Apologies for the lack of posts: I couldn't, and still can't, load the blogger.com index page. I managed to login today through a back street.
The film Closer began and ended with a song by Damien Rice. I think its title is 'The Blower's Daughter'. The main refrain is 'I can't take my eyes off of you'. I have a proposition (and I would like the more musically erudite of you to challenge me on this) that the best love songs are active, not passive. What I mean is that the sentiment is not one of helpless, docile, devotion. Damien Rice's song is such a one, and I think it terrible. The passivity they express encourages us to be passive, and it endorses our failures and our weaknesses. I personally think the 'active' love songs are far better, and I wonder if this is not the same for you, although you may not have realised it? I'm certainly drawn sometimes to the nostalgia and sadness of such passivity, but when I realise what I've been sucked into, I quickly draw myself out again.
Bob Dylan, I believe, is one of the great writers of such 'active' love songs. Check out 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue', 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right', and 'It Ain't Me Babe'. What do you think? I haven't got a very good memory for songs, which is why I'm asking you, but I may come back to this subject again later and try to explore where such passivity came from - I believe it was all a big misunderstanding...
