Though I Would Never See You Again Its a Miracle Thats What It Is
Love songs are where nosotros get our passion, our soul — and near of our worst ideas.
Throughout human history, oceans have been crossed, mountains have been scaled, and great families have blossomed — all considering of a few simple chords and a melody that inflamed a heart and propelled it on a noble, romantic mission.
On the other hand, that time you told that girl y'all just started seeing that you would "catch a grenade" for her? You did that because of a love vocal. And it wasn't exactly a coincidence that she suddenly decided to "lose your number" and move back to Milwaukee to "figure some stuff out."
That time you held that boom box over your head outside your ex's house? You did that because of a love song. And l hours of community service later on, you're nonetheless non back together.
Love songs are slap-up. They make our hearts beat faster. They inspire us to take risks and put our feelings on the line. And they give us terrible, terrible ideas about how actual, real-life human being relationships should work.
They're astonishing. Then astonishing. And likewise terrible.
Here are six beloved songs that audio romantic but aren't, and one song that doesn't sound romantic simply totally is:
1. "God Only Knows," past The Beach Boys
Y'all can go along your "Surfin' Safaris," your "I Become Arounds," and your "Help me Rhondas."
When it comes to The Beach Boys, "God Only Knows" is where it's at. A lush garden of soft horns and breezy melody. A tie-dye swirl of audio. A landscape of haunted innocence with some of the near heartrending lyrics ever committed to the back of a surfboard.
Here's why information technology sounds romantic:
I may not always honey y'all
But long equally there are stars above you
You never demand to uncertainty it
I'll brand you and then sure about it
God only knows what I'd be without you
If you're traipsing through a meadow in a sundress with your beloved and not playing "God Only Knows" on your iPod, you should really stop and showtime over.
If yous're lazily bumping a beach ball over a volleyball net and "God But Knows" isn't playing somewhere in the back of your mind, you demand to rethink the choices that got y'all to this betoken.
If you're a video editor compiling footage of grainy hippies frolicking in the mud and you're not underscoring it with the opening chords of "God Merely Knows," yous are doing it wrong.
It'southward a song that just feels like dearest. Pure love. Young love. Love with a chill, kelp-y vibe.
What could be incorrect with that?
Hither's why it'due south really actually, really unromantic:
At that place's zero wrong with loving someone. Sending them flowers. Leaving over-the-top notes in their P.O. boxes. Stroking their hair as they fall asleep while you whisper the complete works of Nicholas Sparks into their ear.
But there is such a affair as loving someone a skosh too much.
If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on believe me
The earth could evidence nothing to me
So what skilful would living practice me?
Wait, I get it. Breakups suck. At that place'due south no getting around that. But good God.
There'southward a huge deviation between saying: "Hey baby, y'all are my first and foremost everything and I'll be bummed if y'all go." And proverb: "Welp, you accustomed that job in Seattle, so I'1000 just gonna chug a agglomeration of nightshade and call information technology a life."
But that'south pretty much the gist hither. Which makes this line...
God only knows what I'd be without you
...horror-movie creepy. Because the answer, obviously, is: "I'd exist a corpse!"
That's not beloved. That'southward codependency (to put information technology mildly). Oh, and hey! Threatening to kill yourself if your partner leaves isn't loving. It'due south a class of emotional abuse.
Investing all your happiness and sense of self-worth in any relationship — one that, past definition, might one day end — is putting a lot of eggs in ane basket. Sure, God may only know what you'd be without her, but God probably also hopes you lot have, I don't know, some hobbies. Take a yoga class. Google some woodworking videos. Try kite surfing.
1 person cannot exist anyone'due south be-all and end-all. It's too stressful. And it prevents y'all from doing you, which is a matter that's gotta exist done before you can do anything else.
No wonder she took that job in Seattle.
2. "Treasure," by Bruno Mars
Sure, it'southward a breathy rip off of every Michael Jackson song you lot've ever heard. Merely, we don't accept Michael Jackson anymore, and as tribute acts get, you could practise a lot worse than Bruno Mars.
Here's why the vocal sounds romantic:
Treasure, that is what you lot are
Honey, you're my golden star
You know you lot tin can make my wish come true
If you let me treasure you lot
If you let me treasure you lot
Pass those lyrics to anyone on a used napkin at an eighth-course make-out party and yous'll likely become an instant cost laissez passer on the highway to natural language-town (ew).
