Sunday, February 10, 2008

What is love??

It being almost valentine's and all, here are a few love lessons we should all learn, courtesy of haddaway:

What is love?


In this song, Haddaway attempts to answer the age old question, “What is love?”. The lyrics, while seemingly simple and trite to the point of being inane, actually provide deep insight to love and human nature... let’s examine some of the lyrics...



What is love? [ a statement of the question]

Baby don’t hurt me don’t hurt me no more
[the first word of this line is used to remind us that, when faced with love, we are all infants in our helplessness and innocence. This line is purposely made colloquial to underscore one of the contradictions of love: that it is accessible to the masses, that it can be in the everyday, and yet it’s manifestations are still quite extraordinary] .

Baby don’t hurt me don’t hurt me no more
[A repetition of the previous line for emphasis]

What is love Yeah
[this directs us back to the question and invites us to once more ponder upon it]

Oh, I don't know why you're not there
I give you my love, but you don't care
So what is right and what is wrong
Gimme a sign
[This verse is designed to convey the confusion that love brings about. Here we are left to guess who the singer is addressing, is it a lover? God? Himself? Or is he addressing love itself? The interpretation is left up to us.
The third line of the verse illustrates the futility of searching for black and white morality in matters of love. To be in love is to be in the gray area between right and wrong.
In the fourth line, the author uses the word “Gimme” which is a portmanteau of “give” and “me”, this is symbolic of the power of love to unite previously distinct objects and people. ]

...
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
[ This verse signifies the singer’s surrender to love. He is left without words and resorts to primal utterances of awe and joy. It should also be noted that “Whoa” is used here as a homophone of “woe” which denotes that love is a double edged sword, it inspires wonder but at the same time brings about unspeakable misery. This verse also conveys the final message of the song which is that love cannot be described in words, it must just be experienced and embraced]