Celebrity iPod mixes are all the latest rage on iTunes. One can now download the favorite songs of Ru Paul, Billy Idol and Donny Osmond. Even selections from President Bush’s iPod mix were revealed earlier this week in the New York Times. Mark McKinnon, Bush’s chief media strategist, is on record saying that “no one should psychoanalyze the song selection.” Too late! Who could neglect such an opportunity to take your favorite celebrities to the psychiatrist’s couch? We’ve assembled four subjects-some well-known, some with their stars fading-and attempted a full-on psychological investigation. Armed with Freud and our Psych 101 textbooks, we probed the depths of their minds. Here’s what we found.

The Subject: Tom Brady
The Occupation: New England Patriots quarterback
The Analyst: Robbie Gross

The Playlist:

1. Dream On, Aerosmith
2. Lose Yourself, Eminem
3. Possum Kingdom, The Toadies
4. If I Can’t, 50 Cent
5. Fell on Black Days, Soundgarden
6. Bittersweet Symphony, The Verve
7. Award Tour, A Tribe Called Quest
8. Mysterious Ways, U2
9. I Can, Nas
10. Shiver, Coldplay
11. My Name Is, Eminem
12. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, U2
13. Jesus Walks, Kanye West
14. Beast of Burden, The Rolling Stones
15. Wonderwall (Live), Oasis
16. Black, Pearl Jam
17. Sunday Bloody Sunday, U2
18. Encore, Jay-Z

The Analysis:

Upon the surface we have a normal, highly functional subject. Having led his team to three Super Bowls victories, Tom Brady has become a national symbol of health: both physical and mental. Yet, a closer inspection of his iTunes Playlist allows us to ‘Go Deep!’ (as Tom might say) into his unconscious. The quarterback, as athlete and psychoanalytic subject, has created a false veneer of safety through the use of various defense mechanisms. In the game, this mechanism of defense is the offensive line. In his mind, it is his ego. Brady has highly libidinized his offensive line, and Oasis’ “Wonderwall” is clearly a symbolic representation of this sexual desire in an inverted Oedipal complex. The offensive line is a fatherly protector whose absence provides deep physical and emotional insecurity. The fear of the sack is omnipresent throughout the Playlist, manifesting itself in fear of castration (“Sunday Bloody Sunday”) and of the defensive need to assert his masculinity (“My Name Is”). Terrorized by a fear of linemen and linebackers, Brady has gone too long ‘hiding in the pocket’ and failing to confront his fears. So long as he continues to escape from the reality of his existence-to “Dream On” and “Lose Yourself”-he will continue to be plagued by neurosis, play scared and rely on his defense and running game to win.

The Subject: Robert Downey Jr.
The Occupation: Hollywood actor, convicted felon
The Analyst: Robbie Gross

The Playlist:

1. Darkness, The Police
2. Blame it on the Sun, Stevie Wonder
3. Peg, Steely Dan
4. Red Rain, Peter Gabriel
5. Heaven, Bryan Adams
6. Faithfully, Journey
7. Finish What Ya Started, Van Halen
8. Me and My Arrow, Harry Nilsson
9. Why Can’t it Wait til Morning, Phil Collins
10. With or Without You, U2

The Analysis:

Downey Jr.’s notoriety as a first-rate actor is equaled by his notoriety as a first-rate heroin abuser. Can his iTunes Playlist finally enable us to understand this brilliant and misunderstood man? Absolutely. Being a man of deep and complex emotions onstage and off, who has gone from the glory of Academy Award ceremonies to the pits of prison, one would imagine a music list of deeply energetic and dark drug-induced songs from the likes of the Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop or even INXS. Not from Downey Jr., however. His list, quite frankly, is boring. The Police? Steely Dan? Peter Gabriel AND Phil Collins? Say no more, for all is clear. Downey Jr.’s drug addiction is nothing more than pure masochism. Enmeshed in the pretentious Ivory Tower of Hollywood culture, Downey Jr. has been repressing his socially unacceptable love of adult contemporary music. The drugs, women and fast times can thus be seen as a reaction formation constructed to obscure his insecurities: to act young and reckless by day and listen to completely innocuous, dad-listening-to music by night. Releasing his iTunes Playlist for the general public to see must be seen as a step in the right direction. He is confronting his anxiety head on, and may the world embrace him despite a rather uninspired playlist.