Pass them to your spouse and, chances are, date night is going to culminate in 47 minutes of chaste-yet-passionate frenching.
Pass them to a cop who pulls yous over for running a terminate sign, and they will think y'all're weird — but probably still brand out with you.
In fact, Bruno Mars basically has a lifetime pass to make out with America because of this vocal.
And I'g OK with that.
But, here'south why "Treasure" isn't every bit romantic every bit it seems:
Everything nearly "Treasure" is retro. Everything.
Including its attitudes about gender.
Things start to go southward right from the very commencement:
Give me your, give me your, give me your attention, infant
I gotta tell you a little something nearly yourself
Ah yes. Zippo screams "respect" quite like a human being lecturing a strange woman on the street about something she "doesn't know about herself."
What could information technology be? Could it be that her jokes are funny? Could information technology be that she'southward got something in her teeth? Could it exist that her nonfiction volume about early on modern German history is extremely detailed and informative?
Spoiler Alarm: It'due south none of those.
You lot're wonderful, flawless, ooh, you're a sexy lady
Only you walk around here like you wanna be someone else
Oh. It'south that she'due south sexy. Cool, bro. Very original.
Word of advice? Regardless of how she's walking, the lady knows she'southward sexy. Fifty-fifty if she doesn't, information technology really doesn't affect her day-to-24-hour interval then much that you, a consummate stranger, need to shout information technology at her (fifty-fifty over a funky disco snare).
And then what if she does want to exist someone else? I'd love to exist someone else! I think beingness Ryan Gosling would be quite nice. A expert way to spend a three-day weekend.
And then later, of form, the narrator can't assistance himself:
Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl, y'all should be grin
A girl like you lot should never look so blue.
He respects her so much, he's really straight-upward telling her to smile! Much like Mars' character "Uptown Funk," who appears to get off on angrily exhorting girls to "hitting [their] hallelujah." Which, you know, I guess everybody's got a thing.
Yeah, in the globe of "Treasure," a healthy relationship is an unending stream of a homo complimenting a foreign woman and said adult female being and then totally flattered that she immediately dispenses "the sex."
He and so proceeds to talk to his potential lover similar the world'southward creepiest pirate:
You are my treasure, you lot are my treasure
Y'all are my treasure, yeah, you, y'all, you, you are
You are my treasure, you are my treasure
Yous are my treasure, yeah, yous, you, you, you are
By this point, in his listen, she's a literal thing. An object. Which is plumbing equipment.
I suppose information technology could be worse, though. At least she's non only any matter.
That's ... something, correct?
3. "Don't Think Twice, It'due south All Right," by Bob Dylan
For as long as humans have been dating each other, humans have been breaking upwards with each other. And "Don't Recall Twice" is a portrait of a human relationship going down in flames. Glorious, poetic, acoustic flames.
Here's why it sounds romantic:
Well, it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
Even you lot don't know past at present
And it ain't no apply to sit down and wonder why, babe
It'll never do somehow
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Wait out your window, and I'll be gone
Yous're the reason I'one thousand a-traveling on
Only don't think twice, it'southward all right.
Boom. Strummed on out of that friends-with-benefits situation like whoa.
"Don't Call back Twice" is a raw vocal. An honest song. A powerful song. It's the vocal your older sister played on continuous loop for six months afterwards her boyfriend left for college. The song that convinced your Aunt Roslyn to leave her depository financial institution-teller job, load her four Australian shepherds into the van, and open a wind chinkle store in Mendocino. The song your friend's absurd dad always wants to play when he invited your high school band over to his apartment to jam.
Sure, it'due south nigh the cease of a relationship, just information technology sounds romantic. And at the finish of the twenty-four hour period, shouldn't that exist enough?
Here'south why information technology's actually sooooo messed up:
Relationships finish. For a lot of reasons. And while there is no correct way to call information technology quits with someone, when the dust settles, both parties can certainly benefit from a difficult, honest discussion about what went wrong.
In "Don't Think Twice," that discussion basically boils downward to: "It'due south your fault."
