Timeless Love

As my SUV hugged the hairpin curve in the road, Carole King's familiar voice crooned through the car speakers. While it is somewhat embarrassing, top forty is my typical playlist, but in an effort to break the monotony, I dialed into a nineteen seventies station.  As the opening piano notes in A minor began, I recognized the familiar tune as It’s Too Late Baby. Now, I’m just the kind of woman who listens, really listens and absorbs the lyrics of songs and this day was no different. As the song progressed I thought how amazing it was that the song was written fifty years ago. The theme of the loss of love and heartbreak never seems to change.  We can look at renaissance times, or victorian, or the disco era and love songs haven’t changed. 

The concept of growth, change, and falling out of love seems consistent despite the vast changes in the world.  Technology, fashion, hair styles, world philosophy, government all kinds of things change dramatically and seem antiquated today as we look back, but not the true essence of love and how they are captured in true love songs. 

I began thinking about the history of love and heartache throughout time. Artists have been conveying heartache through their work similarly for hundreds of years. Shakespeare wrote “If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.” in Twelfth Night. Charles Dickens writes, “Remember now and then that there is a man who would die to keep someone you love beside you.” in Tale of Two Cities. Frida Khalo and Edgar Degas painted heartache on canvas, and songwriters craft lyrics capturing the woes and joys of love. 

Romantic love and heartache seems to be something we can count on to continue long beyond our lifetimes, and something we can turn back and revisit interpretations from the past that will resonate with us in modern day.