Late Have I Loved You

Why do we write love songs?

This past autumn, I was on a trip to the store with a bunch of my friends. Music played on in the background as we chattered excitedly about starting a new semester.

Suddenly, a weird country song began squeaking out from the speaker. I forget the tune, but I remember the man singing about how a girl he once loved dearly had done him wrong. All friends agreed that the melody was terrible, and that the theme was similar to several other country songs.

Then, one of my friends remarked, “Well, it’s not just country songs— there are so many “breakup” songs. I don’t understand why on earth people write so many of those.”

I paused, considering her observation. “Maybe… there’s a reason for that. Maybe it says something about us as humans.”

I’ve thought it more and more, and I’ve noticed that not only break-up songs are popular, but love songs in general. More than half of the songs written that we know are about love.

When I Fall in Love. You Don’t Know Me. Somebody You Loved. Cry me A River. Somebody to Love. I Want To Know What Love Is.

All these songs are about love. Falling in love, unrequited love, love that has been lost, searching and longing for love.

For as long as the sun has shone on the earth, humans have been writing songs about this topic. And they will continue until the sun burns out.

Why?

Because it is integrated in man’s very being to desire love and give love. They search for it, reaching out with yearning arms to grasp and hold it tight.

Man marvels at the mystery and beauty of love. How it can bring, joy, confusion, sadness, and hurt. Man feels it so painfully when love fails and does not last(hence the breakup song).

Man is still searching for love, but finding it unfulfilled. They want a love that will remain constant and unchanging, but they find it snatched away from them either from death, selfishness, or some other trial.

Man struggles to find it because they do not know who —or rather, Who— Love is.

Love is not an abstract idea. Love is a Person.

I am reminded by St. Augustine’s prayer:

“Too late have I loved You,

O beauty ever ancient yet ever new! Too late have I loved You!

Behold You were within me yet I went seeking you without.

Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty You had made…

Creature, which would not be unless they were in You…

You, Eternal Light…You exhaled yearning

and I, breathless, followed with deepest longing after You.

In creation, there is but a fraction of the beauty of Love. But it is God Whom man seeks, Who is Perfect, Eternal, Selfless Love. God alone can satisfy man’s desire for love and to love. Deep down, we know that nothing in nature will ever replace Him.

This is the reason why we write love songs.

We long for Love.

We long for God.