Love Songs

Turn on the television or surf the internet and you’ll discover that you come across the concept of love very frequently. Not because this week is Valentine’s Day, but because our society is obsessed with find the “one” the perfect person to fill his or her void, the other half (I remember from a young age watching the Disney princesses find their “prince charmings”). Our society's feelings towards love are expressed in the many artists’ music that we listen to. I by no means believe in settling, but I do not believe in soul mates, in the truest sense of “soul mates” in which there is only one particular person that is right for you. I believe in a type of relationship where one can say:

“Home is whenever I'm with you”- Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (Home)

I feel that someone should be comfortable not in their environment, but when he or she is with someone, but rather merely with the person. Often times, people get to know a love interest in only one context or environment and then he or she is shocked to discover how differently the other person acts in another situation. To be comfortable and able to say someone is your “home,” is a line I find truly endearing. Continuing with idea of settling with someone I find these lyrics intriguing by Faded Paper Figured (“North by North”):

“You said a long long time ago

you were happy being someone

Let's go far far far from home

I'll be glad to be with someone.”

I believe these lyrics are saying that you should want someone that accepts his or herself and is happy with who he or she is(“you were happy being someone”). You should be in a relationship where the other person loves his or herself. A form of agapic love I found in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Think of Me” from The Phantom of the Opera:

"There will never be a day, when I won't think of you . . ."

Even if the other person, does not think you all the time or you are mad at the person you are dating temporarily. Thinking of the other person and maybe doing something a little for him or her is a form of selfless love. Furthermore, Lights’ lyrics in the song “Frame and Focus” expresses how I feel dating relationships should be:

“We're just a mess of moments

That's adding up to where we are

And you're the frame and focus

That's making sense of it so far”

To me, these lyrics indicate that we as humans are flawed and a “mess of moments,” yet these experiences shared together make a beautiful picture that has a “frame and focus,” and although we are imperfect, these moments together make sense and are reassuring. Finally, I know that relationships are never ever going to be perfect and even close. There is a right type of person, but what does “soul mates” mean? Does it signify that as a couple you will never be unhappy? There will be bad points in relationships and those are the type when you truly need to work at a relationship. The Beatles do an excellent job of explain this idea in “We can Work it Out":

"While you see it your way,

Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone.

We can work it out,

We can work it out.

Think of what you're saying.

You can get it wrong and still you think that it's alright."

The idea of soul mates proliferating our media and society gives people false expectations. People may wait their entire lives looking for perfection in a relationship, but the truth is nobody is ever going to be perfect and so why should our relationships? That is not to say that people should ever settle, but we need to work on relationships, and maybe, just maybe,  it is all this time, effort, love, care, and dedication from both people that makes a good relationship almost perfect.