What Dan Savage and Nat King Cole have taught me about love…
A totally random thought on love:
I have what you could call a mindless summer job: data entry. I spend my days entering numbers into spread sheets and data fields. Fun times. So to combat the encroaching insanity I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and music.
At the moment I’m particularly amused by Savage Love Podcast, the spinoff from Dan Savage’s wildly popular sex and relationship advice column in Seattle’s The Stranger. So not appropriate for work, but hopefully none of my colleagues can tell what exactly I’m snickering at.
I’ve also been listening to a lot of Nat King Cole. Whom I love. And you should too. But man, does he give bad love advice.
Example: “When I fall in love, it will be forever.”
This statement is pretty much always false. Because as Dan Savage would say: Every relationship fails until one doesn’t. And then sometimes, ten or twenty or forty years later, that one fails too (Dan doesn’t say that, but I feel it’s a necessary add on what with today’s divorce rate).
And while Dan’s advice wouldn’t make particularly good lyrics (Example: “Dump the mother [fill in the blank] hole”) I think maybe it’s time for some new love songs. Because the old model just isn’t working for us.
How exactly is this a pressing global issue?
I’m probably stretching a bit here, but what with the recent 14 year imprisonment of a gay couple in Malawi, George Reckers appearance with a Rent Boy, the Vatican-related child abuse scandals, funding for abstinence only sex ed in the American health reform bill, a 40% divorce rate in the West and so much more it is becoming increasing apparent that our view of love, relationships and sex is incredibly screwed up. We’re so focused on the mythical ideal that we miss the reality of it, and in the process either punish or condone a lot of other behavior that shouldn’t be.
And maybe more realistic love songs would be a step in the right direction.
Any one got any good lyric suggestions?
