Is Romantic Relationship the Most Popular Concern?

June 17, 2008

It’s been my observation that lyricists write about whatever his/her primary concern is.

Well, of course, that makes sense. We don’t feel compelled to write about something that’s not on our mind, do we?

Now, I don’t know if there’s been any formal studies done on it, but I would say in popular music, love, or more precisely, romantic relationship, is the most popular topic.

From crooning a sexy one to calling out the one who left you, people seem to relate easily to the songs about some aspects of love.

So that means that’s the #1 most popular (as in most often) concern in people’s lives. It’s more dominant than one’s desire for good night’s sleep, great food, money, or healing.

Hmmm. What does that tell us about ourselves?

First, I think that much of the literal meanings of lyrics get lost.  They don’t mean anything.  Especially ones about “love” — they are so common place, so overdone, that we’re tuning them out.  If you want nice sing-alongs, make it about love.  As I said in the previous post, many songwriters don’t bother matching up the emotion of the music with the meaning of the words.

Second, musicians, culturally, tend to be unstable bunch.  Other artistic types, too.  I haven’t been able to put a finger on exactly what it is, but we artistic types grow up late.  We don’t settle down and start a family.  Many struggle to even keep a relationship.  I realize that all kinds of people struggle with relationships, but I think more of us artistic types have a hard time with relationships.  Our artistic pursuits do create heavy burdens and strains on relationships — maybe that’s one of the reasons.

Third, love provides us all the drama and emotional punch.  It’s a good driving force for songs.  TV shows, movies, books — all full of love or dramas around it.  It’s the handiest drama subject. When in doubt? Write about love!

Well — not me.  I’ve never felt compelled to write love songs, before and after I met my wife.  Just not my thing.  I did write a song for my wife, had it played for our wedding.  It’s a sweet song, I’ll record it properly one of these days.  But I went vague and open-ended on it.  It can be taken as a love song, or it can be interpreted to be about a different situation.

Don’t get me wrong, I have strong feelings for my wife.  I just don’t need songs to express them.  My songs, I’ll use for things that are harder to express. I won’t say I’ll never write love songs.  But I don’t think I’m going to make a career out of them.

It’s been done before, you know?

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