By the Book: Songs that tell us stories about love

And so it is in human life the goal
To seek, forever seek, the kindred soul
Jose Marti

St. Valentine’s Day is next week — the day that urges us to search for love, to find love, to celebrate it and work hard to maintain it. Songs, yet another form of short story, work as well as any medium in exploring these stages. They have the added benefit of forever rattling around in our heads as reminders.

“Looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces, searching around, looking for traces …” A catchy song, but the urgency to find someone is palpable. Didn’t we all date some handsome young boys and some smart young girls but the BINGO never happened and the search continued. From Barbara Cook in “The Music Man,” waiting, wondering, singing to the stars, “Goodnight, my someone, goodnight, my love” to the rather desperate “if that isn’t love it will have to do, until the real thing comes along,” the longing continues, the quest goes on.

Then “Love walked right in and drove the shadows away. Love walked right in and brought my sunniest day,” and Irving Berlin remembered, “For the longest while, I’d forget to smile, then I met you.” Rodgers and Hart rejoiced, “I took one look at you, that’s all I had to do, and then my heart stood still”; the Beatles are whooping, “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah”; and even Tony Bennett, who had previously left his heart in San Francisco, sings out, “Because of you there’s a song in my heart.” The shadows are gone, the smile is back, hearts stand still and sing. Yeah! Yeah!

And then — dark clouds. Streisand and Diamond hissing and moaning, “You don’t bring me flowers any more” and Willie Nelson explaining that yes, this and that happened “but you were always on my mind, you were always on my mind.” Nice try, Willie. And Billie Holiday warning, “Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on — just when you think it’s on, baby, it has turned off and gone.” And St. Valentine is frowning.

Then, sometimes, it is gone. And all the clever phrases — “a total eclipse of the heart,” “every heart for itself,” “in the wee small hours of the morning” — are exactly that: clever phrases, mere words trying to ease the pain. Fantine, in “Les Misérables,” knows the bleakness: “He spent a summer by my side, he filled my dreams with endless longing. He took my childhood in his stride, but he was gone when autumn came.” Gone. Finished. Emptiness. And St. Valentine is weeping.

We all need not let it get that far. We need to swallow our pride, suck it up, check our baggage, get real, talk it through, apologize, lose an attitude, get over it, forgive and generally bust our butts doing the things that love needs in order to flourish and survive.

“You may not be an angel, for angels are so few, but until the day that one comes along, I’ll string along with you.” Still expecting an angel? Be serious.

And hey, you: “You’re all I ever needed, baby, you’re the one.”

Mr. Case, of Southold, is retired from Oxford University Press. He can be reached at [email protected].