If music be the food of love, then jog on

Hey you! Yeah, you! Ever listened to a pop song?! Yeah! Pop songs! We all love pop songs! Sometimes we turn on the radio and listen to the radio! Don’t we?! We do! Yes! Songs!!!!

Heeeeee! Songs. Something you may have realised during all this radio-listening is that roughly 100% of all songs are about Love. True Love. Lost Love. Unrequited Love. First Love. One Love. Fast Love. Burning Love. Tainted Love. Yeah? Noticed that? YOU HAVE. Shut up.

Think of a song, any song. Got one? No, don’t tell me. It’s about Love isn’t it? YES IT IS, don’t lie. And don’t say something stupid like ‘The Birdie Song’. Because when Mike Rae recorded that touching ballad to his recently deceased wife, so overcome by emotion was he that he couldn’t even pronounce the words properly and was only able to emit little squeaks and honks. It wasn’t even called ‘The Birdie Song’, it was called ‘Oh God, dear God, I loved you so much, I think I may have to literally tear my still beating heart out of my chest using nothing more than the weight of my own grief’. But the record label insisted.

Now listen to me. I have become slightly suspicious that some or all of these songs are spouting dangerous nonsense. If you listen to the pop song then you will reason that it makes Beyonce crazy, Leona Lewis bleed and Bryan Adams a cunt.

Tootle tootle, sing the singers. Bumpity bump, go our hearts.

Only Love can break your heart, Love will tear you apart again, Love is the rhythm and you are the dancer.

This tyranny cannot continue.

‘I wanna know what love is‘, synthed Foreigner. And despite the fact we don’t all contain an internal Casio keyboard, we spootle a clammy and hopelessly sincere agreement to this pathetically facile statement.

Love. Most of us have never felt it, some of us don’t believe in it, but we all want to experience it. You know, just once. To see what it’s like. Like cocaine. Thing is. THING IS. I think it don’t exist. Ah yeah. I said it. It don’t exist. Ahahah! Pcchnnwwrara! (sound of your bubble bursting, BTW - short for ‘by the way’, by the way, Mum).

I refer to Love, not cocaine

But what is Love? If the great philosopher Haddaway didn’t know, then what hope for the rest of us? NONE. J Lo claimed that ‘Love don’t cost a thing’ but she’s a money-grabbing whore, so what are we to think? The Bee Gees enquired as to the depth of your Love, suggesting that it should be measured and monitored with a yardstick, like a river on a floodplain. Personally I’m glad one of them is dead.

And on it goes… These singers waffling sentiments of Love. The Power of Love (in horsepower?), The Caravan of Love (Love is not a gypsy), I’d Do Anything for Love but I Won’t Do That (I assume he means anal). There’s no escape. It’s like death by a thousand Love ballads. I can’t turn on the radio anymore thanks to the knowledge that my horrendous, single, loveless life is about to turned into song.

Ok. So. I’m drifting out towards 30 like an exhausted swimmer in a riptide, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge. After all, most of the music I’ve written would cause the modern under-25 to roll their eyes and say ‘oh my days’ or whatever else it is they do at the moment. So, let’s get modern, y’all. Woooo, whoooosh, we fly into the 21st Century. This is great, this. It’s like the Time Traveller’s Special Nephew.

So. I point you all in the direction of the modern Love song ‘I Wanna Love You’ by the modern rapper man Akon and his modern rapper friend Snoopy Dogg. It’s a touching ballad in which our hero, Akon, sees a young lady on a dance floor and instantly falls in Love with her. It’s like Romeo and Juliet! Only shit! Ok so, Akon really Loves this girl and… hold on, why don‘t I let Akon tell you himself. ‘Baby you got a phatty, the type I’d like to marry’. Aww, shucks, Akon, looks like you’re really smitten. His fascinating friend, Snoop Dogg, can only agree that Akon has found the woman he is going to settle down with - ‘Pussy is pussy and baby you’re pussy for life.’

Quick note to women - you can end men like this. You have the power. STOP HAVING SEX WITH THEM.

Oh, hold on. What’s that, Akon? You’ve got more to say? Ok… ‘I’m lovin’ the way you shake your ass, Bouncin’, got me tippin’ my glass, Normally don’t get caught up too fast.’

HEAR THAT, SWEETHEART? AKON DON’T USUALLY FALL IN LOVE SO QUICKLY BUT BECAUSE YOU’VE SHOOKEN YOUR ARSE IN HIS GENERAL DIRECTION HE THINKS HE MIGHT LOVE YOU! SERIOUSLY. YOU GOT A PHATTY! THE TYPE HE’D LIKE TO MARRY!!!! YOU!!!! WELL FUCKING DONE!!!!!! DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU HAVE THE VOTE?????!?!!?!??!!!!!!

Can I die now?


EIGHTH DATE REPORT - 04/08/09

Oh who the fuck cares anymore?

So I met Kimberley. You know, in a bar. And. Er. Even I’m bored now.

It weren’t a good ‘un. We met. She was a perfectly decent human being. We had a drink. And, er, talked and stuff.

Hmm.

No. That’s it.

We met quite late (for a school night) and I was knackered. I’d been preoccupied at work (like a real human person!) and the last thing I wanted to do was go on a date. So. I went into it with a fairly negative frame of mind.

No amount of Taurine based drinks were going to salvage this situation. Kimberley and I forced conversation for the evening but it was clear after about 77 seconds that a second date was as about likely as the Democratic Republic of Congo calling Brussels and laughing off the Belgian occupation. This isn’t likely, by the way. The Belgians committed all kinds of atrocities and…oh fuck off and read a book if you’re that bothered.

Kimberley. This is for you. I’m sorry. I am truly sorry. This was your first date on Match.com. And it wasn’t great. Was it? No. But I want you to know it won’t always be like this. You’ll meet people you’re compatible with. People who aren’t so exhausted that they fall into deep comas of silence every 4 minutes. People who’ll find you attractive.

I can’t tell you how guilty I felt knowing that this was Kim’s first Match.com date and that I was, single-handedly, destroying her belief in internet dating. Don’t worry, I wanted to say, it’s around the fifth date when you realise once and for all that the whole system is a sham. You’ve got ages.

To be a bad first date for someone is a genuinely unpleasant experience. You feel like the thorns on a rose, a trompe d‘oieul, a liar, an empty pop song.

Sorry, Kim. You deserve better. Don’t give up on the Match. It’s not you, it’s me. Me and You. It’s mainly you.


Ah, look, I give up on Love. You should all give up too. Why don’t we all give up? Together. What’s the worst that could happen? Ok, Foreigner (the band, not all people who aren’t British), you wanna know what Love is?

Here we go. It’s the one emotion we all crave despite the fact we’ve never felt it before. Despite the fact that our emotional base is developed between the ages of two and seven, we all believe that in our adult life we can shove another one, Romantic Love, into our greedy gullets.

Hey hey! And when we’ve done that we’ll look under the bed for the Holy Grail and check if Atlantis hasn’t fallen down the back of the sofa! Grow up. Mr Darcy had financial obligations to meet, Jane Eyre was a munter who wanted children and Romeo and Juliet were prepubescent. Financial reality, biological imperative or childish naivety. Take your pick. T’ain’t Love.

Most of us don’t believe in it, less of us have felt it and I personally see more genuine affection in Debbie Does Dallas than your average romcom. So. Let’s go to war against Love. Until we have the evidence, we won’t give in. We’ll be like Richard Dawkins! That’s right, smug and self-satisfied.

In the meantime, lovely singers, please stop writing songs about it. We’ve got enough. Write about something else. Something tangible. Something we can believe in, something we can all experience. Something that, actually, is all around us. Like cancer or gum disease.

So come on. Let’s celebrate our lack of romantic Love. Let’s embrace it.

People! I implore you! Turn the radio off. Be unLoving. Be unLoved. Be unashamed. Go! Now! Run out into the street and tell someone you don’t Love them. Don’t waste time, life‘s too short! Stop reading this ridiculous blog, pick up the phone, call someone you don’t Love, and tell them that you don’t Love them. Call everyone! If you are in a relationship with someone you don’t Love, find them and tell them you don’t Love them! Even if you’ve told them you Love them. No! Especially if you’ve told them you Love them. What have you got to lose?

Regain your honesty. Wipe the slate clean. And forget about it.

And know this - it’s ok. It really is. Most of us aren’t in Love. Most of us have never been in Love. And most of us never will be.


Seriously. It’s ok.


Say it LOUD.


Say it PROUD.


I don’t Love you.





Not yet.