tabular_rasa | Writer's Block: Love songs

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As I've mentioned before, I can only ever judge my music preferences and do not attempt to generalize them to everyone, but my favorite love song is probably "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie. If I pay attention to the lyrics as I listen to it, it never fails to make me cry. I'm sure it's morbid, but I've always had a strong association between love and death in my mind, and the idea that you would be so attached to someone that you would face an uncertain afterlife just to be with them after death. (And yet it somehow doesn't come off as creepy or unhealthy as most "I need you, I'd die without you!" songs we have no dearth of in the world).

It's apparently no longer available online (all I can find is this cover which uses clips of it) but there was an alternate music video made involving the turning pages of a sketchbook narrating a few simple stories, including two rabbits falling in love and one of them dying. The final image is the image in my icon. That boosted the level of song's resonance with me, because the very first book I ever wrote (I was only four years old, and I had to dictate rather than write) was about a white bunny and her black bunny companion-- and the idea of a tragic end to their story made me really emotional!

I'm also a big fan of instrumental love themes. Sometimes having lyrics cheapens the emotion by resorting to cliche lyrics or by pigeonholing a specific circumstance-- his/her name, eye color, how/where they met, etc. If there is nothing but music, it can apply to anyone as just the raw manifestation of love. Some examples I can think of right now:
"A Time For Us" by Nino Rota, from Romeo and Juliet. (Preferably without words, though there are lyrics to this).
The love theme by Nino Rota from The Godfather. (I guess I like Nino Rota, lol).
"Together We Will Live Forever" by Clint Mansell, from The Fountain.
The romantic sections from "One Day" and "Drink Up Me Hearties Yo Ho" from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
"Across the Stars" by John Williams from Star Wars.
"The Phone Call" by Jon Brion from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

And, yes, I generally like tragic or ill-fated love songs better than normal ones. I like minor key. (And so does my boyfriend). Sue me.

As for my least favorite . . . Lol, there are a lot more of these. I can probably sum up most of them into a couple categories:

-Songs with completely trite and cliche lyrics. Just repeating "Ooh, baby, baby, my baby, I love you, you complete me, my life is wonderful now because you're in it," gets really, really old really, really fast.

-Songs involving unhealthy thought patterns or behavior, such as stalking, promising to wait forever in hopes of someday-requited emotion, or feeling inadequate as a person or even desiring to die should the object of affection leave them. (Think "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt, "Wait For You" by Elliot Yamin, "The Man Who Can't Be Moved" by The Script, "Every Breath You Take" by Sting, and an awful lot of Evanescence). It's tricky, because I actually like a lot of these songs musically or even lyrically-- and I certainly indulged in them as *so relevant* when I was younger and more depressive-- but now I think they're kind of dangerous and it scares me how many of them are out there. I may like some of them as songs, but not as love songs, if that makes sense.

Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day! I spent the day talking first to Tiffany (lol) and then Robert on Skype. Robert and I both cooked nikujaga in our respective apartments and ate and drank together on camera. It was a good Valentine's Day, all things considered.