Summary
Afraid I have to sign off. The US study shows the word love and perhaps the sentiments that surrounded it in the 1960s have declined in the last half century. Given the dominance of love in songs 50 years ago today compared to today’s charts, that is probably true in the UK too. There is a lot more that could be done too to understand how modern lyrics reflect ideas about love much more subtly, while perhaps in more prudish decades the word love didn’t really mean the romantic kind.
But the “hit parade” as it used to be known is only a fraction of music people listen to at any one time. It’s a safe bet people will keep singing about love (and its loss) until the music stops.
I leave you with a gratuitously upbeat song from today’s charts, Happy by Pharrell Williams
A different expression of love perhaps?
Updated
Here’s an addictive game: you can search individual words in lyrics, artists and album names on lyrics.net
Here are some results, mostly predictable, a few not:
Love 230,471
Hate 27,802
Baby 100,788
Blue 47,556
Hoover 147
Heart 135,181
Break 44,468
Mine 48,475
Me 430,764
You 490,318
We 247,605
They 176,609
He 110,674
She 99,708
From Some Speculation by the Pet Shop Boys:
“Is it your inclination to accept this invitation? / What’s your game?”
Hat tip (and a prize I’ve yet to make up) to @DesktopTroll below the line
1960s
The top ten this day in 1964 were apparently all about love of some kind. Based on my trust in @fripouille I’m scoring it 9.5/10
I’ll have a shot at 1984 (massive age give away!). Anybody care to help me with the other decades? I’m trying to get some info on budget out of the Treasury with the other hand...
Love in other words
From thesaurus.com
Synonyms for love
noun adoration; very strong liking
Hmmm, inclination? “I’ve got a strong inclination for you...”, “The power of inclination”... Nope.
Prize though for anybody who can find a song lyric (published, not one you or a mate wrote) with “inclination”.
And here are the top 10 singles on this day in 2004, 1994, 1984, 1974 and 1964. All from the Official Charts Company.
Love-checking song titles not getting me anywhere. Anybody want to work out how many were about love? Even for a decade you remember. Bold name checks for first one to help on each decade. Shout out on Twitter for anybody who does them all. What more could you ask for?
This week’s top 10 singles as compiled by the Official Charts Company.
One with the word “love” in the title. Does anybody have time to tell me how many are about love?
Some Competing Theories on the Use of the Word Love (or is it really about sex?)
Below the line a few theories about the words and sentiments of love are emerging.
First up:
Well really, love has surely been sung about enough by now, hasn't it? Is there anything left to say on the subject that has not been said at least a thousand times before?
In any case, the number of people who can or could write a decent love song was always a tiny percentage of the number who attempted to. We really don't need any more.
Or:
I think there is less talk about love in music because sex and sexuality is far more open now.
In the past musicians couldn't talk directly about sex so it was referred to euphemistically through the word love (wake up little suzy).
This meant there was a tension around this that teenagers (and adults) found exciting.
In the 70s as sex became more open musicians started to explore the spiritual aspects of love and this got mixed up with the sense of liberation prevalent at the time.
Today in an extremely individualised, but not overly taboo laden environment, love is seen through the eyes of high divorce rates, fears over AIDS, and the danger of the vunerability that love brings in a world where individual needs are seen as trumping the needs of others in all cases.
Also, selfish, hedonistic love is by its very nature individualistic so doesn't make for great music. Great music almost by definition is social.
Love in music is not simply about love. It is about how the audience as changed.
Love will make a comeback in music one day when the audience changes (as it will with austerity).
And:
That edifying table of words speaks for itself, and it could (should?) even give rise to some serious sociological debate.
I was in my teens in the late 60s, and it seems to me that whereas many people of my generation were more inclined to think in terms of 'peace and love' at that time, young people today appear to be more cynical and world-weary. Not because they are naturally made that way of course, but it seems that being seen to be that way by their peers has become fashionable for one reason or another.
On a more serious note, @RedTelecaster (who later admits to being a songwriter), writes below the line:
There's probably a direct correlation between the demise of 'proper' love songs and the shift away from crafted, quality songwriting.
Real songwriters (and there are still a few left) write about deeply personal matters, including love and break-ups.
These days, songwriting often isn't personal. It's a carefully marketed, targeted exercise in making money, and the performers are often just a pretty, disposable front with no involvement in the song.
Idiot teen masses don't want to hear about real emotion - just shallow 'baby baby' froth, so that's what they're given.
Re-posting is not endorsing, or whatever they say on Twitter.
Ten most commonly used words in each decade
Our data team has taken the top ten lists from the academic paper cited in the opening post.
Updated
My colleague Damian Carrington has emailed the lyrics to the Arctic Monkey’s recent Brit-winning album AM. They make the point that a song can be about ‘love’ without using the word, rather well:
I wanna be your vacuum cleaner/ Breathing in your dust/ I wanna be your Ford Cortina/ I won’t ever rust/ If you like your coffee hot/ Let me be your coffee pot/ You call the shots babe/ I just wanna be yours.
And so on...
I’m sure there are many more examples...
@fishworld might have cleared up one mystery for me
I think "quantity" refers to any kind of numeric amount, rather than the word quantity.
with thanks!
Updated
A study from the US has analysed the lyrics of every song which topped the pop charts there in the last 50 years to see what words and themes emerged most often.
The results show that while in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s “love” was the number one most frequently occurring word, by the 1990s it had slipped to number three behind “baby” at number two, and in the 2000s it was down to ninth place, though “baby” was still at two and “girl” at three.
Curiously the word “quantity” appears first or second in every decade. What’s up there?
The full published paper is available here.
But going back to Love... Does this denote a decline in the commercial success of singing about love? Does it apply in the UK too? If so, what are chart toppers crooning or rapping about? Help pick through our recent charts and your memories of the defining songs of the different decades below the line, on Twitter @JulietteJowit or by email to juliette.jowit@theguardian.com
Hi Juliette,
Sure. well, for the Sixties anyway. They are all about love - as in falling in and out of it - and the Billy J. Kramer song is sort-of-about-love, but also (mainly?) about children.