An Anagram of Vole

Reminiscences about my various loves is not something that exercises me greatly. I live in the present and move my hips to a heavy bass.
Of all the devices of fascism, nostalgia has a lingering jaded sweetness that often covers up the smells of death, brutality and oppression. So, a break from the sentimental is required with my morning cognac.

Looking for a Definition of Love, I found these...

Love is illusion ...but it controls the world (Samarthan Bidari)

as yes is to if, love is to yes (ee cummings)

That Love is all there is, Is all we know of Love (Emily Dickinson)

Love is the happy side of needing (Walden Mathews)

Love is when you need someone to be a part of your life, even when they are boring and dumb and rude, because you know they will again have one of those moments where they shine and that light is what you need to survive

A form of pair-bonding in humans similar to imprinting in lesser animals. Effects can persist for a long time despite the conspicuous absence of reward

"LOVE is when your with your love one an then meet your soulmate then give her the finger" (Anonymous)

Love is having to say you're sorry every five minutes (John Lennon)

Love is a lousy tennis score

This page comes mostly from the DIY Homespun School of Philosophy and Itinerant Intellectuals. There are very few song lyrics there, and considering that songs are almost entirely concerned with love, longing, and loss (especially when you are in that post-rejection space when ALL THE SONGS IN THE WORLD are singing to YOU) this is surprising. Music helps to define and celebrate and mourn and even create love, and it is so often the landscape to our emotional journey. Modern recording and playback devices give us unparalleled ease of access to music and we too easily forget it's power.

"Love is a stranger in an open car to tempt you in and drive you far away... Love love love is a dangerous drug: You have to receive it and you still can't get enough of the stuff" (Eurythmics)

Someone once wrote (may have been the great Sammy Cahn) his definition of success as a songwriter: you are old, forgotten, lying in your bed late at night, and in the street outside you hear the plaintive wail of a miserable drunk, staggering home to his empty bed, and he's singing the song you wrote years ago. In 1955, Sammy wrote The Tender Trap, which aside from being era-defining, has a wry lyric about love:

Ya see a pair of laughing eyes,
And suddenly you're sighing sighs.
You're thinkin' nothin's wrong,
You string along, boy, then SNAP!
Those eyes, those sighs -
They're part of the tender trap.

You're hand in hand beneath the trees,
And soon there's music in the breeze.
You're actin' kind of smug
Until your heart just goes WHAP!
Those trees, that breeze -
They're part of the tender trap.

As part of my Cupid=Stupid Month, I will make a list of the love songs I can recall from memory without internet or other assistance and then listen to them all in the order they come to me. Number 1 (for reasons I do not yet dare fathom) is "Love is the Sweetest Thing" by Ray Noble. Which is bizarre, because that song is about as funky as a dead vole. But the 1933 version I found has a great brass arrangement, big swelling crescendos like the breasts of an orgasmic woman, and a lilting groove that gently swings. Maybe they played it to me in my cot. Anyway, here goes: