What Is Love?

The first “pop song” I can remember falling in love with was a little ditty called “What Is Love?” by the Playmates.   It was 1959 and I was nine years old, on the cusp of changes I could not foresee, but felt some trepidation about, regardless.  I can still see myself, bespectacled and awkward, staring at the ancient console radio out on the back porch, imagining myself as a blond, pony-tailed teenager with blue eyes.  What is love?  Five feet of heaven in a ponytail / the cutest ponytail that sways with a wiggle when she walks, crooned The Playmates.  I hung out in front of the radio on the back porch quite a bit that summer, waiting for my favorite song to play.

I’d grown up with a few 78 rpm records, mostly Gene Autry and Bing Crosby Christmas carols.  But there was also my father’s love for Hank Williams, Pat Boone, and Elvis Presley.  (I am still amazed that my father, who readily denounced rock and roll as “the-N-word music,” had a fondness for Elvis.)  And later on, my older sister played her Ricky Nelson 45 rpm records on her little pink record player, while I stared at the tiny lights inside the mesh speaker screen and tried to catch a glimpse of Ricky Nelson inside.  And so, aside from my mother’s obsession with playing “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore” by the Highwaymen over and over and over again, I did have some decent exposure to popular music.

But that was their music.  “What Is Love?” was the first song that had me claiming ownership.  The song was mine.  And so began my journey of gathering songs, filing them away in that tiny portion of my brain that stores music.  My collection, now nearly sixty years old, is quite extensive.  (I bet yours is, too.)

Those of you who remember American Bandstand on television will recall when new music was introduced to the teenage audience.  And a couple of those teenagers got to rate the song and then tell why they liked it.  The classic answer was, “It’s got a good beat and I could dance to it.”  While I have certainly done some dancing in my life, it is more than the beat that compels me to love a song.  It's the lyrics.  I am a poet, a wordsmith, a lover of language.  For a song to speak to me, it must have good lyrics.  Or at least one good line.

And so I begin this blog, Lyrically Speaking.  My ambition is to share a line from a song every day, along with my musings on it.  And that’s all I can say about it right now, because I don’t know where my musings will take me.  Or where they will take you, if you choose to follow along.  I hope you do.

And I apologize for putting the “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore” earworm in your head.  I will try to make up for that in future posts.