Maybe this post would have been best suited for Valentine's Day but my love of music will probably allow this post to become a series. I was just thinking today that love songs are powerful they shape our ideas of love and romance and maybe it's not reality but soul singers and rappers even have tried to explain it.
Common and Pat Benatar have something in common. Common has a song called "Love is..." describing the many places Love can be found and what it really is. It's by far one of my favorite Common songs. He says something like "We walk and stand and fall in it. With the right companion we're all in it." of course he's referring to love.
Pat Benatar thought she knew what love is and she said "Love is a battlefield". I use that as a tagline because I've found in my experience that it's pretty much true. Love is risky, it's demanding and it's scary maybe that's why it's also kinda precious.
But really, some of my favorite love songs are by Adele, Anita Baker and Amy Winehouse. Essentially their songs are so much the same that I had to blog about this.
Amy Winehouse says her songs were very much about her personal experiences, most involving love and disappointment and heartaches. She has a song I like called 'You Send Me Flying' and it's just a little jazzy number but her emotions were so raw on this song. She talks about being naive and disappointed with herself for falling for some jerk who basically used her and kicked her to the curb. Then she gets into some real discussion about attraction and being led on and it's so realistic that you can't not like the song. I like Amy a lot for her sheer openness in her songs. She points our her flaws and mistakes she's made in her love songs. It's very much blues music and my love for blues music won't let me not like this song.
Anita Baker has some dreamy ballads with her deep slow sultry singing. It almost sounds like it's painful for her to sing. But she has these songs like "You Bring Me Joy" where just thinking about someone's smile is enough to brighten her day. I have to both avoid rolling my eyes and avoid keeping tears from flowing. I love this song. How friggin' sweet and sugary is this song that the mere thought of someone's face is enough to bring her joy. I hate you Anita! I get really emotional even listening to this song. This is a powerful song and a wedding song.
Adele is a beast. I'm glad that she's finally getting recognition. Some like my sister would consider '19' a better album than '21' but there isn't a song on her album that you can't say you don't feel. 'Don't you remember' is a deep cut. You can't not feel what she's saying.
Just to conclude, I'm just rambling but I think love songs are so powerful. They make you cry sometimes tears of joy and sadness but they're so similar with the content even if Adele is referred to as Pop and Ms. Anita Baker is very jazzy and soulful. They're all essentially Soul and sometimes Blues. It just amazes me the way the songs are connected. They're sometimes about happiness and longing and wanting to be accepted and loved.