Let'southward review the reasons the dude in "Don't Call back Twice" is splitting with his lady friend:
I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul
Ugh, women, right? Yous're all similar, "Babe, I just take and so much unspecified love to requite," and she'due south like, "Take out the trash!" And you're like, "Merely baaaaaaabe, shouldn't my middle be enough?" And she's similar, "No, seriously. I already did the laundry, cleaned the whole business firm, fed the dog, did the dishes, and made both of our lunches for the week. All I need you lot to do is take out the trash." And you're similar, "Y'all're aimless me out. I'one thousand gonna go play guitar." And then she gets all mad! What did y'all do? Why is she trying to modify yous? UGH!
You could accept done meliorate, but I don't mind
Yes. You exercise listen! You mind! You wrote a song about it, you passive-aggressive prick.
You just kinda wasted my precious fourth dimension
Ah yep. Your time is and then precious! Recall nearly all the hours yous wasted plumbing the ocean-deep, ecstatic mysteries of homo partnership when you could have been futzing around with that home-brew kit.
The infinitesimal you start breaking it downward, the bulletin of "Don't Call back Twice" suddenly starts to seem a lot less romantic. Like your sister's ex-boyfriend, who worked at the Bass Pro Shop in town for a while and now might exist in jail. Like your aunt'southward wind chime store, which would have closed forever agone had she non received that inheritance from her mom in the '80s. Like your friend'southward cool dad, who wasn't exactly, technically, paying kid support.
Oh aye, and the song's narrator also point-blank refers woman he'south leaving equally:
A child, I'one thousand told
That's right. In addition to beingness a run-of-the-mill passive-aggressive jerk — turns out, he's besides possibly a pedophile.
Even if nosotros are to accept that this is a metaphor and she'due south non actually a child — which in that location's no indication it is, merely OK, Bob Dylan — the fact that Commitmentphobe Gunderson here would willingly choose an immature partner reflects fashion more poorly on him than it does on her.
Breaking up with anyone in such a barbarous, dismissive way is a recipe for sticking them with years of therapy bills.
Which, I suppose, may be the point.
iv. "Leaving on a Jet Plane," by John Denver
Who has two thumbs and wrote a bittersweet folk vocal well-nigh hurtling through the stratosphere in a giant aluminum tube at 600 miles per hour?
Hither's why it sounds romantic:
"Leaving on a Jet Plane" is a lovely song. And impressive in its loveliness because jet planes were still kind of new at the time it was written.
'Crusade I'yard leavin' on a jet plane
To a mod ear, this would be sort of like singing, "I'g a scoooting away on my hoverboooooard," but in a manner that'due south somehow still folksy and heartbreaking and singable by 9-year-olds at summer camp. Non easy to do!
Oh baby, I detest to go
Y'all see — he hates to become! He simply hates it! Nosotros know this, considering he tells us he hates it. And why would he hate to get if he didn't love his partner merely that much?
Why indeed?
Hither'south why it's actually not that romantic at all:
All the plaintive guitar, loping bass line, and twangy, melancholy warbling in the globe can only distract and so much from the fact that the vocal'due south main character is well, kind of a jerkweed.
And in reality — surprise surprise! — information technology doesn't really seem like he hates being abroad all that much:
There'due south so many times I've allow yous down
So many times I've played around
I tell y'all now, they don't mean a thing
"Infant, I promise! All the movies I watched alone while you were dwelling house nursing the quadruplets. All the times I tuckered our life savings on Zoo Zillionaire. All the random sex I had with other women. Totally meaningless. Certainly fun to practice! Really fun. Like, I had a fantastic time. But rest assured — completely empty, in an ontological sense."
Yes, when you break it down, "Leaving on a Jet Plane," is less of a passionate tribute to love overcoming altitude and more than the deluded ramblings of a guy who needs to convince himself he's "adept" despite all show to the opposite.
And for all he claims to exist broken upwards well-nigh having to role from his ane and only, the dude seems pretty excited near the flight. Oh, you're leaving on a jet airplane, are you? Are you Zone 1? Gonna humblebrag on Twitter about the "terrible" Cibo express salad you lot were forced to asphyxiate downwardly as you sat waiting to commence on your fun, mysterious adventure?
