It has taken me several days to compose this SotD. I originally attempted to post this song on December 2. I attempted to write this post several times. Here I go with the 4th version, so let’s see how far I get this time.
When I listened to this song on Dec. 1-2 I started to think about how some people I knew would make fun of Peter Gabriel. I was never a fan of his music but it’s not bad and I certainly never met the guy so have nothing personal to say about him.
This particular song though I wasn’t a fan of because I felt that it was yet another love song. I don’t have anything against love, exactly but for much of my life I did not understand it.
Not saying I do now, but I will say that I believe that I understand it better.
It’s safe for me to say that I knew what love was not.
To so many of my peers, love was actually physical attraction, hormonal lust or power and conquest. I rejected all of that. Even early on I knew that there was this thing called physical attraction. I occasionally suffered from it long before I hit puberty.
Far too many love songs stayed at this base level though and that is very much what I thought about this song for a very long time.
The title phrase is connected to another phrase I heard long ago which went something like, “when I look into your eyes I see our children.” That’s not love, that’s procreating.
Some people are like, “Aww, no, it’s that the guy wants to spend his life with her, start a family…”
Yeah, no. It’s conquest. Some guy wants to have lots of children with a woman, he doesn’t live her, he just thinks that she’ll be good breeding stock. It’s objectification.
That’s not love.
And what’s this with calling your girlfriend/wife “baby” anyway? Um, you want to have sex with babies? Oh, no it’s supposed to be a term of endearment. Babies are something which are supposed to be protected, kept safe, nurtured. That too is objectification.
So, I think you can see why now I don’t like 90% of love songs.
While this song I do believe touches on physical attraction, I think that it goes a bit deeper, and stranger. I’m not ever going to be certain about the “thousand churches” line, but that’s me.
What I didn’t realize what I was looking for was connection. That’s really what love is to me. Finding someone who fills in the gaps for you, someone who can give you a boost when and where you need it and you can in turn boost them when they need it. Finding that, now that’s love.
For a long time I was never really connected to anyone. Later as an adult I did better and still have a few long-time friends. We used to say old friends but we already know that we are old, we don’t need to remind each other that we are all the time.
Anyway, what I have come to understand that love is truly about compatibility, about being part of something larger than yourself, having someone who helps you while you help them. It’s support, mutual support. Love should build and strengthen who you both are, help you both do better and reinforce what’s good about the both of you.
If it reinforces the bad aspects of you, well, that might also be love but it could also be usury, codependence, exploitation or just generally bad for your health.
Sure, we can totally be attracted to the wrong people. I’ve done it several times in my life.
We’re messy, complicated creatures who rarely want to do what is best for us because the best path is rarely the easiest and it’s often a whole lot less fun.
That’s a whole other topic though, and maybe a whole other song.
Even though I mention two in this post, it doesn’t have to be only two. Often one person doesn’t give us all that we need but we are not built to have a deep connection with a while bunch of people and we certainly don’t have the time so the people that we truly love, deeply care for, often is very small.
I don’t see anything in the eyes of anyone, not even the one person I share the deepest connection with.
If I tried to look into the eyes of others, I would be way too in their faces for a lot of people. Neither I nor they would be comfortable with that.
