Songs for VD (Valentine's, That Is)

I know that, as you're reading this, you're scrambling for a last-minute Valentine's date. You're literally tackling strangers on the street and throwing cardboard chocolate boxes at the moderately attractive heads of passersby. You're listening to music--and turning it up--to overwhelm the pounding in your chest, the thud-thud-thud of a heart that's giving up on you and the why-why-why of a brain out of answers.

THIS is Love.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Kidding. Valentine's Day, like most of my favorite holidays, is secular, arbitrary, ridiculous, and destined for anticlimax. In other words, it is what you make it; that's why I love it. Every year, no matter how I feel on February 14, that's what I choose to celebrate. I can't lose.

So, here are eight songs to meet you halfway, wherever you're coming from, and wherever you're going. Even if your night ends elbow-deep in a quart of Ben AND Jerry (that sounded dirty), I've got you covered.

In the immortal words of Michael Stipe, "you're not alone."

The I-Just-Met-Someone-And-Am-Unspeakably-Euphoric Pick: Oasis, "Lyla"
This song has lyrics (good ones, too--promise!), but they're incidental. The joy here is wordless, and visceral, and...wait for it...unbridled.

The I've-Settled-Into-It-Like-an-Old-Smelly-House-Slipper Pick: Bob Dylan, "Buckets of Rain"
Not fully happy, not exactly sad. He's not always with her, and he's never without her. A nice, pretty, satisfying, wistful middle-ground.

The I'm-a-Hopeless-Romantic-and-Incidentally-Alone Pick: Josh Ritter, "Wait for Love"
Because idealism and patience are often mutually exclusive. Here's to the optimists everywhere.

The One-Of-Us-Is-Over-It Pick: The Beatles, "You Like Me Too Much"
You still like George best, Fan of the Month??? (Teaser for Monday's FOM!)

The I've-Made-a-Terrible-Mistake-For-Fear-Of-Being-Alone Pick: Counting Crows, "Goodnight, Elizabeth"
I'll also accept "Walkaways," "Sullivan Street," or "pretty much every other Counting Crows song during the Courteney Cox Era."

The I've-Been-Waiting-For-An-Excuse-To-Have-a-Pity-Party Pick: Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
What's amazing to me about this song--well, what's most amazing to me about this song--is that it's a ridiculous, gut-busting, heart-wrenching, awesomely maudlin monster TWICE. It runs its own insane emotional gauntlet, reaches the finish line, and goes back for seconds. Bonnie Tyler effectively says, "I'm the biggest masochist in history, let's rinse and repeat" and the song repeats itself like a hymn in church. It is a back-to-back tour de force of ridiculosity.

Go on, draw the bath. Pour the wine. Watch Meg Ryan. Revel in the misery--you know you've been waiting for this.

The I've-Got-a-Gameplan-That-Doesn't-Involve-Love Pick: Justin Timberlake, "Sexyback"
Get down.

The My-Heart-Just-Got-Obliterated-And-Nobody-Knows-How-I-Feel Pick: R.E.M. "Everybody Hurts"
Cause Michael Stipe does. He always does.

TWO BONUS PICKS!
Outkast, "Happy Valentine's Day" (The On-the-Nose Pick...puns!) and
Emmylou Harris "Boulder to Birmingham" (The There's-Only-One-For-Me-And-They're-Long-Gone Pick)

So, what's your pick for Valentine's Day? And what categories am I missing? Hit up the comments and let me know!

With "a lot of like,"
Chris

P.S. If you want to read past Valentine's Day posts, head here!

Happy V-D!

No, that's not short for Victory-Day or Venereal-Disease...you know as well as I do that today is Valentine's Day. So, in the spirit of mass-reprocessed grated cheese, I'm going to repost last year's Valentine's Blog (with new additions from reader/friend Ross K), hoping that you'll find some kernel of truth in the following quotes, then immediately reevaluate your life's direction and your general worldview. Huzzah!

If your emotions are easily swayed by anything cheaply emotional (pieces of cheap chocolate, trite poems, puppies crying, etc.), then today is your Superbowl. Because I have nothing productive to say about love, I thought I'd share some of my favorite quotes on love from the folks who have lived much more miserable lives than I. Enjoy:

Edna St. Vincent Millay:
I love humanity but I hate people.

C.S. Lewis:
Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.

Carl Jung:
Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Goethe:
To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him, their own selves, their version of him.

Jimi Hendrix:
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

Jonathan Swift:
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Katharine Hepburn:
Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

François de la Rochefoucauld:
The reason that lovers never weary each other is because they are always talking about themselves.

Lily Tomlin:
If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?

Mark Twain:
After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.

Robert Frost:
Earth's the right place for love. I don't know where it's likely to go better.

Willa Cather:
Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they are in love with somebody.

William Shakespeare:
Love all, trust a few.

H. L. Mencken:
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.

Sigmund Freud:
The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What ..does a woman want?''

Samuel Coleridge:
The most happy marriage I can picture would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.

Lord Byron:
All tragedies are finished by a death, all comedies by a marriage.

George Burns:
Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who'll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you're in the wrong house, that's what it means.

Leonard Cohen:
Maybe there's a God above, but all I've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.

John Ciardi:
Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old.

Voltaire:
Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.

Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes):
Girls are like slugs - they probably serve some purpose, but it's hard to imagine what.

Chaucer:
By nature, men love newfangledness.

Bill Clinton:
Politics gives guys so much power that they tend to behave badly around women. And I hope I never get into that.

Dave Barry:
If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.

William Shakespeare:
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

Woody Allen:
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down.

Be careful out there,
Chris