rss feed[I] love you
These are highly charged words that mean a wide variety of things to a wide variety of people. I won’t even think about defining this sentence, but I’d rather focus on HOW we say it, or sing it. I can only speak for myself and a handful of other people who have said “I love you” to me.
“Love you” is short for “I love you.” My family started saying this to each other. I couldn’t tell whether it was a Southern thing (Kentucky roots) or it was just EASIER to say “love you” than to say “I love you” which is more difficult to say; not speak, say. Or perhaps I am to just assume the it is “I” or whoever is saying “I love you” to me. Then I started hearing other people say it.
Try it yourself: say it.
LOVE YOU
Now say
I LOVE YOU
Where does the accent go? Do you find that when you say this to whomever you say it to, that there is always an “i love you” melody that goes along with it? Say it three times in a row as you normally say it, and I bet you’ll find that there IS a melody there. I found that I have one. And I can’t change it. Try to change how you say it and it will just sound wrong. Put an accent in a different place and it just doesn’t work. Each of us has our own way of say/singing “I love you.” Like thumb prints and snowflakes.
comment
The first thing that came to mind, a tune that begins (well, after a repetition of the fifth degree) with a descending major seventh and was a huge hit for Bing Crosby, Cole Porter’s 1943 I Love You:
I love you
Hums the April breeze.
I love you
Echo the hills.
I love you
The golden dawn agrees
As once more she sees
Daffodils.
It’s spring again
And birds on the wing again
Start to sing again
The old melody.
I love you,
That’s the song of songs
And it all belongs
To you and me.
It’s spring again
And birds on the wing again
Start to sing again
The old melody.
I love you,
That’s the song of songs
And it all belongs
To you and me.
Great song.
I always felt the formality and history of the expression caused it to be, at best, suspicious. Surely, one can think of a better way to say it? But then I hear Nat King Cole in my head, “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons and I can say it again.
-Artist: Nat King Cole
-peak Billboard position # 1 for 6 weeks in 1946-47
-Words by Deek Watson and Music by William Best
-also charted in 1946 by Charlie Spivak (#5)
-also charted in 1947 by Eddie Howard (#2), Dinah Shore (also #2), Ella
-Fitzgerald (#8), and Art Kassel (#15).
-also charted by Sam Cooke in 1958 (#17).
-also charted in 1961 by the Cleftones (#60).
Please Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
TrackBack URL :
Observations:
* LOVE YOU has a simpler pulse hence is psychologically manifest, easier to remember, digest, and walk to. I LOVE YOU tends to fall into more of a compount 3/4 feel.
* The “I” is unecessary and redundant.
* Having an “I” distracts from the focus and center of attention of the person receiving the message and is not as strong for that person emotionally. e.g. they need to feel as if they are the center of the universe.
* Acting lesson number 1: never stress the pronoun.
* Culturally, it’s embarassing to express oneself with sensitivity, so leaving off the “I” adds an anon and makes the speaker feel comfortable in passing the message.
* Speaking from my own southern experience, most southern girls are extraordinarily beautiful, whilse southern men tend to be ugly and crufty, so leaving off the “I” is a wave toward hoping the receiver doesn’t know where that voice and message came from – which worked especially for me from the back of the class in 3rd grade.