A friend called this morning and said “you have to write about love.” He was talking about the increasing use of the word by young adults – they love pizza, they love a movie, they even love the idea of using the word “love” in papers and emails intended for professors. He thinks they use the word excessively and inappropriately. He’s probably right.
So I decided to write a post about love. Well, not really. I had most of this already written because I have been thinking about love since Valentine’s Day. (Not non-stop.) A professional blogger (one who hopes to make money) would have posted a blog of this nature, you know, on Valentine’s Day. Amateurish me took the prompting that the day provided and thought about it for three weeks.
Valentine’s Day has all the makings of a Hallmark holiday: one that is designed primarily to sell greeting cards. But its roots are Roman, long predating the advent of Hallmark Cards, Inc. or the trappings of commercialism. It is and always has been a day associated with love.[1] Something similar can be said for country music.
I grew up in Maine and was inundated with what is now called classic country music. My mother’s favorite performer was Conway Twitty and for good reason. He had an outstanding emotive voice, remains a country legend, and was a good enough baseball player to be offered a contract by the Philadelphia Phillies. Twitty also had significant success singing pop music, peaking with the number one hit It’s Only Make Believe.[2] But his true calling was country music, where he could sing about strong, passionate, unending love.
In the song Fifteen Years Ago, which was written by Raymond Smith, the singer bumps into a friend, who mentions the name of a woman the singer used to date. Twitty sang:
“Fifteen years ago and I still feel the same.
Why did he have to mention your name?
I’m as broken up inside as if it’s been a week or so
Takes a mighty strong love
To keep a man thinking of
A girl he hasn’t seen since fifteen years ago.”[3]
After fifteen years, the singer still feels the pain of the breakup as if it happened last week. That is a “mighty strong love,” but not singular. In the song Hello Darling, which Twitty (real name Harold Jenkins) both wrote and performed, the conceit is that the singer runs into an old girlfriend. Upon being asked how he is, he replies:
“How am I doing?
I’m doing alright
Except I can’t sleep and I cry all night ‘til dawn.”
As they say goodbye, he sings:
“If you should ever find it
In your heart to forgive me
Come back, darlin’
I’ll be waiting for you.”[4]
We are supposed to believe that he has forsaken all other women and is forlornly waiting for her to return to him. Again, “a mighty strong love,” and again not unique.
George Jones sang the anthem of one-sided love stories: He Stopped Loving Her Today. Jones hated the song when he first heard it, but he made it his own and it remade Jones, whose career had faltered. Written in 1980, the singer tells of his friend who has been in love with a woman that he hasn’t seen since 1962. Alas,
“He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they’ll carry him away
He stopped loving her today.”[5]
These are tales of powerful love that caused sad lives. This is the kind of stuff that, fortunately, you don’t see every day. I don’t know of anyone who has forsaken relationships forever because of a lost love. Do you? I believe this brand of love belongs exclusively to country songs, romantic novels, and the like. It certainly isn’t the love of today’s college students, who apply the word to any fleeting fancy.
One last thought – imagine that you are the subject of such a song. That you caused someone to give up on love, that they loved you so much that they can’t envision loving someone else. Would you feel good about that? It seems like it might be a significant ego boost. Or would you feel bad, that you had (however inadvertently) caused a life of sorrow? I can say with a high degree of confidence that I have never inspired anybody to write such a plaintive love song.
[1] The day is named for a bishop who performed marriage ceremonies for couples who were otherwise forbidden to marry each other. His actions did not please the emperor, who had him beheaded.
[2] It doesn’t take much imagination to hear a little Elvis in this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJefPaBsSug
[3] To hear the song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCRH9JLaoiM The quoted portion starts 44 seconds in. There is no video.
[4] This link has video of a young Conway wearing a suit and tie in front of a fireplace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og1QRtcWdEY The first excerpt starts at 40 seconds, the second at 2:06.
[5] This song is haunting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubKUP8c0FHE The quoted verse can be found at 1:54.
The discussion and links to music is a nice addition.
Typo: you meant “now called” instead of “not called”
I grew up in Maine and was inundated with what is not called classic country music.
That’s a pretty substantive typo. Most don’t completely change the meaning of a sentence.