How can there be 68,000,000,000,021 love songs (and even ones where the guy says he’ll ‘jump in front of a train for ya‘) in a world where people still find making love work at best a mystery, and at worst, a labour? Because there’s only 2 ways we can truly come close to knowing what it’s like to be someone else, and for them what it’s like to be us (and specifically how we truly feel about them)…
And those two ways are: Art*, and Love.
And love songs do both those things at exactly the same time…
And no one, no one’s, ever done it better, in the history of all the musics, than Big Mountain:
(Sidenote: Coincidence: it’s also from the greatest love story in the history of all the movies.)
It’s because that moment, where you think of that one person, whether they know it or not, it feels like they’re everything to you, where just the thought of them makes you happy, and you (whether absurdly or not) feel that feeling will last forever. In that moment, before conscious thought takes over, that person may be your everything and when you think of them, your existence feels like it makes sense. Now that may be before the realistic and conscious part of your brain kicks back into the driver’s seat… but… Fuck it… that absurd feeling (however unrealistic) is one of the magical feelings that make being able to do this thing called living so damn good.
And has there ever been a GREATER expression of this than the ridiculous-but-beautiful desperation of Greg Arnold from Things of Stone & Wood’s ‘You are my everythinggggggggg’ before the last chorus here?: (No. No is the answer.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a96RZURNtII
So whether you consciously believe that person is actually your everything, it’s human to just tell your brain to shut the fuck up and just let that feeling take you over and make you feel whatever it does.
Sidenote: Happy Birthday Helen may also be the most classically cliche Melbourne video in the history of all the musics videos ever. And that’s probably why this happened:
* I’d also put sincere, honest and vulnerable conversation in the category of Art (and love).