Love Songs?

  
  I know I promised a blog entitled, Cup of Love Run Dry: how we treat or mistreat those closest to us, but I am inspired and can’t ignore it.  In media and pop culture every other song is about love or lack of love or love lost.  For someone who is irritated with the concept, it get’s very trying on my nerves. But then I started to think, for a country so obsessed with love, you’d think we would be better at it, but that is one thing, among many, that we fail at constantly.  Why is that? Disclaimer: this blog, in no way, attempts to serve as a love self help guide or anything of the sort. Anyone who personally knows me, knows that I am in no position to give out love advice. This is simply commentary on the current state of affairs in the love department.  
     I used to absolutely love the song In Love With You, by Erykah Badu (I know, I know, I mention her in practically every post, but if it fits, it fits) and even considered it being my wedding song, when I was still open to the concept of marriage. The song goes as following.

And she says she needs more than a friend
That's all I ever been yo
Well one day you gon' overstand yo badu
And I remember the first time that we met yo
How could I forget
When you smiled
And I turned and said to you
Yo, your pure and true
I'm in love with you, in love with you
I'm in love with you, in love with you
I'm in love with you, in love with you
I'm in love with you, in love with you, yeah
I'm so in love baby
I don't care what your mama say
Standing in love lady
And I don't care what your sister say
Yo badu I need ya
[Badu]
He said he's really diggin me
I don't know what to say
I can't imagine why I feel so weak, say, say
That's when he took my heart in his hands
And kissed it gently
He open up his lips then said this poetry
I'm in love with you, love with you
Love with you, love with you
Love with you, love with you
Love with you, love with you
I'm so in love baby
I don't care what your brothers say, no
I'm so in love baby
I don't care what the people say
[Lion & Badu]
Well I try and I try and I try
And I try and I try and I try and I try and I try
[Lion]
And you said you need more than a friend
That's all I've ever been yo
Well one day you gon' overstand yo badu
[Badu]
And when I look In your eyes
I know that you were meant to be
My solider so baby come on
I mean it desperately
[Badu & Lion]
I'm in love with you, love with you
I'm in love with you, in love with you
No see I'm in love with you, love with you
No, no, no I'm in love with you, in love with you
I'm so in love baby
I don't care what the people say
Standing in love lady
And I don't care what your sister say
I'm so in love baby
I don't care what the writers say
(Badu-da-dee..)
I try, I try, I try, I try
You in love with me
You in love with me
No you in love with me
No, no, no you in love with me
No see you in love with me
No, no, no you in love with me
No you think you in love with
No, no, no you in love with me
I know you're in love with me
No, no, no you in love with me
Alright I'm in love with you
Yes I'm in love you
I'm in love with you
And I'm in love with you
I'm in love with you
I'm in love with you
I'm in love with you
I'm in love with you
(Badu-badee...)
Yes I'm in love with you
Yes I'm in love with you

I probably didn’t have to post the whole song because once you read one line, you get the jest of it. 
     Although I can still tolerate this song when my mood is right, it doesn’t seem like the song is describing love, and given Ms. Badu’s own personal love background, I think I am on point with this one. If you read my Humility post, you will see some overlap with my critiques.   The last stanza or so is a competition between the two singers over who loves who, who loves who first, and whatnot. This competitive nature is a referent for pride and pride can’t be a factor in love, at least the kind of love I believe in.
     Joss Stone has a song called Super Duper Love.  In the first stanza she attempts to define love. Instead, this stanza seems to describe a common misperception, confusing what you think is love with a facade, keeping up an act or performance. That is not to say that we aren’t always performing but this isn’t the place to get into Goffman or Butler. 

Yeh are you diggin on me
Yeh yeh yeh
Im diggin on u now baby
Yeh do u wanna little bit of my love
Yeh wait a minute wait a minute
All the time i knew that you loved me
Because you were always there
Could i be that mistaken
Believing that you really care
In the presence of all my friends
You stood there holding my hand
And you promise me faithfully
That you will be my only man

So is that all it takes? Diggin on one another and performing in a nature that is reminiscent of what others think love is? I’m not convinced that is love, especially not super duper love as Stone describes it.
     So maybe me being sick of love songs reflects the fact that many of the “love songs” are not love songs at all.  I am in no way trying to conflate these two songs with all love songs, I just don’t have time to go through any more so these two serve as examples.  These songs are sad excuses for attempting to address the topic.  Maybe that is why we aren’t better at love.   Although we appear to be obsessed with it, we aren’t obsessed with it. We are obsessed with the appearance of love in a very self serving way. I don’t have a definition of love, so I guess that is something we will have to ponder together, but I do think it exists, just as much as anything exists. It’s all about how we interpret it.