Count on the commercial interests of the world to be able to effectively package love for consumers.
Back in 1965, Jackie DeShannon sang the Burt Bacharach song, What the World Needs Now is Love.
Surprisingly, a year later another singer, Deon Jackson (not to be confused with the football player) put out the song: Love Makes the World Go Round (1966).
This is evidence that in just one year love went from being the only thing that there was just too little of, to actually being found as the cause for planetary rotation. (I won’t bore you with the equations).
Later in 1969, Jackie DeShannon came back with another hit, to advise us to implant this love power into our respective cardiac systems, which would, as a result, improve the world.
Pop Love is our idea of what would make a better world. It was part of the Flower Power movement of the sixties, juxtaposing love (good) with war (bad), resulting in the memorable slogan: “Make love, not war.”
And what began as at least a semi-serious sentiment was quickly commercialized to sell products.
The one I most clearly recall from the early seventies was Coca-Cola Company’s linkage of world harmony with drinking a carbonated sugar beverage. They flew young people from all over the world and put them on a hill in Italy holding bottles of their product and then filmed them singing a modification of The New Seekers song, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony).”
Here are the lyrics as modified by Coca-Cola:
I'd like tobuild a[buy the] world a home And furnish it with love Grow apple trees and honey bees And snow white turtle doves I'd like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony I'd like tohold it in my arms[buy the world a Coke] And keep it company [That’s the real thing… Coke is What the world wants today Coca Cola It’s the real thing]
Warning! This song is a huge earworm (up there with It’s a Small Small World). Listen at your own risk.
So, what have we learned about love today class?
That there is a sentimental sappy sort of love that is about a life and a world we wished (usually when we were still children) existed. This Pop Love is easily commercially exploitable and for many businesses is truly what makes the world go round.
Tomorrow, let’s see if we can come up with a better way of understanding what love actually is.
This was a delightful description of Pop love. Your song choices perfectly Illustrated each point. But your warning made me laugh out loud as it is something that has definitely happened to me. Thanks for starting my day with a smile.
I second Linda’s comment; and also offer the following: our creator has offered a path to all the love the world will ever need; but most of humanity has chosen to reject it in favor of, as Johnny Lee’s C&W hit claims, “Lookin for love in all the wrong places.” 😊