Above is Saint Etienne’s version of ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’. Below is Neil Young’s original version. Seems worlds and generations apart in style. Yet, singing the same words, the same chorus over and over, it only seems that the artistes on both sides believe the heartbreaking ‘mantra’ that ‘only love can break your heart’, singing of the risks of love, of falling wrongly and badly into it. Love is lovely yet risky?
But only love can break your heart
Try to be sure right from the start
Yes only love can break your heart
What if your world should fall apart?
A timeless misunderstanding really. Reminds me of these words…
Mud can make you prisoner
And the plains can bake you dry
Snow can burn your eyes
But only people make you cry– Lee Marvin (Wand’rin’ Star)
(Hear his gravelly voice at http://youtu.be/pE9vc2cO170)
Only love can break your heart, and only people make you cry? True love, that is unconditional, can never break your heart, or anyone else’s. Only attachment to the beloved and reciprocation of love can break your heart, when your expectations are not met. People don’t make us cry. Only when we pin too much hopes on them do we cry, when these hopes are dashed. In the name of true love, yes, let’s stand corrected… it can never break your heart. And like the timeless true love of the enlightened, it will never take a ‘break’ in loving all. (Hear The Corrs’ version at http://youtu.be/JHX7QYyluhc)