Why is most songs about love?

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Just wondering

Because it's the most accessible way to attract listeners. That, and party themes.

Because it sells.

Because people are dumb.

I'm more puzzled as to why most of these love songs involve dedications of eternal monogamy.

My guess is its because music/singing evolved as a way to attract mate at first (that's why birds do it yes?)

People write lyrics that describe how they feel. Love appears to be the thing that affects people in the most complicated ways, hence the large number of songs written about it. In many cases, a person can't write about anything else when it's the sole topic of concern. Took me years to figure that out.

Because that is the (perceived) norm and they want to appeal to many.

Listen to steely dan if you don't want to listen to songs about love.

Apparently modern music artists don't know that there is more to life than love and partying.

There should be more songs about:

Your Partner Cheating On You
Breaking Up
Heartbreak
Bad Times
Getting Back Your Feet After Getting Knocked Down
A Story About Some Character Or Something
Revenge
Parody
Something Philosophical
Never Giving Up Hope
Describing Something
Tragedy
Being Invincible
What If's

There's plenty to choose from.

I disagree.

I think love songs are about idyllic love, and people want escapism. Once upon a time that escapism was provided by religious music, but times have changed and 'love' in its abstract form became a more widely accepted universal concept.

........

Last edited by b9 on 30 Dec 2012, 8:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Love songs can be unlike other love songs. Struggles with love, failed love, dying love, unrequited love, memories of lost love, etc. I think all of that deals with love in practice, in real context, and not something abstract, though of course a song without any metaphors would be fairly straightforward. I do believe over a half of the themes covered in the list above your post is very closely linked to love, as well.

I don't think some Prometheusque-secular-revolutionary figure thought of the idea of love and handed it to the mass much to the chagrin of the religious authorities. The feeling is inherent to all of us. Before global pop music, you had the poets of the Antiquity, Dante and Petrarch, Goethe... And yet you wouldn't need any of it to find love within you, though they do help to relate your own experience to what others describe in ways that turn a possibly awkward and shameful feeling into something valuable.

It allows you to live vicariously and mildly experience the feelings of love even if you're a foreveralone loser.

Love is important to most people. It's a universal question.

What I wonder is why, at every wedding reception I've ever been to where there's a DJ, at some point they play "Mack the Knife." I mean, huh?

I guess stabbing is supposed to represent the sex act or something?