Love Songs: The Hidden History

331 Pages·2015·1.615 MB·English

by  Ted Gioia

Love Songs
Also by Ted Gioia
The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire
The History of Jazz
West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945–1960
The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture
The Birth (and Death) of the Cool
Delta Blues
Work Songs
Healing Songs
Love Songs
The Hidden History
TED GIOIA
1
1
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© Ted Gioia 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gioia, Ted.
Love songs : The hidden history / Ted Gioia.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-935757-4 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Love songs—History and criticism. I. Title.
ML2854.G56 2015
782.42—dc23 2014018842
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For my wife, Tara
The book of love has music in it.
In fact that’s where music comes from.
—Stephin Merritt from 69 Love Songs
CONTENTS
Introduction and Acknowledgments ix
1. Birds Do It!
CHAPTER 1
2. Procreative Music
CHAPTER 9
3. Sappho and Confucius
CHAPTER 24
4. Love in Ancient Rome
CHAPTER 42
5. Debauched Maidens and Lustful Harlots
CHAPTER 58
6. The North African and Middle Eastern Connection
CHAPTER 75
7. The Troubadours
CHAPTER 92
8. The Triumph of Romance
CHAPTER 109
9. A Love Supreme
CHAPTER 121
10. Profane Love
CHAPTER 142
11. Divas and Deviancy
CHAPTER 155
12. Folk Songs and Love Songs
CHAPTER 170
13. Love Songs for the Mass Market
CHAPTER 188
14. The African Connection (Again)
CHAPTER 199
15. Crooners, Torch Songs, and Bobby-Soxers
CHAPTER 219
16. Rock ’n’ Roll and the Summer of Love
CHAPTER 230
17. As Nasty as They Wanna Be
CHAPTER 246
Notes 259
Bibliography 275
Index 285
INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I can see, from handwritten notes in my journals, that the first stirrings of this
project date back to 1991. The initial core idea arose from my growing interest
in the role of music as a change agent and a source of enchantment in day-
to-day life.
With the benefit of hindsight, I believe I can identify a turning point in my
own conception of music—a seed planted by chance that made this work not
only possible, but perhaps even inevitable. Many years ago, a passing comment
from philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto caught my interest and, although
I didn’t realize it until later, set me on a new course. In one of his essays, Danto
predicted that the future of art would be marked by a return to what had always
been its fundamental purpose, namely enriching the lives of individuals, com-
munities, and societies. He dismissed the pervasive view that art would “ad-
vance” as a quasi-science in pursuit of “progress”—a broken-down model that
many music critics and historians still pay lip service to, even as it fails to explain
many of the most influential developments in recent decades. “The time for next
things is past,” Danto insisted. “After that there is nothing to do but live happily
ever after. . . . One must learn to live within the limits of the world. As I see it, this
means returning art to the serving of largely human ends.”
I probably read these words some time in the late 1980s, but several years
elapsed before I realized that Danto had actually laid out a promising line of in-
quiry into the history of music that few had pursued. I began asking myself what
this history would look like if it were written from the perspective of everyday
life and human needs, and not as a litany of great composers and celebrated per-
formers. How did we get to this “happily ever after”? Could I possibly write this
history myself?
As my mission became clearer, I realized that I wanted to tell the hidden
history of music, not the familiar and hyped accounts of a few famous artists
strutting on the concert hall stage or working in a recording studio, but the real
ix