“Unhealthy Pop Song Lyrics” is back!
Years ago, I ran a little blog series about unhealthy pop-song lyrics. I don’t know why I stopped…maybe because the series was a little corny, or because it felt like shooting fish in a barrel. (So many pop songs encourage unhealthy relationship attachments, I now think that’s their purpose.)
But hey, it’s Friday, the sun’s out in Seattle, and I’m in the mood. I’m also desperately hoping my critique of this song will satisfy the ear-worm god and get it out of my head, where it’s been on a constant loop since seeing an ad the other day for the re-released “Titanic” movie.
That’s right, it’s time to poke some therapeutic fun at that Celine Dion chestnut you love to hate. Here it is, with my, um, reflections below it:
“Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you’re here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go till we’re gone
Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we’ll always go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you’re here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
You’re here, there’s nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on
We’ll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on”
Allrighty then! Let’s see. It’s…not that bad, actually. She loves him, she will always love him, it doesn’t matter that he drowned in the north Atlantic, love is forever. Okay. I remember in the film she went on to have a great life, so I can’t scold her for endlessly pining for the dead Leo and missing out on the richness of life. I think she even married and had kids, right? But I have a couple of complaints about these lyrics.
First, if you’re going to make a boatload of money writing an iconic song for a blockbuster movie, can’t you come up with something better than, “Love was when I loved you”? Really? But my quarrel with this song runs deeper than the vapid lyrics in the later verses, and maybe the song’s flaw is the reason its later verses are so stale: sorry, Rose and Jack, but love doesn’t “go on” forever, at least without changing a great deal.
I believe in loving relationships that last for decades. I don’t have to “believe in” them, actually, because I’ve observed them directly. I have friends approaching their 65th wedding anniversary this summer, and they’re having a delightful ride. I’m also aware that love for someone who died can last a lifetime: I’m closing in on 16 years of love for my departed mother. But love changes. Sorry, but there’s no way Rose can feel the same way for Jack when she’s in her dotage and has lived a full life without him. Grief and love have this in common (which makes sense, because grief is a function of love): they evolve. It’s been a long time since I’ve sobbed with grief about my mother. In some ways I grieve her more deeply now than I did in the months after she died. I’ve had more time to appreciate the tragedy of her not being there for major events in my life, and for the final third of her own. But it’s just a fantasy in James Cameron’s XXL head that human beings could sustain the same breathless love, or the same powerful grief, for someone who has departed from their life.
Oh, and while I understand poor Rose’s need to have Jack “go on” even though he has died, and I wouldn’t want to say this out loud at Jack’s funeral, I’ll say here that the departure of someone from your life—whatever your beliefs about immortality, or notions about people “living on in our hearts”—means that in ways that hit you in the gut, they really are gone. Not “gone.” Gone. And the discovery that you can love again, completely and deeply, is part of a healthy recovery. My mother died, but motherhood didn’t. Jack died, but marital love didn’t. Rose’s love “goes on” for Jack, and that’s sweet. But—sorry, Celine—Rose also moved on.
Dammit, it didn’t work. That song is still in my head.
April 13th, 2012 at 11:30 am
amen! That song has always annoyed the heck out of me, but I never really analyzed it. You nailed it
It reminds me of the last scene in the movie Titanic which I won’t spoil (if anyone didn’t see it when it was originally released and is planning to see it now). Even as a romance-crazy, young teenager I was annoyed the how the final scene just barely, pathetically pays a bit of lip service to the fact that Rose went and had a full life, but ultimately focuses on her perhaps life-changing but also very brief relationship with Jack.
April 13th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Jeez, I hate that song! I never saw the movie, and really don’t want to see it in 3-D. But I saw the the ‘floating piece of ice’ scene where Jack sinks. I hope I won’t be hearing the song in my head now, but interesting comments you made!