Sandstone Press

Love songs for men

Posted by RLD on 7th September 2009

Setting out early for Glasgow and the launch of Craig Weldon’s The Weekend Fix I was glad not to have to drive. Rain was beating down and the wind picking up and the supremely independent woman driver insisted she would take the wheel of her own car. I could take over when we reached the City outskirts in the rush hour.

There was nothing to view given the darkness of the early hour and, by her choice, the radio was left off. Conversation was not welcome before the first coffee stop so there was no sound but the regular, rhythmic swish-swish of the wiper blades.

Where could my mind go but to song? As we crossed the Kessock Bridge I broke into The Rose of Allandale.  ‘She’s the Rose of Allandale, the Rose of Allandale, by far the sweetest flower there, the Ro-ose of A-a-allandale’ (swish-swish).

Not a song about gardening, I pointed out. The Rose of Allandale was a sailboat and the song is about the carved wooden figure on the helm. ‘One maid in form withstood the storm, the Rose . . . (swish-swish).

‘Of delightful form but wooden and heartless? I’m driving, if you don’t mind.’

‘Delightful enough’, I told her, ‘to put ideas into the sailors’ heads and the cabin boy into the rigging. Why is it, by the way, that there are so few love songs written for men by women? Can you name one?’

She couldn’t help it. I knew it was coming. ‘These boots are made for walking and that’s just what they’ll do . . .’

‘Sung by Nancy Sinatra but written by a man, Lee Hazlewood, on whom Dad Frank was none too keen.’

‘Girls should listen to their Dads on these matters. I certainly should have.’

‘I am one of the generation of men whose hearts are forever marked by Debbie Harry dancing in her boyfriend’s shirt on Top of the Pops. If that image had hit me when I was fourteen I could have gone completely off the rails. It was bad enough at twenty-eight. That said it was never much of a lyric. ‘Denis, Denis, I’ve got a crush on you.  Denis, Denis, I’m so in love with you-hoo-hoo!’ The point is though, even that was written by a man, Neil Levenson.’

‘Do you know how much I wanted to dance in that shirt?’

‘Songs by women about men are all torch songs or resentment. Alternative love songs are items like Downtown, which is about shopping, and Liverpool Lullaby which is a mother telling her children that their Daddy is a soak.’

‘What does that tell you about men?’

‘The lyrics say that we are mostly pretty worthless, but those songs were put into the mouths of women by male songwriters. I guess it means we would do anything for a buck, but of course these guys have families to feed. What does it tell you about women that there are so few love statements to men that are actually written by women?’

‘Oh, pfooie! For generations you lot have come home to your dinner on the table, your clothes washed and ironed, your egos massaged and sex on demand. Now you want love songs as well?’

‘Yes, actually, and not being told how she gave him her heart and he tore it apart, or when I said I needed you, you said you would always be true - or girl talking to girl as, ‘stand by your man’, a song as despised by feminist women as it is loved by gay men.’

‘I haven’t noticed any great understanding of either on your part.’

‘That is a calumny. I am very sympathetic to the homosexual condition without actually wishing to participate.  What I am talking about is an imaginatively and beautifully expressed declaration of love by a woman to a man. Could it be that the liberating forces of the past half century (and more) have left women emotionally repressed and unable to express positive feelings?’

‘More like we don’t have time.’

‘As far as I know there is no record of the Rose of Allandale singing back, but she was just a lump of wood. There is another less comfortable explanation which is that nature has equipped women to express love by means of action, as you have said ‘service’, and equipped men to verbalise.’

‘Carole King! How about her?’

‘The author of You’ve got a friend? The ultimate declaration of Womanly love for Man is that he’s got a friend? It’s not exactly, ‘till all the seas gang dry, my dear, and the rocks melt with the sun’ or ‘warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee’. Is friendship the limit of female engagement? Maybe it’s not about emotions at all but only practical matters, which is to say that you will drive until your nerve runs out and then hand over to me.’

‘Double pfooie! Listen: . . one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.’

The sun rose on our journey through a landscape that was beautiful even in the rain, although sometimes harsh and unforgiving.