Love songs are hard

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and, as you make plans to order a dozen long-stemmed roses or, perhaps, a box of dark chocolate truffles, you may be reflecting on love.

I am with you. Since fall 2021, I have challenged myself to write a love song on guitar. Much of the journey has involved reflecting on love.

I have read books about love, talked to people about love, listened to podcasts about love and watched movies about love. I have read philosophical treatises on love.

The one sure thing I have learned about love is that it is a great mystery.

I find this surprising. I have talked to couples who have been married for decades. You would think that people with this length and breadth of experience would understand love. They don’t. They know the rules of a relationship backwards and forwards. But love? They can’t explain it. They can’t begin to talk about it. This is an amazing fact. Love is central to our existence. People will fight, steal, sacrifice…they’ll do anything for love. But we don’t begin to understand it.

This inspires me as a budding, amateur songwriter. There are millions of love songs out there, including some great ones. Yet, apparently, no one has written a song that simply tells people what love is. Maybe there is room in the world for such a song.

It hasn’t been easy. Back in the fall, I wrote a first draft love song with lyrics, chords and melody but it was too snarky, too snide. I scrubbed it. I decided to write a more serious song. It has taken months for me to cobble together some lyrics. I am good for maybe a few lines every few days, if my creative juices are flowing. It is hard work. It is no easy thing to express big, complicated thoughts in simple, plain English.

My current challenge is to come up with chords and a melody. This is not so easy for me, but I am trying. I patterned the rhythm of the lyrics based on a song by Sting, “Shape Of My Heart,” and the guitar work of Dominic Miller, a great player. Now, with nearly completed lyrics, I need new music. I tried just changing this and that in the “Shape of My Heart” melody but it didn’t work. And I didn’t want to just copy Sting. I needed to start from scratch.

Over the last couple of days, I have made some progress. One little guitar riff has turned into a progression. The progression promises to become the first part of the song. My song is evolving ever so slowly.

I don’t pretend that I could have the last word on love in a song that I could write. The subject is too vast, too unexplored.

But I do think I have something to say. I now need to express my ideas through a guitar, a stringed wooden box. If that does happen, I think I’ll have something that is powerful.

E VERYWHERE I GO I FIND A PAL

PETER WEINSCHENK RECORD REVIEW