# Why Are So Many Pop Songs About Romantic Love? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 12, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735 "2016-07-12T18:11:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/1 "2016-07-12T18:11:29Z")
I mean, not to diminish that part of life. But ISTM that if you compare that as an aspect of life to the position that it occupies as the subject of pop music, there’s an enormous disparity. Two possibilities suggest themselves: [ul] [li]The emotional aspects of romantic love lend themselves to expression in song much more than a lot of other aspects of live, e.g. mowing your lawn or eating lunch.[/li][li]The demographic that is most into music - teens and young people generally - is more obsessed with romantic love than other demographics, and they are the drivers of what gets produced.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/2 "2016-07-12T18:45:00Z")
There are even more songs about romantic love than there are about rainbows! ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/3 "2016-07-12T19:13:01Z")
Probably because Jethro Tull already cornered the market on songs about the Hare who lost his Spectacles. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/4 "2016-07-12T19:17:41Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > [ul] > [li]The demographic that is most into music - teens and young people generally - is more obsessed with romantic love than other demographics, and they are the drivers of what gets produced.[/li][/ul] That’s likely a big part of it. Plus, people in their teens and twenties are more likely to be dating – and, thus, regularly experiencing the “pursuing someone” and “twitterpated just-fallling-in-love” aspects of romantic love – more often than people in their thirties and beyond (who are more likely to have found their partner, and have been with that partner for a while). Thus, those sorts of topics might be more immediately relevant to teens and twenty-somethings. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/5 "2016-07-12T19:44:01Z")
Way back in the '50s, when I was about 7, I asked my mother why so many songs were about love. she said that’s what people care about most. And now, all these years later, I have to say that’s what people of ALL AGES care most about. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/6 "2016-07-12T20:04:22Z")
I blame tradition, plus a widespread lack of imagination. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > […] mowing your lawn or eating lunch. There’s no reason why you can’t write a perfectly great pop song about, say, [gardening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EssoNCYu4oQ), or [eating noodles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQw2qj2utOg). ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/7 "2016-07-12T20:12:58Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > There are even more songs about romantic love than there are about rainbows! HA! You know, you’d think that people would have had enough of silly love longs. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/8 "2016-07-12T20:49:16Z")
“Language was invented for one reason, boys – to woo women…” N. H. Kleinbaum, \*Dead Poets Society[/i] ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/9 "2016-07-12T21:04:03Z")
I’m not an expert on modern pop music, but my (somewhat) educated guess is that part of the reason so many modern pop songs are about love is that many pop songs today are written according to formulas that have already proven successful. Many of the pop songs of today are written by the same [few](http://nypost.com/2015/10/04/your-favorite-song-on-the-radio-was-probably-written-by-these-two/) [people,](http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-articles/max-martin-powerful-person-music-business-people-never-even-head-name/) who know how to work the formula. So I’m guessing that love is a topic that works well in songs that become very popular, so it’s a topic that gets used often when writing pop songs. ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/10 "2016-07-12T21:10:47Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Way back in the '50s, when I was about 7, I asked my mother why so many songs were about love. she said that’s what people care about most. > > And now, all these years later, I have to say that’s what people of ALL AGES care most about. This. Romantic love keeps the human race going. We could reproduce without it, but life wouldn’t be very interesting. Wanting love, keeping love, losing love - these are all fairly universal things, no matter what age you are. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/11 "2016-07-12T21:16:49Z")
Yeah, I think this is one of those threads where the OP answered its own question. If you want to write a song about something that most people can relate to and that will produce an emotional reaction of some sort, romantic love is your best bet for a subject. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/12 "2016-07-12T22:11:10Z")
Pop songs were designed to be inoffensive. Pap songs, if you will. Radio stations wouldn’t play songs that were overtly political or social or religious. They mostly excluded folk songs because those were often about issues, until the watered-down ones became popular in the 1960s. (The blacklisting in the 1950s often included protest singers.) That also meant that music companies wouldn’t sign people who wrote these songs or allow them to be recorded if someone tried to slip one in. If the entire economic system you depended on banned just about anything other than love and romance, you’d find as many ways as possible to write songs about love and romance. That’s part of what the 60s rock revolution was about. The earliest songs by most of the groups were firmly in the old tradition. It wasn’t until they realized their power to change that that change happened. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/13 "2016-07-12T22:45:25Z")
Love, who needs it, that’s why my favorite song is **Sink the Bismark**.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/14 "2016-07-13T01:16:02Z")
> [@EmilyG](#): > > So I’m guessing that love is a topic that works well in songs that become very popular, so it’s a topic that gets used often when writing pop songs. This kind of begs the question a bit though doesn’t it? New pop songs are about love because old songs about love were popular. Why were original songs about love popular? > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > [ul] > [li]The emotional aspects of romantic love lend themselves to expression in song much more than a lot of other aspects of live, e.g. mowing your lawn or eating lunch.[/li][li]The demographic that is most into music - teens and young people generally - is more obsessed with romantic love than other demographics, and they are the drivers of what gets produced.[/li][/ul] Your second point neatly sidesteps the answer IMO. It’s not that the _audience_ demographic is teens and young twenty-somethings, it’s that the songs are _written_ by teens and young twenty-somethings (notwithstanding Emily’s point about formulaic writing) and love is a topic that rules their lives somewhat more than us middle-aged folk. ---
**Author:** ![somepumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@somepumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/somepumpkin)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/15 "2016-07-13T01:28:35Z")
> [@Daddypants](#): > > HA! > > You know, you’d think that people would have had enough of silly love longs. I look around me and I see it isn’t so. ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/16 "2016-07-13T01:33:21Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > Love, who needs it, that’s why my favorite song is **Sink the Bismark**.😉 _Hit the decks a runnin’ boys, and turn them guns around, Oh, we’ve gotta sink the Bismark boys, we’ve got to cut her down. Dudah da dah dah dah dah, dudah da da da dah._ You can correct me on the specifics. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/17 "2016-07-13T01:34:07Z")
> [@somepumpkin](#): > > I look around me and I see it isn’t so. Oh no. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/18 "2016-07-13T02:48:51Z")
What else are you going to sing pop music about? The travails of having scratchy toilet paper the morning after a spicy food feast? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/19 "2016-07-13T02:57:00Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > I blame tradition, plus a widespread lack of imagination. > > There’s no reason why you can’t write a perfectly great pop song about, say, [gardening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EssoNCYu4oQ), or [eating noodles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQw2qj2utOg). This. I gotta give rap and metal credit, they’ll address anything and love makes up a tiny minority of songs in those genres. Even country, there’s a lot of love songs, but at least half the songs on any given album are about something else. Country is also the only genre I know of that will sing happy songs about marriage and families, the kind of love that stands the test of time, whereas pop and R&B tend to concentrate on new love and breakups. If you listen to pop and R&B and make assumptions about the lives of the singers, you quickly get the impression that aside from very short relationships that end very badly, they aren’t doing too well on the love front. Which is one reason many people find pop to be throwaway music: even when the subject is love, it’s usually so shallow. IMO, pop is strongest when the subject is dancing and partying. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735/20 "2016-07-13T03:27:55Z")
> [@somepumpkin](#): > > I look around me and I see it isn’t so. Some people want to fill the world with silly love sings. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-pop-songs-about-romantic-love/759735.md?page=2)