From time to time I hear a song and I think, “Now *that* is the sound of love.”\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong — I have serious epistemological issues with the whole damned thing, but there is a sound that seems to fit the bill.<\/p>\n
Now I am not talking about the sound of (ahem) making love (see Aerosmith, Back in the Saddle<\/span>, ahem ahem, if you get my drift), or music which puts one in the mood for love (paging Dr. Barry White).\u00a0 Just the sound of the emotion itself.<\/p>\n The first song that seemed to capture that sound for me was Sara<\/span> by Fleetwood Mac.\u00a0 There’s a story behind the song, layered and poignant, which sort of fits and not fits.\u00a0 But the sound is wun hunnert percent what I am talking about.\u00a0 There’s an echoing, swaying, almost *sloshing* ease; a wash of waves over an expectant shore, and it rises and falls to a longer rhythm of acceptance and recrimination, and acceptance again.<\/p>\n The actual story told in the song is difficult to pick out — I wound up reading it somewhere.\u00a0 The sound is the thing, and so I place it at the top of my list despite there being no particular order.\u00a0 Nor depth, as I only have two that come to mind right now.\u00a0 But I will update this from time to time.<\/p>\n Brief note from work (de minimus): I have been sifting through Carpenters songs looking for what must surely be in there.\u00a0 Closest I can get is either Goodbye to Love, or Only yesterday.\u00a0 Goodbye to Love is not so much the sound of love, but of acceptance of its passage.\u00a0 Only yesterday comes close, but it isn’t exactly what I’m looking for.\u00a0 But pretty much anything by sung by Karen Carpenter, to include a phone book, sounds like love to me.\u00a0 She was special.<\/p>\n The search continues.<\/p>\n [UPDATE 11 May]<\/p>\n So, this is tougher than it would seem.\u00a0 Most of the “Love” songs are about longing or loss, and convey that in the sound.\u00a0 And while I have a plethora of favorites in those flavors, songs which seem to capture the sounds of love itself are surprisingly rare.\u00a0 Now the word “love” is a ridiculously broad (!) term, so I am positive that I am not explaining this well.\u00a0 Perhaps you know what I mean.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the song Sara is emphatically not a love song proper.\u00a0 It is about longing and loss, but the sound of it puts it on this list.<\/p>\n From time to time I hear a song and I think, “Now *that* is the sound of love.”\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong — I have serious epistemological issues with the whole damned thing, but there is a sound that seems to fit the bill.<\/p>\n Now I am not talking about the sound of (ahem) making love (see Aerosmith, Back in the Saddle, ahem ahem, if you get my drift), or music which puts one in the mood for love (paging Dr. Barry White).\u00a0 Just the sound of the emotion itself.<\/p>\n The first song that seemed to capture that sound for me was Sara by Fleetwood Mac.\u00a0 There’s a story behind the song, layered and poignant, which sort of fits and not fits.\u00a0 But the sound is wun hunnert … Continue reading \n