Oh! Is this true?
Peter Yarrow said he originally intended the song to be sung by a man. According to Wikipedia.
The song takes me back to the 70s and my high school days. I was never a big fan of it, I find its tune a bit haunting and I never paid attention to the lyrics. Until now. I always thought it was about a single woman having trouble deciding which man to choose. But reading all the lyrics… wow. I have no sympathy for this cheating woman. She wants her cake and eat it, too. And she wants him to stay and be happy about it.
Ridiculous.
You’re.
Oh. Well, that makes it okay, then. :rolleyes:
Riptide caught in a riptide, torn between two loves
The old and the new
Riptide lost in a riptide
Where will it take me what shall I do?
My heart is tossed on a sea of emotion
One love offers romance
The other devotion
A new love is calling
The old love is pleading
I’m caught in a riptide what shall I do?
—Lew Stone & Al Bowlly, “Riptide” (1934)
Definitely not a new sentiment, and the older song is, interestingly, more explicit.
Yeah, I agree with most of the posters here: Relationships are based on trust and once that’s gone, the relationship should end as quickly as possible, before anything has time to fester.
Agree. The phrase “falling” into love is somewhat wrong. If you are free, then yeah, it feels like a nice “falling” in love. First love can feel that way, and it feels great.
But when you are promised to another (wedded, or otherwise), and if another comes along and you start to become smitten (perhaps) or otherwise attracted in any way, shape or form, and then to allow that to continue, or to pursue it, or to continue to flirt or entertain that exciting rush of emotions and hormones, without stepping back objectively as much as possible, is to be weak and unthinking and unfair to the one you are promised to. If you decide to continue, you’re not “falling” into love, you are deciding to be smitten, deciding to enter into the lust/crush/flirt stage of a relationship.
It is not a riptide where you’re in a rowboat without paddles, it is a riptide where you’re in a motorboat whose motor is always strong enough to get away. The decision is yours, do you turn on the motor and get away or not?
And that’s the paradoxical beauty of marriage: on one hand it is so strong, an ironclad bond that can never be broken. Yet at the same time it can be so fragile, a trust as easily broken as jumping in the sack with someone who appears, for the moment at least, to be a hottie.
Love is a decision, it is not only a feeling. It’s a decision one might need to make each and every day.
Wow, didn’t mean to preach. Let me get down out of the pulpit.
My feelings for this song are in no way influenced by the fact that during the 1970’s my first wife cheated on me, ran off with another man, and then they broke up after barely a year.
Nope, anything I would say about this song is based purely on its musical quality. That’s all.
This is a not uncommon theme, but David Crosby/Grace Slick had the best variation in “Triad” (which I alluded to earlier):
I also think Olivia Newton-John’s “I Honestly Love You” is also a great version of the theme, especially when you realize it was written by Peter Allen, which adds even more complexity.
Hey, if loving him is wrong, she don’t wanna be right.
Just sayin’.
Ah, the days of my youth.
I distinctly remember playing this on the guitar while a woman I knew, who was involved with someone else, sang it. While she sang I searched her eyes for any sign that she might have a deeper connection with song. Any chance that she might be torn from her lover in some way. That she might be falling for a young guitar player.
I searched but saw nothing. How the young must suffer!
Poly.
I don’t care much for the song.
I have understanding and sympathy for people who only come to realize that they’d like a polyamorous relationship structure after they’ve met plural # of people they want to be involved with, but some exasperation too. The exasperation would be a lot higher and the sympathy a lot lower if polyamory was put forth as one possible model for people to consider while they’re growing up and while they’re in high school and so on and so forth. Since it isn’t, I figure people are entitled to a break for only seeing the light after they’re feeling the tingles.
The exasperation is because that’s not the order you should do it in. First decide whether you want a poly situation or a mono coupling. Second, find and date people who want the structure that you want. Don’t date mono people if you want a poly situation. Don’t date poly people if you want exclusivity. Then you don’t have to be torn and you don’t tear up your partner(s) either.
A better, related song as told by someone who has the misfortune of being friends with this twit is Glen Frey’s The One You Love. Not that it offers any good advice but it is a pretty song.
Or how about the song “Sad to Belong”, where he meets a woman he falls for but they both realize they have someone else they made a promise to and they must let it go.
Just a few lyrics:
Oh, I wake up in the night
And I reached beside me
Hoping you will be there
But instead I find someone
Who believed in me when I said
I’d always care
Oh, it’s sad to belong to someone else
When the right one comes along
Yes, it’s sad to belong to someone else
When the right one comes along
We’ll Sing In The Sunshine, by Miss Gale Garnett. Such a nice, laid back, mellow song, as charming as blue gingham, a jar of sunflowers, and a walk down a country lane in June. A nice, laid back, mellow song akin to ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad’ and ‘Paradise By The Dashboard Light’. Love 'em and leave 'em, that’s the ticket.
Wow, I never knew those lyrics:
I will never love you,
The cost of love’s too dear.
But though I’ll never love you,
I’ll stay with you one year.
And we can sing in the sunshine,
We’ll laugh everyday,
We’ll sing in the sunshine,
Then I’ll be on my way.
I’ll sing to you each morning,
I’ll kiss you every night.
But darlin’ don’t cling to me,
I’ll soon be out of sight.
At least she has the decency to tell him that up front. If he doesn’t like it, it’s up to him to end it.
The made for TV movie. I found it very upsetting at the age of 13. And this wasn’t some young girl making a mistake!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080036/
Bad song lyrics?
You take my breath away
And I don’t know what to say…
You take my breath away
And I don’t know what to say…
You take my breath away
And I don’t know what to say…
You take my breath away
And I don’t know what to say…
Repeat 25 times and you have a song.
I know that song. It sucks.