In-Love & Out-of-Love Song Styles

[miroslav]

A tangent off the "Check this out...you'll die..." thread. So...here's a question: How does one approach a "happy-to-be-in-love" song without having it come across as sappy/silly? There IS a noticable difference between the "in-love" and "out-of-love" songs...generally... Is it something in the lyrics? Maybe the melody/harmony lines? Or is it in the chord structure? How about the dynamics? Any insights to the differences...?

[Curious_G]

"How does one approach a "happy-to-be-in-love" song without having it come across as sappy/silly?" I always check for vomit!.. if you find it, chances are somethins' too damn sugary sweet!

[-]

I just posted this in the other thread, but I guess it'd be more appropriate here: [quote]Originally posted by miroslav: [b]How does one approach a "happy-to-be-in-love" song without having it come across as sappy/silly? [/b][/quote] If I knew that, I'd write those kinds of songs! :D Many of the "happy to be in love" songs I like actually have an undercurrent of melancholy or something else going on besides just the happy thing... For some reason, that makes a love song more palatable to me. Maybe it's because life is more like that -- you don't always feel just one feeling, but there's usually a combination of things going on at any one time. I mean, I guess you could call Brian Wilson's "Wouldn't It Be Nice" a love song, but it's more about expressing a desire than expressing euphoria. "God Only Knows" could be considered a love song, but again there's something else going on below the surface. McCartney's "Here, There, and Everywhere" -- a perfect love song in my book -- has a sadness to it, maybe not lyrically, but melodically... Especially on the "look in her eyes" part.

[Tedster]

Speaking of Sir Macca..."Maybe I'm Amazed" to me is perhaps a masterpiece of his, I don't think it's sappy at all. But then, maybe that's just me.

[Empty Planet]

I also posted this on the other thread, before I saw this one. It's more relevant here, with some modifications. I agree with the melancholy thing. The master, IMHO, was always Cole Porter, both for falling in and falling out. "Every Time We Say Goodbye." "So In Love." "Just One of Those Things." "It's Alright With Me." That kind of sophistication just makes most modern pop writers pale in comparison -- in terms of lyrical content, anyway. Yeah, Porter might've written some klunkers too, but his deep stuff goes FAR deeper than most others. I also think it's a relevant point that, as Tolkien wrote in a different context, good times are soon told about and not much fun to listen to, while tales that are palpitating always grab and sustain our interest. Coming a bit closer to our own era, one of the better I'm-out-of-love-and-boy-am-I-pissed albums for me was always Talk Talk Talk by the Psychedelic Furs. I've also heard Butler's love being in love tunes and comparatively they're hideous. Always liked the sonic signature on Talk Talk Talk. Don't know anything about the production.... But then really thinking about this subject always gets me pissed because I start thinking about the "diva" and boy/girl band phenomenom. They're singing about something they're CALLing love constantly, but it doesn't have much to do with anything in the REAL world. Just the very THOUGHT of comparing Billie or Ella with this current crop :mad: is enough to make me the bitterest old man :mad: soon-to-be-40-year-old :mad: :mad: :mad: on the internet!! Anyway...er..uh...that melancholy thing was pretty good. I agree with that. :rolleyes: :)

[miroslav]

[quote]Originally posted by Tedster: [b]..."Maybe I'm Amazed" to me is perhaps a masterpiece...[/b][/quote] That piano crescendo...absolutely amazing! On his first solo album, I also liked a few other "In-Love" cuts: "That Would Be Something" has a very nice "raw" punch to it...but it IS a love song. "Every Night" is a bit softer, but by no-means sappy/silly. "Oo You" is just a real smack in the face for an "In-Love" song!

[Lee Flier]

Yeah, TOTALLY agree about the undercurrents going on when you are really deeply in love. And Brian Wilson, I agree, was a master at writing about that. "God Only Knows" and "Don't Worry Baby" are a couple of the most gut wrenching songs in pop, but they're supposed to be "happy to be in love" songs. Probably some the best "happy love songs" are those where you can sense that the happiness has come at a great price, that the love is as deep as it is in part because it saved the writer from the intense loneliness they suffered in the past. This may be reflected in the lyrics or it might also be in vocal inflection or delivery - with most blues, jazz and soul singers who sing "happy love songs", for example, you can hear the pain in their voices and the contrast with the happy subject matter, e.g. "At Last" by Etta James. And yeah Ted, I would say "Maybe I'm Amazed" falls into that category too. The thing that provides the twist in that song (besides Paul's anguished delivery) is that he's clearly taken aback by the depth of his emotions and more than a little frightened of it. I guess later on in his marriage he got a little too comfortable with it and wussed out on us. :D And BTW "love songs" don't necessarily have to be about romantic love, either. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is probably one of the most moving songs ever written, and it seems to describe a deep friendship more so than a romance. Not to mention, it deals with another aspect of real love: the fact that sometimes you have to stand aside and let your loved one live his/her life as an individual in spite of your desire to be closer. There's such an aura of sadness about "Bridge" which I think comes from that recognition: "I so much want to share this experience with you but I can't, you have to live it on your own, but I'll be there for you when it all comes apart, and I'll be cheering you on in your success." THAT, IMO, is the height of true love, and can also be one of the hardest things about it. --Lee

