Folk Love

The 10 Best Love Songs of All Time

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Following our old method in aesthetics here, we will attempt to collect candidates for the ten best, hoping to catch the ten in a wider net- which, incidentally, works when fishing for songs. As these swim by, we simply ask: might this be one of the best 10? and these are the candidates, of transcendent height, depth, and beauty.

Two different senses of “love song” are 1) the human song that is like the songs of the birds, a part of our natural courtship ritual, and 2) Songs about love in general, including the sad ones, and the ones about all kinds of love, not only the romantic. About half of all lyric poetry is love songs. As said, we hold that love songs evince the imago Dei of Genesis 1:26, some being like a reflector. The knowledge within is the vehicle of inspiration. These are principles of psychology, more fundamental than what has been accessible to our “science.”

We look especially to the lyrics, and to what it is that lyric poetry is doing, or to the function of lyric poetry. If modern psychiatric science has a better way of collecting data and approaching the questions of love, so that these things are clear and known in the practice of the art, we have not seen it. A tentative list is as follows:

  1. The Wedding Song Peter, Paul and Mary
  2. In My Life Beatles
  3. Dance Me to the End of Love
  4. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face Roberta Flack
  5. I Don’t Know How to Love Him Jesus Christ Superstar
  6. Holly Holy Neil Diamond
  7. Play Me Neil Diamond
  8. Your Love’s Return Gordon Lightfoot
  9. I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You (Elvis)
  10. Louie, Louie! Kingsmen

Candidates

Harvest Moon Neil Young

Heart of Gold Neil Young

Air That I Breathe Hollies

Your Song Elton John / Taupin

Tiny Dancer Elton John /Taupin

Into the Mystic Morrison

Brown Eyed Girl Morrison

Tupelo Honey Morrison

Have I Told You Lately Morrison

Evergreen Streisand

Crimson and Clover Tommy James

Golden Lady Stevie Wonder

Sunshine of My Life Stevie Wonder

For Your Love Yardbirds (Gouldman)

I Can’t Explain Who

Close to You Carpenters

We’ve Only Just Begun Carpenters

I Don’t Know How to Love Him Superstar

Hush Herman

*We Gotta Get Out of this place Eric Burden

*Born to Run Springsteen

*Because the Night Patti Smith/ East Street Band Guy

My Love McCartney

Soul Love Bowie

Let it Grow Clapton

Bus Stop Hollies

For Emily Simon

Kathy’s Song Simon

Bridge Over Troubled Water Simon

*Time of the Season Zombies

*Something Beatles (Harrison)

*#9 Dream Lennon (Lennon)

*Twilight Time Platters

Special Angel Helms

I Love Your Way Frampton

Thank You Zeppelin

Crazy on You Heart

*Stones She’s A Rainbow

*Beach Boys Good Vibrations

Wondring Aloud Tull

Special Angel Bobby Helms

Songbird Fleetwood Mac

Unchained Melody Righteous Brothers

God only knows Beach Boys

Hush Herman’s Hermits

Northern Sky Nick Drake

Sad Love songs:

Taxi Chapin

Yesterday Beatles

Against the Wind Seger

Train Man Seger

Fire and Rain James Taylor

Suzanne Leonard Cohen

Tomorrow is a long Time Bob Dylan

Stretched on Your Grave Sinead O’Connor

Ten Years Gone Led Zeppelin

I’m Not In Love 10cc

Baby I Love Your Way Frampton

Hello, Its Me Tod Rundgren

No Matter What Badfinger

And I love You So Perry Como Don McLean

Piece of my Heart Janis Joplin

Somebody to love Jefferson Airplane

The word love has many meanings, and the honoring of St. Valentine’s Day opens out from romantic love to all sorts of friendship and the love of humanity in general. While our psychology has been for the most part unable to address any of these theoretically, the Greeks had several words for these different kinds: eros, epithumia, philia, agape, and philanthrope. When John writes that God is love, the word is agape. The whole scripture ends in the marriage that is said to unite all things, so that one sees that this is more than a mere coincidence of words- the romantic love that joins man and woman at the beginning of each new family. That this love of one for another is what is at the root of all human connection, community and connectedness.

