At first I came up totally blank. How can I know no love songs? Are there no good love songs? Is it just me, did I just spend too much time listening to Megadeth in my teens and 20's? I traced the windy twisted paths of memory in that melon of mine, and finally came up with what I call a love song. Except it was by "The Cure." If you were a Cure fan, you will know they were semi-gothic in some periods, and what one MTV DJ called "the most depressed people alive." Their music was not generally about happy endings, in fact, it was often downright sad, but I always found it beautiful for depth of feelings and expressions of devotion...even if it never worked in the end. So my first attempt at coming up with a love song was "To Wish Impossible Things." If you are killing time and want to hear it, I will put a video link below, don't think the band ever did an official video.
I thought to myself, "That's a terrible love song," and tried to do better. I came up with a litany of more Cure Music, mostly from the Disintegration album. Plainsong, Prayers for Rain, Same Deep Water as You, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea (love the lyrics..."and so we watched the sun come up from the edge of the Deep Green Sea, and she listens like her head's on fire like she wants to believe in me..." Yup, the Cure references rain and water a lot. I texted a besty and asked for the first good love song they could name. The reply came back "Total Eclipse of the Heart." "That's a terrible love song, it doesn't have a happy ending," I replied. "No?" "No, it ends all 'once upon a time there was light in my life, now there's only love in the dark." It left me wondering...are there just no love songs with happy endings in the style of music I like? If there are, why don't I have any on the playlists in my head? It was a Carrie Bradshaw moment..."Are all the love songs dead?"
And the my inner scientist got going. It went a bit like this.
Observation: Most people would agree there is at least a loose association between the music they like and their life. Do you choose music because it relates to your experience?
Hypothesis: The music you choose is related to experience. But how closely does it relate to aspects of your character, your values? Does it reflect past experiences? Does it predict future outcomes? What do the love songs you love say about YOU? I hypothesize correlation between music and the past, and even future.
The experiment: A Facebook poll. I put you on the spot and asked for your favorite love songs.
The Results and Discussion Combined: Intriguing! When I asked you each for your favorite love song, 17 of you provided 21 answers. Some of you gave two and three (you know who you are) answers. I am not sure if I should attribute this to indecision, being overly enthusiastic about love (which I applaud), being confused about love (understandable), or as an attempt to muddle this very poor attempt to pass off ramblings as scientific evidence (I have already sabotaged that, fear not). The next thing I noticed was that the songs fell into natural groups.
Group 1: Amazed by Lonestar, I Need You by Marc Antony, Time In a Bottle by Jim Croche, Love Me Tender by Elvis, Baby I Love Your Way originally by Peter Frampton, Unforgettable by Natalie
Cole, Where Have You Been by Kathy Mattea, and Marry Me by Train.
Group 2: The Chair by George Strait, Something About a Truck by Kip Moore, and Crash Into Me by Dave Matthews.
Group 3: Standchen by Schubert. .
Group 4: True Colors by Cyndi Lauper, Africa by Toto, By Your Side by Sade, Goodbye Girl by David Gates
Group 5: Iris by the GooGoo Dolls, Broken by Seether, The World Spins Madly on by the Weepies (the artist name says it all), All About Her by Gord Bamford, and Crazy by Patsy Cline.
Now how does all of this data correlate?
Group 1. You probably won't be surprised, but I am going to classify this as "my married group." Most are married, some are common law, but everyone in this group has been married except in one case and for them it's vitually inevitable.
Group 2, my "country group." I am not going to lie to you, this was the most confusing group for me. I read the lyrics to "The Chair" and was totally confused with that and where it came from for a moment. Chalk that up to my country illiteracy. But then I got the second country song, which was not about being in love with a truck as I feared, but rather being in love with a moment...and a nameless girl in a red dress. Then I realized "The Chair" talks about a meeting, and a start, albeit a drunken one. Crash Into Me made me blush...definitely about a moment. Now each of the people in this group are in a different relationship status right now. When I ask myself what puts them in a group together besides these songs, it's that they are all smiling in my memories of them. Maybe they all get how to be grateful for the moment...be it the first one, a once upon a time, or a now.
Group 3. My outlier. This song, of course, has no lyrics. So I listened to it, and thanks to Hollywood, pictured powdered wigs, corseted decolletage, and a waltz. Period Romance. The submittor? A Group 1'er of course...but one who earned a category apart for originality.
Group 4 and 5 are my "singles subsets." No one in either of these groups is currently married (if I am wrong you seriously owe me an email), although some in both groups have been previously married. The difference in my mind between the songs of Groups 4 and 5 is that in Group 4 the songs speak of separation but not severance. There is a continuity of love despite a physical separation in space. (Some of you Group 4's owe me an email as well.) Group 5, quite plainly, speaks of severance rather than separation. There is grief to that loss. Heroically, stoically, sadly, love stands alone in these songs.
Conclusion: So there is a clear association between your current relationship status and the story in the love song chosen (even kinda for those challenging types that submitted 3 different songs from 3 different groups). We enjoy music we relate to. But what about the predictive value? Let's take "Crazy." Released in 1961, the person who submitted this song loved it long before they could relate to it. The person who loved Elvis' "Love Me Tender" probably loved it right in 1956 when it was released and was years away from a marriage that is 40+ years and still going. So does your song predict your fate? Are my Group 5's doomed forever more?
Absolutely not! There is predictive value, not in literal outcome, but in personal perspective. I do think your song, all of your songs, speak volumes about how you think, how you feel. My group 4's are my calmly independent, perpetual and strong optimists, and they are all going to live happily ever after, whatever happens, just as your plucky songs are living happily ever after on the airwaves. And my special Group 5's, who live and love deeply and extremely, who grieve acutely, and somedays feel as melancholy as the songs I love (you are definitely "my people") whether in the near or distant future, love has already shaped you, and it will be the most delightfully exceptional person who moves that deep dark romantic heart of yours.
And now that the science is over, the story needs an epilogue. Obviously, I am a Group 5'er, and a definite Group 4 sympathizer. And while I deeply enjoyed relistening to 20 years of the Cure while writing this blog, I can leave you on a pluckier Group 4 note, with this song, Summer Rain. Reminds me of dancing in the rain (in the spring though) on Whyte Avenue with someone who looked a lot like Captain America (yeah, Chris Evans). Once again, the song preceded the reality. But that's another story for another time. Group 5's don't like to reveal tooo much.
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