a pop star; he was someone mostly behind the scenes who wrote many of the standards you find in those big books of Broadway and film show tunes. You’ve heard many of his songs: “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” “Hooray for Hollywood” and “Moon River.” In other words, the songs you thought were around forever. And you’ve played lots of records published by Capitol Records, which he founded. Everything has a beginning.
I tend to be ignorant of culture, but it’s not just me; his birth data isn’t listed in Astrotheme, or even Astrodatabank. But — now we know. And today happens to be the 100th anniversary of his birth. I discovered this while simultaneously gabbing with Michael and googling yesterday morning.
Really, there is no explaining someone with this kind of unusual talent astrologically; my preference is to look to his chart for information about astrology itself. (And we do learn something about the cardinal signs, something we already knew.) It would be great if we had his birth time; putting his planets into houses would be a big help toward helping us have a clear picture of who he is. But we do have planets in signs: here’s a bit:
Mercer was a Scorpio with an Aquarius Moon (Neil Young has this configuration, which provides intellect and emotional capacity in equal measure). His outer planets are in signs distinctly unfamiliar to most astrologers today — Pluto in Gemini, Neptune in Cancer, opposite Uranus in Capricorn — exactly opposite, to one degree, which to me is his songwriting aspect. True, everyone was born with this doorway in their chart in that era; Johnny Mercer came through the door.
In 1909, Eris was still in Pisces, conjunct Nessus; when Mercer was born, Mars was there too, and it’s in the last degree of Pisces — the degree of the shapeshifter. Pisces is one of the places you look to for musical talent, and this is an odd mix but it’s an energy source, and the imagery fits. Many people experience Nessus as the dark side, and many songs are about the woes of life.