
In the past few years we have celebrated being happily in love, and happy in love in black and white; we have dealt with the pain of unrequited love. And for this year”s Valentine”s Day, here’s a mix of love that cannot be: the impossible love situations where two people want to be together but, for some reason or another, can”t.
Usually it involves one or both of these people being married, so this genre of love songs can veer into territory of furtive sex. So Billy Paul’s Me And Mrs Jones is usually classified as a cheating song. But I’m not sure it is one. Billy and Mrs Jones meet in a public place: the juke box is playing their favourite, and after some holding hands it”s time for them to be leaving. The relationship may or may not be consummated; Billy Paul gives us no evidence of that.
Whereas Marilyn McCoo, in the original version of the future Whitney Houston hit, is definitely engaging in adultery. But the act of sex seems to add to the pain and the longing she has for the cad who is playing two women. That storyline is replicated on several songs here.
The Impossible Love genre is dominated by love thwarted by obligations, but there are songs about other reasons for love that cannot be. Class differences, family relations (the Romeo & Juliet theme, which isn’t explored on this mix), sexuality (Karma’s song here might be about same-sex attraction that cannot be acted on), mental illness (Joseph Arthur’s Honey And The Moon hints at that).
As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-lovelorn cover. PW in comments. Happy Valentine’s Day!
1. Denise LaSalle – Married, But Not To Each Other (1975)
What’s stopping them? A hit for country singer Barbra Mandrell, this is the original by the recently late soul singer who co-wrote the song. The title reveals the romantic dilemma: “You’re tied to her and I’m tied to him. We don’t wanna hurt either one of them. So what can you do?” She finds an ambiguous answer: “Hurry up and love him, hurry up and please him. And when it gets right, you’ve got to leave him. You better leave him.”
2. The Soul Children – We’re Gettin’ Too Close (1974)
What’s stopping them? There’s an affair involving two otherwise attached people, but their love is becoming too obvious: “She’s gonna get hip to you, and he’s gonna get hip to me.” Time to call it off.
3. Billy Butler – I Know The Feeling Well (1977)
What’s stopping them? When you love two people and have to choose — and either way, you lose. Billy knows the feeling well.
4. Johnny Darrell – Margie’s At The Lincoln Park Inn (1969)
What’s stopping them? The singer (originally Bobby Bare, but Darrell sings it better) is torn: hot passion with Margie in a hotel, or family life with children and teaching Sunday school without bearing the conscience of a hypocrite.
5. Merle Haggard – Always Wanting You (1975)
What’s stopping them? Haggard wrote this about Dolly Parton, at a time when both were married. “Always loving you, but never touching you, sometimes hurts me almost more than I can stand.”
6. Randy Travis – On The Other Hand (1986)
What’s stopping them? On the one hand, in her arms he feels feel the passion which he thought had died. On the other hand is a golden ring…
7. Howie Day – Collide (2003)
What’s stopping them? Here opposites attract in an inexplicable love which the singer would probably prefer to be unrequited: “I’ve found I’m scared to know I’m always on your mind.”
8. Karma – Pachelbel (1998)
What’s stopping them? There’s hope in hopelessness: “And it’s too late to say goodbye, it’s too early yet to think you can’t be mine.” But, chin up, “there is pleasure to be found in this kind of pain.”
9. Jem – Flying High (2004)
What’s stopping them? Jem knows that she and the object of her desire can’t be together, for reasons unstated, and she “can’t pay the price” for acting on the reciprocal feeling, even if they are “so close to giving in”. The situation is painful by this impossible love also makes her giddy, as love tends to do. Hence she is “flying high”.
10. Joseph Arthur – Honey And The Moon (2002)
What’s stopping them? He loves her, she loves him back, they already seem to be together, but “right now, everything you want is wrong. And right now all your dreams are waking up.” He wants to follow her “to the shores of freedom, where no one lives”. It’s possibly a case where depression stands in the way of love’s final fulfilment.
11. Rilo Kiley – Does He Love You (2004)
What’s stopping them? A love triangle: a woman has an affair with her pregnant friend’s husband. He says he’ll leave her, but the protagonist knows he won’t.
12. The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together (2005)
What’s stopping them? His parents will never consent to this love, for they are rich and the girl is “a dirty daughter from the labour camps” with tattoos (what?). But he’ll hold her hand”…
13. Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright – Set The Fire To The Third Bar (2006)
What’s stopping them? Two people are in love, but it’s long-distance. “I’m miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground. I pray that something picks me up, and sets me down in your warm arms.” Unlike many others in the impossible love predicament, our two friends may well activate their love fully when they do get together. Or the long distance will break them apart.
14. Bob Dylan – Ninety Miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street) (1988)
What’s stopping them? Bob’s married, she’s married, and a drunken one-night stand turned into an affair which will end in disaster. “As a bad motorcycle with the devil in the seat, going ninety miles an hour down a dead end street… I didn’t want to want you, but now I have no choice, it’s too late to listen to that warning voice.” Kids, don’t try that at home.
15. Conway Twitty – Linda On My Mind (1975)
What’s stopping them? Oh, what complication: Linda had a crush on Conway but Conway loved her friend. Now Conway is tied to her friend but is in love with Linda, who is still in love with him. Who is now, as the title reveals, on his mind. As he is lying in bed next to his crying wife”…
16. Hank Locklin – Please Help Me, I”m Falling (1960)
What’s stopping them? A desperate plea in the title, because Hank belongs to another whose arms have grown cold. But he promised “to have and to hold” the wife forever, so he can never be free.
17. Billy Joe Royal – Down In The Boondocks (1965)
What’s stopping them? He loves her and she loves him. But, coming from the boondocks, he doesn’t fit in her society.
18. Luther Ingram – (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right (1972)
What’s stopping them? Our man Luther is having affair and tries to rationalise his bid to have the love that can’t be. It’ll all end in tears, because he is not going to leave his wife, “who needs me just as much”, but he’ll continue his affair (perhaps he’s the cad in the last song on this mix). He asks: “Am I wrong trying to hold on to the best thing I ever had”? Well, is he?
19. Clydene Jackson – Somebody Else’s Love (1975)
What’s stopping them? More falling in love with somebody else’s love. All the playing in pools in the park wouldn’t get them to be together. It was never going to be, so that fling is a thing of the past.
20. The Glass House – Stealing Moments From Another Woman’s Life (1972)
What’s stopping them? The singer has the self-awareness that being with the man of her desire affects another woman, “stealing moments” from her. So now she dumps the guy.
21. Billy Paul – Me And Mrs. Jones (1972)
What’s stopping them? She’s got her own obligations, and so, and so-o-o, does he-e-e-e.
22. Marilyn McCoo – Saving All My Love For You (1978)
What’s stopping them? He says: “Be patient, just wait a little longer”. Which translates to: he’ll never leave his wife.
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