You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs

Found an interesting book in the remainder pile at my local Chapters (and it was only 4 bucks!): The Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad, edited by Sean Wilentz & Greil Marcus. It’s a great idea: a collection of essays on mostly ancient songs that are still part of our cultural vocabulary (nice jacket design too by Rubina Yeh). Haven’t gotten too far into it yet but I’m really enjoying Ann Powers’ piece on “The Water Is Wide”. She offers a compelling insight into why so much pop music is focused on things romantic:

"'Lovers are always waiting,' writes Anne Carson in Eros the Bittersweet, her inquiry into the structures of passion. ‘They hate to wait; they love to wait. Wedged between these two feelings, lovers come to think a great deal about time, and to understand it very well, in their perverse way.'

"When a lover falls in love, she tends to make time, carving out minutes on end to manufacture conversations, reflect upon encounters, and ponder whether what she’s sensing is real or not. Her love is definitely real in those stolen moments, when no one — most of all, the beloved — is around to dispute it. One reason why so much popular music revolves around romance is that music has the same power to set time aside, making a little private space within the day where the singer or the listener can build on inner ground. Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away … give me a boat that can carry two. Music works like that longed-for vessel, carrying its lover to a place where reality isn’t crowding her out."