[gae_layahoo.it]

And BTW "love songs" don't necessarily have to be about romantic love, either. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is probably one of the most moving songs ever written, and it seems to describe a deep friendship more so than a romance. Not to mention, it deals with another aspect of real love: the fact that sometimes you have to stand aside and let your loved one live his/her life as an individual in spite of your desire to be closer. There's such an aura of sadness about "Bridge" which I think comes from that recognition: "I so much want to share this experience with you but I can't, you have to live it on your own, but I'll be there for you when it all comes apart, and I'll be cheering you on in your success." THAT, IMO, is the height of true love, and can also be one of the hardest things about it. i.couldn't.agree.more.

[D. Gauss]

"who's gonna take the garbage out when i'm dead and gone?"...ernest tubb and loretta lynn -d. gauss

[fantasticsound]

I agree about the great McCartney love songs. They do have an easy going, yet melancholy vibe to the melodies. I love Every Night and Here, There, & Everywhere, but he continues more recently with Calico Skies. I can name several upbeat country love songs that follow the same formula. Little Houses by Doug Stone, It Works by Alabama, and Livin' on Love by Alan Jackson all have that same vibe as the aforementioned McCartney tunes. All are fantastic love songs, and they have completely different focus' in their lyrics. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Jim Croce's, I Have To Say I Love You In A Song. I believe this is my favorite vibe for a song. It works well to convey the conviction in Garth Brooks inspirational songs, The Dance, The River, and The Change, all written by different songwriters. Very interesting post...

[-]

Now that everyone agrees with my melancholy-in-love-songs post :) I'm going to sound like I'm contradicting myself... I think whether the melancholy undercurrent works in a love song is sometimes dependent on the style of music. There's a lot of great R&B ballads (older R&B, not contemporary) which don't appear to have a melancholy thing at all, but are still terrific songs. In fact, if you replace "melancholy" with "sexual"... :D A lot of it seems to go back to the vocal performance, which is almost as important as the song in R&B. (Don't even get me started on the state of songwriting or vocal performances in contemporary R&B... :mad: :D ) R&B can often get away with the "I'm-so-happy-to-be-in-love" song with no other undercurrent other than maybe a sexual one, and it can sound great. For example... Smokey Robinson's "Ooo Baby Baby"... Perfect happy-to-be-in-love song, awesome vocal performance, no melancholy. Same with most of the early Aretha stuff. Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing"... Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Al Green, The Isley Brothers, and many others have written and performed the happy-to-be-in-love song and made it somehow sound fresh and interesting. Maybe it's a stylistic thing -- R&B seems more at home conveying certain moods that, say, pop or rock usually doesn't get near. Likewise, pop music can go places that R&B music can't... Same with rock... Or jazz... Or country... Or hip hop... Or electronica... Every style of music has its own "boundaries" as far as what's accepted before it's no longer considered that style of music.

[coolhouse]

[quote] How does one approach a "happy-to-be-in-love" song without having it come across as sappy/silly? [/quote] I don't know but James Taylor always manages to pull it off. later, Mike [ 12-22-2001: Message edited by: coolhouse ]

[Mr Darling]

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[Hippie]

It seems the sappy songs do not stop people from purchasing them. There is a huge market out there for them with folks like Michael Bolton, Inrique Igleasis (sp?) & Phil Collins making a killing off them. When I come to think of it, some of the biggest songs in my memory were these types of songs. -remember 'You light up my life', 'Feelings' etc. (vomit) :eek:

[Chip McDonald]

[quote]Originally posted by popmusic: [b]McCartney's "Here, There, and Everywhere" -- a perfect love song in my book -- has a sadness to it, maybe not lyrically, but melodically... Especially on the "look in her eyes" part.[/b][/quote] Here I sit, 6:41 am Christmas Eve, and this is the first thing I glance upon and it is completely exactly synchronistic with my life at this very exact moment in a way that is almost impossibly improbable on numerous levels. If you only knew. I *am* living in a simulacrum for the entertainment of "something", I must be. Fate likes twisting the knife a whole lot it would seem. Christmas always seems to end up being crappy. [ 12-24-2001: Message edited by: Chip McDonald ]

[trick fall]

I personally don't think there's a better song about love than New Order's Thieves Like Us. Check it out.