Music & Love, Amongst Few Other Things

If you have been through those golden seventies, with artists and bands like Engelbert
Humperdinck , Jim Groce , Melanie, John Denver, Gino Vannelli, Art Garfunkel and
Stephen Bishop, America and Carpenters , then you are sure to get it what I mean
here. It is all about love and music, how related to each other and what changes have
been inflicted on both ,during some four decades of time , but first of all , what is
"Love" anyway ?
Is it "a feeling", "a need" for someone, or is it "a high value", an extravaganza to
guard and endear?
Is it all that life is all about ( at least for the middle portion of the young's life cycle
,when their hormones seem to drive them on, more than their brains do !)? Is it a
destiny, where one half seeks his missing half, or is it just a coincidence that a man
meets a woman , love flickers, and that's all ?
Is it attraction between two differently charged poles, or is it similarity that brings
both people together?
Is it passion or compassion ? Is it a cover for a nature's trick to allow for survival , a
trick for that lifetime, burdening, and exhaustive commitment that is most sure to
follow?
Is it a misgiving to acquire and dominate ,or is it just a bond to commit?
Is it about caring or is it about sharing ?
What is it, that many splendored thing that drives lovers to their fatal matrimony and
promises them of bitter heartbreaks for tens of years to follow?
Why do people choose to undergo long agonizing shifts of arbitrary sleep enmity,
staying awake, romancing at the moon , texting and smsing,( In our times, it was
rhyming and rhyming!) , laughing to the mobile and PC monitor , or may be just
frowning and crying? But why cry, young Romeo ? A few years later from any
marriage, it all takes quite a different shape, switching from those meanings of
"Beautiful Strangers" of Madonna to the solemn meanings of " Familiarity Breeds
Contempt", that sweet human flesh turning into familiar human meat ,and scents of
her/his body turning into sweat and repulsive aroma , and all those puzzling features
of her/his face disappearing forever, leaving behind them a casual repeated image that
hardly turns any button on !!, further opening the door wide open for routine and loss
of interest, if not for a total eclipse of the whole feelings ( the best lines to describe it
here are Roger Waters', " …. I have grown older, and you have gone colder, and
nothing is very much fun"!!), what a shame that love turns into waste , what a bitter
end to a flaming passion that has been conveyed from generation to generation, thru
fairytales and folklore sagas , never fading away! .
For the young , it is love, but for the adult and the elderly, it is rather love mingled
with sexual and gender attraction , the need to sense , to feel the warmth of the
beloved one , and repel the shadow of solitude. Love is much like a mask, alluring
the mind, allowing for the irrational to look "overwhelming" , the typical and casual,
to sound " extra ordinary".

Music and poetry may be the best tools to review "Love" trends, both seem to be the
most common modes of expressing human feelings, including love itself .Lyrics of
songs overmatch poetry, same as PPS files do with respect to MS Word documents.
too many factors seem to contribute to it , the melody, the performance of the artist,
and the composition of the lyrics itself. Going back to those seventies, the golden era
of music and songs, as I tend to believe , one can recall the greatest quotes that
managed to live tens of years after their date of release. Comparing those quotes to
any rap songs lyrics is never to do the latter any good. It seems as if romance has
been made to subside, leaving the conquering "sex and lust motives" to rule the scene,
I feel the nostalgic yearning for those great tracks of that golden era when ever I am
browsing the receiver, I long to hit a station playing tracks for The Carpenters and
America, but what do I get in stead? A bunch of daily Hip Hop and Rap clips,
embedded with all suggestive, explicit and sexplicit gestures, continuous swaying
bodies and Beyoncic butts!!, is that all there is ?I guess we need to establish a
museum for this old habit called "Love".
Back in those seventies, I fell for songs of the famous soft rock duo, "England Dan &
John Ford Coley", with tracks that stand against aging, like "Soldier In The Rain" , "
Nights Are Forever Without You"," I'd Really Love To See You Tonight"," Love Is
The Answer" , Who's Lonely Now", "It's Sad To Belong To Someone Else When The
Right One Comes Along", the titles speak a thousand stories and speak for the
audience, this is life, this is love, this is how it has been going, for ages, Abel & Cain,
Romeo & Juliet, Qais & Layla, and the count is still on . They really stand against
time, for how come I not forget them after all these years?
* Gino Vanelli too, in his hit " I Just Gotta Stop, And Tell You How I Feel About
You", or his soaring hit ( Brother To Brother", " The Wheels Of Life " ,"The
River Must Flow"
* Johnny Mathis " I'll Never Fall In Love Again"
* Jonhnny Cash: " The First time Ever I saw Your Face"
* Nana Mouskouri "Try To Remember"
* Charles Aznavour " She" & " Mourier D'aimer".
* Chris Rea "Fool If You think It's Over"
* Eric Carmen " Never Gonna Fall In Love Again"
* Seals & Crofts "One More Time", " Summer Breeze"
* Harry Chapin "Cats In The Cradle"
* Louis Armstrong "What A Wonderful World"
* David Gates " The Goodbye Girl"
* Art Garfunkel " Finally Found A Reason To Live"
* Janis Ian "At Seventeen"
* Billy Joel "She's Always A Woman To Me", "Rosalinda's Eyes" ,"Honesty ".
* Carpenters " Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear Every Time You Are Near, Just Like
Me, They Long To Be ,Close To You), "Solitary Man ", "You've Got To Love Me
For What I Am"
* Rupert Holmes " Tear The Mask"
* Paul Davis " I Go Crazy"
* Moody Blues "New Horizons "
* James Taylor " One Morning", "Her Town Too ", You've Got A Friend"
* Carly Simon " You're So Vain"
* Mary McGregor " Torn Between Two Lovers"
* Glenn Campbell " See You On Sunday ", " Every Time I Sing A Love Song".
* Paul Simon's ," Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover"( A few days ago, would you
believe it? A site for software downloads is using the motto "Fifty Way To Leave
Your Browser " !!.
It is when love and passion give way for sex and nudity , that we are doomed with
those tracks on each music channel , bumping butts and swaying snakelike bodies,
suggesting anything but love and romance, it is this way that a society produces sex
maniacs and rapists, junkies and perverts, in stead of poets & high class artists .When
"Love" is the ultimatum , the poems and chants of it just have to come out that great ,
could I ever be forgetting those great lines of Justin Hayward "And I Thank Heavens
Above, For Being Raised On Love"? .