Silly (and ineffective) Love Songs

"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something, we’d all love one another."
-Frank Zappa

Frank has a point. But flaws have been exposed as I ponder moments in my life when songs have made me love and I'm not even talking about love songs per se. "Sultans of Swing" comes to mind instantly. That song takes me right back to the Winneshiek County Fair and the chain-linked swing chair ride whose centripetal force would turn you sideways high enough to see the corn fields beyond the drive in theater. Our mopeds waited down below and love, in its budding form, stumbled around smelling like cotton candy and a new stick of Speed Stick. Whenever I hear that song, after marveling at Mark Knopfler's soloing dexterity and timing, I feel some of that young, directionless love coursing through my aging veins and it gives me comfort. So thanks Mark.

Now as far as a true love song, hearing Al Green croon "Let's Stay Together" transports me back to one of my brothers' weddings when it was played at the reception as their wedding dance after the lid to the pressure cooker was finally unscrewed. Amazing. And I can see myself awkwardly grooving on the sidelines and shuffling on the wide old hardwoods, straddled between two periods of growth not yet understanding what being "together" was in the first place let alone staying there. I had sunglasses on and was attempting a peek at the sun but Al told me there's no need to go at it that way. Thanks Al.

Massive Attack's "Teardrop", on the other hand, is an excellent (and quite possibly the only) example of a love song that is sung in an undecipherable language and one that even Noam Chomsky would not understand but for me it speaks of the highest love and reminds me in every way when I fell in love with my wo-man for the first time. Soft Phillippino sand, lost flip flops, king tides, burning thatched roofs and angry string rays become the backdrop for me and my lover girl whenever I hear Elizabeth Fraser sing that gorgeous melody with all those mushy words acting like lyrics and reciting the ingredients for love. Thanks Beth.

The list could go on forever. George Harrison. Thank you for writing "Something" for it takes me back to eating my mother's lasagna after a huge day of sledding on those steep, snowy bluffs of northeastern Iowa, surrounded by my family and happy as Larry. Joni, thanks for offering up "Coyote" and even The Blue Nile for "Tinsletown in the Rain", both of which helped me fall in love with the road and it's unrivaled solitude and arguably helped me learn to love inanimate objects such as blacktop, fuel gauge needles, and truck stops. Now that's something. So Frank, although your songs have never made me move to Montana to start a dental floss ranch, they certainly have sparked cinematic visions in my head. For that I thank you.

The issue here is not that love songs do or don't actually make people love each other but rather that songs are indicators of how our memories are extremely - and sadly - short term by their very nature. For 3 minutes and 21 seconds, we're the most incredible lovers creating sparks with our hands, flowers with our lips and ceasefires with our moans. But after that song is over, we tend to slip back into our old selves clawing back up that mountain in search of enlightenment or hoping to hold love in our hands once again. Perhaps if we had love songs playing constantly in our heads, we would always be in a state of love or loving. But that sounds awful. Give me silence. Give me nature. Give me traffic noise. Now that's real love...that and Nick Cave's "Into My Arms". Thanks Nick.