Alright, I give. That lovey-dovey holiday is just a stone's throw from this dreary Thursday afternoon, so I'll play that old love song game. I don't know why I'm so averse to the idea of songs about love. Maybe it's because there are far too many songs that imagine they're about love when really they're just about sex, a crush or the cynical pursuit of easy record sales. It may also have to do with the fact that my childhood took place during what is certainly the worst time in history for music, the late 80's and early 90's. All those terrible slow dance songs a la Michael Bolton, only to be somehow overshadowed a decade later by the rage-inducing tones of Celine Dion. I shudder just to think of it. I'll grin and bear those memories for today's feature, a few love songs that actually qualify as good music.
Start Wearing Purple by Gogol Bordello
I'd like to start off the list today with a tune that manages to say something relatively unique for a love song. The Eastern European gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello recorded "Start Wearing Purple" for their debut album Voi-La Intruder in 1999. The song was written by frontman Eugene Hutz and it has an unusual origin, which is fitting for an unusual love song. Hutz claims that it grew out of the arguments he used to have with his girlfriend. The couple had a neighbor in New York City who was an insane old woman who wore the color purple every day. When fighting, Hutz would tell his girlfriend she might as well start wearing purple like the crazy old lady. The song is a loving, if brash, reminder that we all get old and lose the characteristic sharpness of our youth along the way. It's roundabout, but "Start Wearing Purple" is really a song about a man telling a woman that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Romantic, yes, but also unsettling.
Lovesong and Friday I'm in Love by The Cure
The Cure has remained popular for nearly thirty years if only because their music appeals to some of the most basic emotional hues of being a teenager. All that angst and elation and curiosity and intensity are inherent to the band's sound, especially when it comes to the subject of love. The two songs I've selected from The Cure's catalog are prime examples of the two extremes of that young love spectrum. The alternately sullen and yowling "Lovesong" captures the longing and desperation of being a smitten teen without overlooking that tragic inability to conceive the true meaning of "always". On the other side there's "Friday I'm in Love", a cheeky pop tune about the simple joys of looking forward to the weekend where all the freedom and possibilities of life await. Singer/songwriter Robert Smith never says if the speaker in the song is in love with the same person each Friday, but that's really beside the point.
"Hold On", the beautiful, run-down centerpiece of 1999's Mule Variations, isn't a song that's just about love, but then again actual love isn't just about love. It tells the story of a young woman who leaves behind her home town and the man who would have kept her there for her entire life. The spare tune that follows depicts a few small but stunning scenes in the nameless protagonist's journey across the country with her vagabond lover. In a way that only Tom Waits can, the song is both hopeful and heartbreaking, spinning a wholly believable yarn about scrappy people who spend their entire lives on the edge of a sad ending in search of something special. For all those aspiring romantics out there, give "Hold On" a listen. It may inspire you to go out on a limb for love, even if it leaves you dancing alone out in the cold.
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