"so many never do"

July or August 2005.

Someone in office had a hits collection of Dan Fogelberg, whose LP Phoenix (1979) I had just heard; I had been listening at the time to The Innocent Age (1981), some songs from which were on the collection.

One song stood out, which I will talk about some other time on this blog for sure. It was "Sutter's Mill", a tale of the American Gold Rush.

One day, I heard what was the tail-end of "A Love Like This", probably from the most dramatic part of the guitar solo till the end.

Dan Fogelberg has done some decent, emphatic rock on his LPs, but "A Love Like This", believe it or not, sounded far louder than any of his songs I'd heard up to then. The right word has to be "louder" - it was, to start with, a question of volume. There is a lead guitar solo that is really, really loud. Melodic, yes, as was always expected from Dan, but also loud, which was surely not expected. I thought what anyone who knows anything about Dan Fogelberg would have thought - that there had to be some compelling reason why this particular, specific song had to be done so emphatically loudly.

When I listened closer, I found a piano that was also loud, but which played some really iconic chords and progressions. I was beginning to get hooked to it, and then I heard the words. Initially, of course, I thought it was just a very loud love song Dan had done for some reason. Nothing really exceptional. There was nothing on his other LPs I had heard that was so crassly loud, and that too just a love song.

I am just another boy; of course I don't take to 'love songs' that easily. I still don't, as a matter of fact.

After I thought I had the song all figured out, then, and only then did it just cut the floor clean away from beneath my feet. To this day, there is no other romantic song I have heard that is so sold out with abandonment, so utterly without restraint. After I had 'connected' to what Dan was saying here, the song became (and remains) an icon for me. I understand 'why so loud'. I would hear it every evening, at what I call the 'magic' hour - between quarter to five and half past - when everything beautiful becomes positively spellbindingly more so. I thought about finding a 'love like this', about getting tongue-tied, clumsy, bumbling and sweet sixteen when I was around....well, whoever she would be.

Being one who believes in The Divine, I don't really think much of what is claimed for human 'romantic' love. But "A Love Like This" helps me believe that there is much about romantic love which can indeed touch the divine. One of the song's only faults (and admittedly a very significant one) is that the words on the last verse (among the most grand and breath-taking words Dan has ever penned) describe something surely no human being can do for another. The 'light that guides me home', can only be Divine. There can be some level of this that a human being can reach, but not all the way. Only God can do that. Only God can be 'the star by which I steer, the only star I know'. Human beings can only go so far.

I must open my heart to you a bit, dear reader. If I might have 'fallen in love', as it is understood under the sun, this song captures it better than any song I've ever heard. If indeed there is 'romantic love', it must be so drunk with the one who is loved, that there is absolutely nothing held back, no cost weighed, no caution, no plan B, no soul left to be sacrificed, nothing. The die has indeed been cast, all the money's in and the bets are down, and all the fat is in the fire, all the eggs in one precious basket. My life for yours. There are no ducks in a row. It is ALL and ALL is lost if the one who is loved fails or is somehow removed.

Frightening? Yes, indeed. Cold and sweaty palms, heightened heartbeats and breathlessness are just trivial. But what if one really does find such a love under the sun? This is no small thing and I beg of you to consider this soberly - don't mistake it for less than it is, and don't mistake something less for it. It is quite common for many not to ever, ever find it, because there's only that much love to go round and also because it is not a fair world and this has to be accepted. It's a harsh truth and I must say it as indelicately as possible, lest one fail to take it seriously.

A love like this
Is so hard to find
And so many never do
And loves like this
When they even exist
Are precious and few
You know they're precious and few!

Aye, there's the rub. SO MANY NEVER DO. That, after the song has cut the floor off under you, brings you back down to earth (whose floor has gone).

Many say and believe (and I among them) that love may be romantic in the beginning, but as it grows over time it is hardly about romance; and so they discount this no-holds-barred opening. I do not. If indeed human love is what is claimed for it and expected of it, it cannot exclude the romantic. Just cannot. At any stage into which it grows.

And I hate what I've written. It is so lifeless, pedantic, boring, moth-eaten and so bereft of any soulfulness. But I will let it be, because though I do want to open out this song to you, there are places you cannot come with me. I am not exactly free to tell you all. Let what should never be known indeed remain forever so. Rather than reveal more than I should, let me suffice to say this much without lying.

....and about Dan Fogelberg? There will be other opportunities and I will use those to tell you about this gentle, beautiful soul.

*****************************************************

What remains is to talk about the song's music. There is one chord that I still haven't figured out, a lovely chord, the 6th chord in the intro (and it repeats on all those lines that close the verses). it is also the sequence which ends the song when the lines 'the light that guides me home' is repeated three times.

Much, much later, I discovered that "A Love Like This" appears on Dan's River of Souls (1993) LP, about which I know nothing else and, to the best of my knowledge, heard nothing else from.

And now the lonely days are done 
And with each rising of the sun, love begins anew

And if you ever ask me why I know that my love will never die 
I'll say these words to you

Of all the souls I've ever known 
Mine sings to yours and yours alone 
And yours sings just to me

In all this world I'll never find 
A heart that could beat as close to mine 
And this time I can see

A love like this is so hard to find 
And so many never do

And loves like this, when they even exist 
Are precious and few 
You know they're precious and few

A love like this is so hard to find 
And so many never do

And loves like this, when they even exist 
Are precious and few 
You know they're precious and few

Down the miles, through the years 
Yours is the star by which I steer 
The brightest star I've known 

And when I feel all hope is gone 
Yours is the love that leads me on

The light that guides me home 
The light that guides me home 
Your light will guide me home