The art of the anti-love song
Tracey Thorn released an album in 2010 titled Love and Its Opposite. When it comes to songwriting, it’s the ‘opposite’ that tends to throw up the more compelling discourse. The anti-love song has been a staple in popular music since Elvis’s baby left him and he wandered off to ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. Presley is a useful weathervane: if asked to pick between the two, no sentient listener would choose the soppy slobbering of ‘(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear’ over the snarl and bite of ‘Hound Dog’. Pop is sunshine on the surface, but at heart it’s closer to Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate. As Tina Turner once pondered, quite loudly: ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ The annual rigmarole of Valentine’s Day brings this truth into particularly sharp focus.
