J owns a CD of "Pink Love Songs." The cover shows a highly colored sunset. They range from the cloyingly sweet to the outright disturbing (“Sometimes I want to break you, and drive you to your knees!”) They are all undeniably pink. Most of them make me wonder how our culture could have gotten to such a state that these are the kind of words that fall out when people want to talk about love without using their minds.
At the moment, Frankie Valli’s star is ascendant (but not Oh What a Night, which exercises an unfortunate fascination over me), and under his influence I have frequently found the words “Let’s never listen to anything but Pink Love Songs” in my mouth and about to escape. (Go Mr. Positive! Express the exact same feelings while avoiding harmful negative energy!) Luckily, no one has the staying power of Kenny Rogers, and a series of inoculations in the form of three years listening to the soft rock station in grade school has given me lifelong immunity to him. (He is also troubling, though. Why would I want to be loved by a man in such a way that he'd be the last to admit my faults? I don't see how that would bring me closer to Christ. Why would I want a man who'd turn his back on his best friend and wouldn't ever think of anything but me? Think how boring the conversation would be after the novelty wore off:
"Honey, can you think of an alternate proof for the Pythagorean Theorem?"
"Well, darling, I just can't get my mind off you."
"Get the heck away from me, you non-Euclidean freak.")
To be continued when I feel like it and when J finds
Pink Love Songs so I can include the play list.
