The Power of Love Songs

LOVE songs, no matter how human and, therefore, imperfect and with limited scopes, can’t help but bear traces of divine love. It’s amazing that with some simple tunes and lyrics, they can make us fly to infinity, to eternity.

This is simply because these love songs have God as their ultimate inspiration. God is love, and anything related to love in our life somehow begins and ends with God. This is true even if we are not aware of this reality.

These songs can be very dramatic. And we can easily excuse them when they exaggerate a little, or even a lot. They exercise tremendous power over us, generating a manifold of impulses that are all meaningful and satisfying to us.

Singing or humming them, or simply playing them in our mind or in our heart, without sound, can evoke peace, joy, thrill, suspense, longing, hope, memories, tears, a smile, a reconciliation, an embrace, a kiss, etc., etc.

This is the power of love songs. With their melody, they easily arouse our senses, activate our emotions and passions. With their words and messages, they can crackle to life and intense activity our intelligence and heart.

Before we know it, we become aware there’s something burning within us. We are brought to different worlds, go through the past, the present and the future, made to consider various situations and precious lessons. If we are lucky, they can even lead us to God—as they should, in the end.

While I was in high school, way before my Bible-reading years and my immersion in philosophy and theology, there was one song that caught my attention immediately. The melody struck me first, but it was the lyrics that hooked me to singing it.

It went: “If it takes forever / I will wait for you. / For a thousand summers / will wait you.” That may sound corny to some, but to my innocent ears then, it gave me tremendous lessons. Love knows how to wait! The realization came with the wonder and surprise of a discovery.

Imagine the thrill I got recently when someone lent me a Sting mp3 entitled, “A thousand years.” The same idea is dramatized in a modern and secular way. Again the music first got me intrigued. It has a different and haunting beat. But the words are just marvelous. As people say, they are to die for.

It goes: “A thousand years / a thousand more / a thousand times a million doors to eternity.” I find these words graphic enough of what is to wait. When one is in love, the distinction between a moment and an eternity dissolves.

The idea is reiterated in finer nuances, making you flow in a beautiful stream of consciousness. “If it takes another thousand years / a thousand wars /…I could shed another million tears / a million breaths / …A million suns / ten million years of uncertainty…”

All of these because, “If there was a single truth / a single light / a single thought / a singular touch of grace,” the truth is “I’ve kept this single faith / I have but one belief / I still love you / I still want you.”

The song ends very powerfully: “A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves / like galaxies in my head / On and on the mysteries unwind themselves / eternities still unsaid / ‘TILL YOU LOVE ME.”

I must say that the song helps me to pray. When I consider the words, and of course, when I hear the melody, I think of how our relationship with God and one another should be. Sorry, I don’t waste these thoughts on just one creature.

I realize that God, who is love and who loves us first before we know how to love, precisely waits for us in time and in eternity, willing to suffer whatever, if only we learn to love the way he loves us.

However things may be, the bottom line is: love endures and conquers all, dude!