# IMHO, "Your Song" is the greatest love song written to date.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imho-your-song-is-the-greatest-love-song-written-to-date/411760>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 14, 2007, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imho-your-song-is-the-greatest-love-song-written-to-date/411760 "2007-07-14T15:13:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 44

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2007, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imho-your-song-is-the-greatest-love-song-written-to-date/411760/44 "2007-07-16T05:17:48Z")

</div>

(I thought of the following after the edit window closed.)

The character singing _Marie_ has some of the same awkwardness that the singer of _Your Song_ has, although in a much darker vein. In the second verse he praises Marie with some rather unpoetical metaphors:

_You’re the song that the trees sing  
When the wind blows  
You’re a flower, you’re a river  
You’re a rainbow._

No serious poet or lyricist would put these words down in a love song. I think of them as “dumb-guy poetry.” But in their unadorned simplicity and plainness they have a honest beauty that’s rather startling.

He then goes on to confess a whole string of sins that no one else has ever admitted in a love song:

_Sometimes I’m crazy, but I guess you know,  
And I’m weak and I’m lazy, and I hurt you so  
And I don’t listen to a word you say.  
When you’re in trouble, I turn away._

But he redeems himself (or tries) the only way he knows how:

_But I loved you the first time I saw you,  
And I always will love you, Marie._

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imho-your-song-is-the-greatest-love-song-written-to-date/411760)._