Happy F'n Valentine's Day

There's much that can be said about Valentine's Day, but I don't want to get into the societal expectations of what many consider to be an invented holiday. I want to look at my own feelings regarding the day and what it means, and what impact my musical upbringing may have had on that.

I've mentioned countless times how my first (and still biggest) musical hero was Jim Steinman. As I have gotten older, I have taken note of personality traits I can trace back to his music, but I can't say whether they were created by the music, or merely amplified. As this holiday rolls around, my thoughts turn to the very idea of love songs, and what they teach those of us who have learned everything we know through the experiences of others. I suppose that leaves me rather open to being given the wrong impression.

It all started with the word 'that'. When it was used by Meat Loaf, it became a mystery about love which felt like even Hercule Poirot could never solve. Love was presented to us as an epic melodrama, where you weren't doing it right unless you were willing to run into the fire of Hell itself. But it was more than that, as the puns also made clear passion and pleasure were just as important. When Steinman wrote that "some days it never comes, and these are the days that never end," he was saying getting your rocks off was just as important as putting one on her finger.

Likewise, when "Paradise On The Dashboard Light" reaches its climax (I know, it's a lot of cum jokes), love is treated as the secret password to get into the sex club he really wants to join. When the character realizes what he's done, he would rather have time itself end than have to wrestle with what love really means. Meat's 'faded Levi's bursting apart' and how the 'surf's up, and so am I' are more evidence that love and sex were so intertwined by Steinman, I'm not sure he ever understood the difference.

I bring that up because it is the music I was listening to in my youngest days, and those were the messages I was absorbing without knowing what any of it meant. How much of it seeped into my subconscious and twisted the way I think about this issues?

I've had the same worry about Weezer's "Pinkerton", and I've written about that subject before. The good news on that front is that I know exactly what toxic attitudes that record would have put in my head, and I can catch myself when thoughts of that kind begin bubbling up. I am far from perfect, but I'm aware enough to catch myself and be a better person than that.

When it comes to love, I am not. I can't break free from the thought that yes, 'loving [me]'s a dirty job', only this time no one's gotta do it. See, most love songs set unreal expectations in the form of asking too much from us in the fairy-tale sense. They paint pictures of lovers moving heaven and earth for their paramour, signing over their souls in acts of devotion. There's something rather noble about wanting to be that much in love, about wanting to perform superhuman acts to make that special someone happier than they ever imagined possible.

The music I was listening to painted a different picture, one that showed love as a burden we carry to get what we really want. It's a cynical way of looking at things, but I am a cynic. Was I always, or did the music point me there? I have no idea, and trying to untangle that knot is more than I'm ready for.

The point of all of this is to say that while yes, I hate Valentine's Day for reminding me of all the things I don't have, there's also a part of me that hates the day for feeling like I don't even understand what those things are anyway. No matter how many love songs have been heard in the ensuing years, and even how many I tried to write myself, I can't escape the initial programming that set me up for failure. When the music told me love was an unintended consequence, the burn scar from the fires of lust, I never had a chance.

So as I'm thinking about this, Jim Steinman's music might still be my north star, but I realize now the compass was broken long ago.

Happy f'n Valentine's Day, indeed.