The Subject: Eric Stoltz
The Occupation: Hollywood actor (sometimes)
The Analyst: Matt Simonton

The Playlist:

1. Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide, David Bowie
2. This Must be the Place (Na‹ve Melody), Talking Heads
3. Any World (That I’m Welcome To), Steely Dan
4. All I Want, Bernadette Moley
5. Won’t Get Fooled Again, The Who
6. Come As You Are, Caetano Veloso
7. Last Goodbye, Jeff Buckley
8. God Give Me Strength, Burt Bacharach
9. Rearviewmirror, Pearl Jam
10. The Last Time I Saw Richard, Joni Mitchell
11. Tell Me Something Good, Rufus and Chaka Khan
12. Poor Man’s House, Patty Griffin
13. 4th of Jury, X
14. Teenage Tramp, The Thornbirds
15. Man in the Long Black Coat, Bob Dylan
16. St. Teresa, Joan Osborne
17. Radio Cure, Wilco
18. I Fly So High, Peter Salett
19. In the Ghetto, Elvis Presley

The Analysis:

Life has been hard on Mr. Stoltz. Once the celebrated teen star of ’80s drama “Mask,” Eric the Redhead is now lucky to find work in “Harvard Man” and “The Butterfly Effect.” So, does Eric’s playlist pattern after his rocky career? The similarities are frighteningly parallel. Right off the bat we’re confronted with David Bowie’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” a cry for help if there ever was one. Further reading is only more shocking. The Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Na‹ve Melody)” perfectly describes Stoltz’s early entry into the world of Hollywood, a promising land full of opportunity, drugs and easy women. How it would all come crashing down years later. “All I Want,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Last Goodbye” and “God Give Me Strength” weave a continuous psychological narrative of empty hopes, betrayal, rejection and religious desperation, unwittingly brought to the fore by his troubled subconscious. “Poor Man’s House” obviously details some of Stoltz’s more unfortunate moments, and “Teenage Tramp” possibly hints at the post-traumatic stress felt after contracting a sexually transmitted disease from a Hollywood harlot. Elvis Presley’s “In The Ghetto” brings to close a virtual autobiography of the subject’s grief, self-loathing, poverty and immense loss. I recommend at least 10 mg of Lexapro or the equivalent dosage in Xanax. Psychological recovery is still possible.

The Subject: George W. Bush
The Occupation: President of the United States
The Analyst: Matt Simonton

The Playlist:

1. Centerfield, John Fogerty
2. New Biography, Van Morrison
3. Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
4. Circle Back, John Hiatt
5. Castanets, Alejandro Escovedo
6. (You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care, Joni Mitchell
7. El Paso, The Gourds
8. The House is Rockin’, Stevie Ray Vaughan
9. Swinging From the Chains of Love, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings
10. Say It Ain’t So, The Thrills
11. My Sharona, The Knack
12. Alan Jackson
13. George Jones

The Analysis:

At first glance, “iPod One” seems to contain nothing out of the ordinary for Mr. Bush. But a preponderance of country and classic rock is merely a veneer coating an iceberg of confused identity and self-doubt. One need only sample singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell’s “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” to begin to understand Mr. Bush’s failing sense of self-worth, a problem that originated on the playground in the 1950s with his peers’ chants of “mushy Bushy, mushy Bushy.” “Centerfield,” John Fogerty’s light FM radio hit, possibly refers to the president’s conflicting emotions about his time as owner of the Texas Rangers, but more likely traces back to a childhood incident involving a dropped fly ball. With his mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush looking on, young George dropped the ball that cost his little league team, the Fighting Algonquin, the city championship. It was at that moment that Mr. Bush first realized he hated his mother’s authoritarian child-rearing system, and could only purge his repressed anger years later by projecting his emotions into an artificial creation dubbed “the war on terror.” Furthermore, Van Morrison’s hit “Brown Eyed Girl” raises crucial questions concerning Mr. Bush’s relationship with his spouse; Morrison’s nostalgic lyrics point to a general disillusionment with marriage and a lessening of the sex drive. The song also marks a trend in Mr. Bush’s playlist for carefree music, signaling his desire for a less stressful environment; as he insists, “it’s hard work.” In sum, a truly unhealthy individual in critical need of extensive therapy.

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