He continues:
Ev'ry place I go, I'll think of you
Ev'ry song I sing, I'll sing for you
Ah absurd. He'll remember nigh her while strumming and making "my dear is delicate as the morning time dew" optics at a waif-y grad student in the forepart row. That pretty much makes up for it all.
Then he demands:
And then kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
After all the expose and heartbreak, after basically revealing himself to be a grade-A sleaze who can't be trusted, he still has the gall to tell her to wait? To await for him?
And here's the kicker:
When I come dorsum, I'll bring your wedding ring
Ah yes. He'll put a band on information technology. Finally.
Dissimilar all the previous trips, where he'south cheated a billion times, drained the family banking company account, and just been a full general screwup and disappointment.
But yeah. This time he says he'll bring back a wedding ring.
I hope she joins a polyamorous octad and never looks dorsum.
5. "When a Man Loves a Woman," Percy Sledge
When you await up "soul" in the dictionary, the book plays you a recording of this song.
Specifically, it plays you the very first line.
Here's why it sound very romantic:
When a man loves a woman
Sure, y'all can write the lyrics downward, only it doesn't even come up close to capturing the heartache. The yearning. The delicious, delicious hurting-belting:
WHEN A Man LOVES A WOMAN
Closer ... just still no.
WHEN A MAAAAAAAN. LOVES A WOOOMAN!
Yes! Sing it, Percy Sledge!
It's an elemental lyric.
It's a middle-shattering lyric.
It'southward a lyric that demands you put your back into it.
It'south perfection.
As long as you don't keep listening.
Here's why the song is actually pretty horrifying:
From the opening lines of "When a Homo Loves a Woman," we know that, at least on occasion, a human being loves a adult female.
Which raises the question: What happens when said man loves said woman?
He'd give up all his comforts
And sleep out in the pelting
If she said that'southward the way
It ought to exist.
Whoa! OK. No. Support. A man, no matter how devoted, no thing how selfless, no matter how in love, needs shelter. Otherwise, a man will dice of exposure and hypothermia.
Turn his back on his best friend if he put her down.
No! Jeez. No. A man can't put up with that kind of isolating behavior. A man needs friends! Once a homo's whole support system erodes out from under him, a human being will be bitter, ungrounded, and lone. And a homo'south mental health will deteriorate.
I gave you everything I have
Tryin' to hold on to your heartless honey
Baby, delight don't treat me bad.
This is not what happens "when a man loves a woman." Information technology's what happens when a homo loves a controlling, manipulative woman. An abusive woman. A woman who, in truth, only loves a woman. Herself.
And that'south not healthy.
Run, Percy Sledge, run! We're here for you.
(Side note: Lest it go unsaid, there is way more than ane way for a man to love a woman. Perhaps they spend every waking moment cuddling and bopping each other on the nose. Maybe they sleep in carve up bedrooms. Maybe they dress up in large, plush true cat costumes and refer to each other Mr. and Mrs. Kittyhawk. And when a man loves a man, I imagine it feels much the same. Or when a woman loves a woman. Or when a gender nonconforming person loves a gender nonconforming person.)
Regardless of the depth of commitment, living situation, or combination of genders or sexual orientations, there's no one-size-fits-all beloved solution. Every relationship is a unique snowflake. Variety is the spice of life. Necessity is the mother of invention. At that place's more i way to skin a cat. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine get downwardly.
Point being: Generalize at your peril, Sledge. And please, seek help! You can do this! And if you e'er find yourself in a similar situation, please requite these people a call.
6. "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You," Middle
Honestly, Heart could sing a list of the most pop AllRecipes ("Jaaaamie's Cranberry Spinach Saaaaalad/World'south Best Lasaaaaagna/Sour Creeeeeam Cutouts") and it would brand me want to bawl my eyes out in the arms of a tall, nighttime stranger at the terminate of a pier.
This song is perfect. You should always exist listening to it. If you're not listening to it now, smack yourself in the face and Google information technology. It'southward simply that important.
So much passion. And so much pain. And then much hair.
Here's why it sounds romantic:
Over pounding drums and a soaring melody, Center sisters Nancy and Ann Wilson deliver a primal tribute to the one true romantic fantasy shared past every living being on Earth: picking up an unnervingly attractive human being for ane night of mind-blowing sex and and so releasing him back into the wild to os — but never quite every bit compellingly ever again.
