The Story: Did You Think This Was A Love Song

I have really fond memories of writing this song. It is one product of the late summer afternoon we think of as the day this all sort of started. We spent it sitting in my family room with a guitar and a rickety digital piano propped up on two-by-fours, scribbling lyrics in a spiral-bound notebook. At the time, we’d been dabbling in songwriting for a couple of years, but it had been a slow and unsteady process that hadn’t borne much fruit. This day, though…Joe came in with a couple of ideas for hooks to begin with (which is our normal MO), and we managed to get traction on like three songs in one day with results we really liked. It was at the end of that day that we realized we might actually be on to something.

I just now scrolled back through the voice memos on my phone and discovered that I have a 38-second clip that we recorded that day so we wouldn’t forget how the chorus went.

The hook Joe came in with for this song was the first line of the chorus, so we built a story around it. (Who’s singing? Why are they asking the title question? What’s going on between them?) And honestly, I sort of love where it landed. The narrators in this story, the couple facing the “hard times” referenced throughout the song, are struggling, but they’re optimists. Finding themselves in a relationship that has not turned out the way they expected, they face the same choices we all face in that scenario: do they bail on each other, coast in a chronic state of dissatisfaction, or dig in and hope for change? They unapologetically choose hope.

Here’s the thing, though. It’s deeply optimistic, but it’s grounded in a realistic assessment of their situation. The first verse makes that clear:

Every day it seems a little harder to cope
Hanging off the edges at the end of your rope
Finding that you’re sliding down a slippery slope with me

(Worth noting: their assessment is unexpectedly empathetic. This is his acknowledgement of her struggles alongside his own.) And so it’s not that their eyes are closed to their reality–it’s just that they refuse to abandon each other in the midst of that reality, and they believe that it can be better:

We’re taking on water but we’re not going down
‘Cause I’m not giving up until we turn this around
If anything is worth it it’s the love that I found in you

The question in the title, then, isn’t cynical or accusatory, but an honest expression of solidarity. It’s not “what did you think this was, you idiot, a love song?” But rather, “Did you think this was a love song? Because I did. That’s totally what I was expecting.”

I think my favorite thing about this song, though, is the way it plays with cliché. This couple, we decided, came into their relationship expecting a fairytale romance, buying into romcom/Disney stereotypes. They were looking for a life that was, in many ways, a cliché, and therefore they haven’t done much reaching beyond cliché in the way they relate to each other. So we opted to lean into that dynamic and filled the verses with rhymey clichés in rapid succession. Both the above excerpts reflect that effort, as does this in verse two:

Maybe it’s time to wear my heart on my sleeve
How ’bout we admit we were a little naïve
But I’m a believer and I want to believe with you

I like that last line in particular. “I’m a believer” is so slickly happy, and you expect it to resolve in “I want to believe in you,” but she (this ended up being her verse) changes it to “with you.” It’s still cliché, but you see her moving toward something new, using the language she has at her fingertips to envision a new reality in which they are not adversaries or even just objects of each other’s love and affection, but actual partners.

You can find the full lyrics here if you’d like to take a look.

They have a long way to go, this couple. They’re going to have to walk a hard road of learning to relate to each other and their world in new ways, and they’re going to have to acquire new language to do it. But they are committed to one another, and their confidence has not been swayed by the storms that have threatened to tear them apart. Their optimism in the midst of their struggle and their determination to cling to each other make me happy. And in the end, the final line of the chorus gives me great hope for them. Maybe this messy, real-life conglomeration of conflicts and dreams is more of a true love song than anything we find as the credits roll on a Hollywood love story. This doesn’t look like a love song the way they expected it, but maybe it is one anyway.