ABSTRACT
In Freudian psychoanalysis the self is a triad of identities. Crudely, the triad consists of the Oedipal, dream-censoring, highly moral Super-Ego, the dreaming, instinctive, amoral Id and, finally, the Ego as the conciliatory, conscious mediator2. The wartime lyrics of love, longing, loss and loneliness expressed in the Ink Spots’ song “We Three” stand as a metaphor of this triad and its dynamic. In Freudian terms their triad of Echo, Shadow and Me consists of, first, the narcissistic and controlling self; second, the unstable, rebellious and instinctive self; and third, the conscious self, mediating the other two.