They sing:
Information technology was a rainy night when he came into sight
Continuing by the route, no umbrella, no coat
And so I pulled upward aslope and I offered him a ride
He accepted with a grinning so we drove for a while
I don't take to go on because you know what happens side by side, and information technology's crawly.
Now, here's why this song is not romantic at all:
The human relationship in "All I Wanna Practice" seems besides good to be true. And information technology is. Because it's non an every bit loving ,or fifty-fifty every bit lusty, pairing at all.
It's a...
It's a...
Well. You know what it is:
For a while, things are humming along only fine, like any wholesome, illicit, bearding matter should:
I didn't ask him his name, this lonely boy in the pelting
Fate, tell me it'south right, is this love at first sight?
Sure, many of us might hesitate to selection upward a strange leather-jacket-clad man standing on the side of the road for a no-strings-attached spiral, but our narrator just has a feeling nigh this guy, and sometimes, you gotta go with your gut.
I tin respect that.
Nosotros made magic that night
He did everything correct
Great! Seems like it was a good decision. Bonking the hitchhiker is payin' off big fourth dimension.
Just then, without warning, the song starts to sound less similar an all-time cracking romance and more than similar a story men's rights activists tell each other as they vape around a campfire:
I told him "I am the flower, y'all are the seed
We walked in the garden, we planted a tree
Don't try to find me, please don't yous cartel
Just live in my memory, yous'll e'er exist at that place"
I'm non a poet. Symbolic language frequently eludes me. Merely unless "flower," "seed," "garden," and "tree," suddenly mean wildly different things in the context of human reproduction than they have since sex was first invented in the early on-1970s, we're talking about a surprise, non-mutually-consensual pregnancy!
Of course, metaphors are opaque, interpretations vary, etc., etc., etc. You might be tempted to think, "Maybe Heart meant something else past that."
To that I say, no, they definitely meant it:
And then it happened one mean solar day
We came round the same way
You tin imagine his surprise
When he saw his ain optics
There are two possibilities hither.
One: The narrator of the song is recently-deceased Jerry Orbach from this creepy New York City subway advertizing from nine years ago:
Or ii: She totally conned a dude into whipping up a baby on the sly.
I said, "Please, please understand
Ah, sure. Yeah. No worries.
I'm in honey with another man
Cool, so this all makes sense and is in no mode the nightmarish scheme of a deranged sociopath who has now wrecked non i only 2 lives.
And what he couldn't requite me, oh, no
Was the ane little thing that you can"
A HUMAN LIFE! A Real SENTIENT HUMAN LIFE THAT IS NOT INCIDENTAL TO ALL OF THIS!
The all-time you can say about that is that it's not technically illegal, and that leather-jacket man probably should take been responsible for his ain birth command. Or, at the very least, asked more questions .
Only ... information technology's not cute. It'due south not romantic (even the Wilson sisters themselves concur).
And at the end of the solar day, the shadiest character in this song is somehow non the rain-soaked hitchhiker wandering to nowhere in the night.
Which... is saying something.
But there is a beloved vocal that is truly, madly, deeply perfect. An unassailable track in a sea of problematic faves.
A song that does everything right.
A song that paints a portrait of a healthy partnership built to final.
A vocal that tin can double every bit a manual for the platonic man romantic relationship.
And that song is...
"Candy Shop," past 50 Cent, featuring Olivia
Here's why you might be — OK, well-nigh definitely are — skeptical:
As catchy as "Candy Shop" is, equally fun information technology is to dance to, and equally cathartic as it tin can be to scream in the middle of a crowded fraternity house at two a.m., there's no getting around the fact that the song begins similar this:
I'll take you to the candy store
I'll let you lick the lollipop
I'll mail service that again, in case you missed some of the nuance:
I'll accept y'all to the candy shop
I'll permit you lick the lollipop
Manner to accept one for the team, narrator of "Candy Shop"!
At first glance, "Candy Shop" is nobody'southward thought of a classic love song.
The lyrics are ... unusually forward. The beat out is kinda basic. The hook is similar the music they play when Abu Nazir sidles scarily by in "Homeland."
