I’m talking about love today … true, true love. Dreaming of it, imagining it, seeking it, finding it, holding on to it, blowing it up, rebuilding it, soundtracking it — wait. Soundtracking it? Yes. Soundtracking it. That’s where this story starts: A song.

 

I wrote something on this years ago for HuffPost but here we are, a decade later; I just celebrated my thirty-four anniversary and I’m in the mood to revisit the theme. Love’s Theme, if you will (which I’m actually listening to as I write this … I really am.)

Picture this: a young girl, electric with sensuality, eager to revel in all things lust, passion, and love, discovers a song sung by a man with a silky voice that is quite literally an anthem to all three: Barry White’s “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More.” She’s smitten, pulled in. It’s like a drug, that song; she can’t listen to it without mooning and swaying in time, awash in the ache of yearning and gauzy dreams of — “Oh, for God’s sake, child, stop daydreaming, drink some cold water, and calm the fuck down!”

(That was my inner-mother; my real mother would have never used the f-bomb, nor would she have abided my dreams of lust.)

I can laugh now, but that ache was very real back then. If I found Barry’s song on a juke box, any juke box, I had to play it … over and over and over. I drove anyone in the vicinity crazy with those dogged replays, but the mood and feel of that song had me under its spell: The suspense of the intro as the drums start, high hat clicking, kick drum keeping a beat that echoed in my head; then keys set that iconic riff; Barry’s voice weaves in and out, that bedroom mumble of his, and the piano starts, then the bass … all of it combining to create the most grooving, driving, layered paean to immutable love I’d ever heard. Cue swaying.

Give it up, ain’t no use
I can’t help myself if I wanted to
I’m hung up, no doubt
I’m so in love with you for me there’s no way out

‘Cause deeper and deeper
In love with you I’m falling
Sweeter and sweeter
Your tender words of love keeps calling…

Eager and eager, yeah
To feel your lips upon my face
Please her and please her
Any time or any place

I’m gonna love you, love you, love you just a little more, baby….

This wasn’t a song about hook-ups and flirtations; this was a song about LOVE, true love so strong “there’s no way out.” That’s what I wanted, even as a youngster, to be in love with someone who’d fall “deeper and deeper in love” with me right back. Now, mesmerized by romance, poetry, and a great bass line, I had my own love theme.

But as time went on, music changed. Barry put out other songs I liked, some a lot, none quite as much as that first one. I grew up, fell in and out of love more times than my mother appreciated, and learned that the kind of passion Barry rhapsodized about wasn’t easily found. I still believed it existed, didn’t give up on the possibility of it, but I stopped holding every relationship to the standard of “no way out.” I always seemed to find plenty of ways out … as did they. I wondered, at times, if Barry had misguided me a little; seduced me with words and music that said that kind of love was possible. I didn’t want to become a cynic, but his ode to romance was getting harder and harder to believe.

Until I met him. Him. The man I married, the man who, thirty-four years ago this week, told me, by virtue of everything he was, everything he had, and everything he promised on that wedding day, that he was, indeed, so in love there was no way out.

This time it looks like love is here to stay
As long as I shall live
I’ll give you all I have and all I have to give

No, those weren’t his vows—I’m still quoting Barry here—but in the ensuing thirty-four years, he has given me all he’s had to give, which was every joyful moment, every event, every triumph, crash, rise, fall, and memorable experience you could imagine.

But life being what it is — meaning we weren’t living in a love ballad with an unforgettable piano riff — we also hit some walls that were so damn hard I thought our heads might crack (after a serious brain injury his almost did). Those were the moments when “no way out” felt more like a sentence than a promise. We ebbed and flowed, ran away and came back; sought and studied and learned in every way we could and, somehow, some way, ended up full circle, back to where we started … back home. Where we healed and evolved and let go and forgave until we knew, once again, with no doubt, “love is here to stay.” A vow coming full circle as well.

I’m sure you realize there’s a wink in how I’m framing this story, a clear understanding that my believing love could be defined by a ballad sung by Dr. Love was sweet, youthful naiveté. But still … certain ideas nestle, certain sensations and feelings become part of your cellular memory, and even seemingly trite words and melodies become connectors to grander ideals. Like endurance. Commitment. Tenacity, resilience, acceptance, and joy, found, lost, and recaptured. And to this day, whenever I hear “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More,” I’m transported back to that juke box, swaying to the beat, eyes closed and heart open, filled with longing, believing in life and passion and those “tender words of love.”

And this week I celebrate the man I married, the one with whom I discovered the true story inside the love ballad. Happy Anniversary, darling. Wherever we’ve been, wherever we’re going, know I’m always gonna love you, love you, love you … just a little more.

Thank you, Barry White.