Love as a “metaphysical” idea stands next to “the Good,” and perhaps “thought thinking thought,” as the best of the Names or definitions of the Most High. It is between and around the two, heaven and earth, that make up the creation, between the things that we see and the good there is somehow this love.

“Philanthrope” as the love of man mat be a participation in God. But the love of the higher for the lower is an overflowing, rather than an eros or longing for fulfillment, as of an emptiness.

“I would I love you from my fullness, rather than my emptiness,” some other man has said.

Paul: Eph 5:31- For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself…

So scripture ends in a wedding, of the Bride and Lamb, when the city of God comes down from heaven, Revelation 19-22. …as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, the things in heaven and the things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:10)

Jesus Matthew 19:4 …He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.

What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

Yahoo and Bing Mess with the Intenet

mmcdonald72014 5 Comments

   Someone has selected the least flattering possible categories from my collection, errors which cannot be removed from the WordPress categories. These are quite obviously selected to create a certain appearance, after Reddit connected me to the two year cancelled Marijuana website of the same name. “Folk Love,” “Drugs” “Foreighn Policy” and “Education” were on there yesterday, and I know a certain government agent who likes to make fun of my misspellings. This blog was never categorized by me as “Foreign Policy,” though the Edward Follis article that now appears below may accidentally have been. Nice, for an old blind guy with more to say than time to edit. “Folk” and “Love” were two separate categories, combined by accident and un-erasable. If this is the FBI, well…FU. If it is someone else, the FBI/Etc. might want to clear its reputation. Perhaps much might be revealed by finding out, as from Yahoo, who is doing this, and what else they have been doing. The practice continues down the page. Hey, do not fear that stranger on the bus! We have just had an election interfered with to promote fascism, and this sort of thing will stop if we expose who is doing it. On the other hand, they count on their guy getting control of the FBI and preventing inquiry. Can’t corrupt the president, just corrupt the next guy, the whole nation, and the presidency itself. Hey FBI, nice work revealing Kaspersky and the Russian involvement in the U. S. elections, after we, the U.S., tried to be so nice, you know, promoting better relations to wok together against the Russian strikes demonstrate is our common enemy.. You might read that comment on being poor, as I am both quite proud of it and of being poor, rather than whoring my share of American liberty. You like bending over so Machiavelli can impress his form on the matter, proud man?

   Kaspersky knew of and used this blog within two days, while the FBI still will not listen to me, and has no questions for me at all.

   I have been prevented, apparently by Microsoft, from using Google, had my computer infected with a virus coincident with reading the article “So, Trump was a Putin Puppet After All,” and none of the search engines find my website by key word searches, so that about 98 % of my traffic is word of mouth. No one will look into this, and we wonder how the elections could have been turned through the spy-marketing system we all love so much we just can’t even admit it exists, let alone put a stop to it. Or is it just Me?

   Here is the Yahoo listing a few days later, with the unused category listed first, and other things about one half remarkably selected to create an appearance. My suggestion again is that I have an agent who likes to present me this way. Compare the Google listing, which is a bit more normal. Again, such things done could easily turn an election, and by that the whole world. It is well beyond the possibility of accident, and intention could be demonstrated to a jury:

Another section of the Rock Commentaries: Louie Louie, Love, and Dylan

mmcdonald72014 1 Comment

Part One, Chapter One of the Rock Commentaries has just been published. After the intro on Music history and American Pie, this one, about Louie, Love and Dylan, has been published at the Music page of the website mmcdonald77.wordpress.com. Click on the subsection under Music, one of the seven pools on the Menu at the top of the screen. I am very proud of this today! We want Bob to like it, even though most of Hard Rain, we still don’t know what it means! But see if this is not the best Rock commentary on Lyrics you have ever read! Writers always think that on publishing day, cause if we could think of anything better, we would write it!

Peace/Love, MM

P. S. Now, and next chapter, we start to Rock.