It doesn't go played much anymore. When it does resurface, it feels ... kinda dated. Like watching that DVD of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Burn down" on your new Xbox 360.
It's not a song yous'd put on a mixtape for your crush. Information technology'southward non a song you'd play for your spouse when the kids are at home with the babysitter and you've got nine hours to tear up the Piscataway Hampton Inn. It's certainly not a song you'd include on the video photo montage you lot made for your grandparents' silver anniversary.
It'due south just not.
But it should be.
So here information technology is. Here'south why "Candy Shop" by 50 Cent, featuring Olivia, is actually the perfect relationship song:
The bass drum hits. The MIDI violins whine. The singer starts filling out his fellatio permission sideslip. It's but been twenty seconds, and you lot're already getting ready to hang information technology up with "Candy Shop."
But then ... over the square thrum and the mewling strings, a miracle occurs — in the form of a female voice joining the track, cutting through the din like a clarion call.
She sings:
I'll take you to the processed store (yep)
Boy, one taste of what I got (uh-huh)
I'll accept you lot spendin' all you got (come on)
Keep going 'til you hitting the spot, whoa
Information technology's mutual! It's common! They're performing oral sex on each other!
Band the bells! Bang the drums! Release the doves!
l Cent himself may non be the globe'due south greatest partner — for example, according to ane of his exes, he's done some pretty unforgivable things.
But the narrator of "Candy Shop"? He gets it:
You could take it your manner, how do you desire information technology?
Rather than only imposing his desires on the person he's with — a la the dude in "God Only Knows ("I'grand going to invest my unabridged sense of self-worth in you lot!") or the street heckler in "Treasure" ("I'm going to treat you lot like a chest full of gold doubloons!") or the sociopath in "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to Yous," ("I'm going to trick yous into knocking me up!") — the "Candy Shop" guy really asks his partner what she wants.
Which, in the globe of pop music, is adept for about l,000 trillion points.
And where are they going to exercise it? The hotel? Dorsum of the rental? The beach? The park?
It'due south whatsoever you're into
'Cause consent is sexy!
I ain't finished teaching you 'bout how sprung I got ya
The narrator of "Candy Shop" is certainly ... believing about his desires.
Simply here'southward the key thing: the lady on the receiving end of those desires? She'due south clearly into information technology. And we know this because she says then.
The lines of consent in "Candy Shop" are brilliant red, highlighted, and soldered into the weirdly sticky club flooring.
Girl what we practise ...
And where we do ...
The things nosotros do ...
Are just betwixt me and yous
No matter how nasty they freak, it will exist intimate. It volition be private. There volition be no revenge porn (the epilogue to "Blurred Lines," to wit, would definitely be a protracted, emotionally devastating lawsuit).
If you be a nympho, I'll be a nympho
Sexual compatibility is key to the survival of any relationship, whether years, weeks, or (very possibly in the case of "Candy Shop") minutes long.
She may take a high sex bulldoze, but dude is graciously offering to arrange her. What a gentleman! These crazy kids merely might get the altitude later all.
And at the stop of the day, what is a relationship but two nymphos, sharing health insurance?
It'south similar information technology's a race who could get undressed quicker
Again, everybody is having a great time. And, critically, an equally great fourth dimension.
I touch the right spot at the right time
Of course, it wouldn't be a pop/hip-hop hitting without a spot of random humbug, only if we're to take him at his word, "Processed Shop" guy is at least as skilful at "doing everything right" as the anonymous hitchhiker from "All I Wanna Do is Brand Love to You lot" — except without all the creepy surprise infant nonsense.
The "Candy Shop" guy is a keeper. Because he's not a hero or a stranger in the nighttime or a funky, shimmering love god. He's a good partner.
"Processed Shop" is raunchy. It'southward dingy. Information technology's not your grandmother's beloved vocal.
But when yous strip away the swagger, the dorsum beat, and the weird strings from "All-time of Public Domain Middle Eastern Music 1993," by the finish of the song, both people are satisfied. And at the end of the day, isn't that what a healthy human relationship is all near?
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Then seductive.
Source: https://www.upworthy.com/6-songs-that-seem-romantic-but-arent-and-one-that-seems-like-it-isnt-but-is
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