Are you aware of how many love songs have already been written? And have you listened to all the new ones composed just this year. And have you marveled that an infinite amount have yet to be written? And that they will be next year or the next…?
No other single emotion has ever inspired so many to put their feelings into words. And while there may be some similarities for the most part, each new lyric is just that - new…It reflects yet another’s intimate thoughts about this unique, overwhelming feeling.
And while some lyricists still get hung up on rhyming ‘June,’ ‘tune’ and ‘honeymoon’, many, many more keep coming up with fresh phrases of expression…”I believe in love,” love will keep us together,” “I write the songs of love and special things.”
Hate is an equally strong emotion…it has been known to shape the lives of men and nations. And yet musical interpretation of such hostile feeling is limited.
Even the country songs about ‘lost loves’ rarely evoke the singers to rage and revenge. Rather they moan about their grief, their memories and their feelings of love that linger without hope.
Of course, it’s not just county-western music that bespeaks of lost love. Operas are noted for enhancing the trades of love cut too short. Tony Randall, actor and opera buff, discussed that subject of on a recent talk show. He commented that in its heyday, opera was a ribald type of entertainment written primarily to appeal to the less educated masses. What a different connotation it presently carries. Most of us feel we must be well educated to appreciate the formalities of opera!
However, most ballads, sonnets, and pop songs praise this thing called ‘love.’ The phenomenon, though is that love can be described, explained, and applauded in so many distinctive ways.
Over a century ago, a woman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, penned perhaps the most immortal love sonnet ever…
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways - To the height and depth and breadth my soul can reach…”
With apologies to Mrs. Browning, we might paraphrase her words today, “How do I love thee? Let me count the songs I can sing to tell you…
I can’t. There are too many to count."
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As I put these rambling thoughts on paper, I quizzed myself about whether or not I was trying to make a point or just an observation. I’m still not certain. But, I can’t help wondering if each new artist to come along can find something totally new to sing about ‘love,’ do we, in our living day to day, tend to shortchange it or perhaps even worse, just ignore it?
1976
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