Love Songs In Age Analysis? The 61 Top Answers

Philip Larkin’s “Talking in Bed” shows the difficulties a speaker faces when talking to his lover in bed. It’s a poem about how loneliness can invade even the most intimate moments.

This poem was written in 1960 and later published in The Whitsun Weddings in 1964. It is one of Larkin’s most famous pieces and corresponds to a particular style for which he is known. The subject is simple, but its exploration takes the reader deeper than one would normally go. In “Talking in Bed” he examines the relationship between two people and the larger world while lying in bed together.

The lines of this piece are divided into tercets or three-line stanzas. They follow a rhyme pattern of aba cac dcd eee. The relationship between groups of three and the focus on a couple is interesting. There are an odd number of lines in these sentences, leaving them (possibly) incomplete.

summary

Philip Larkin’s Talking in Bed speaks to the ever-present loneliness and sense of insignificance that permeates even the most intimate moments.

The poem begins with the speaker describing how easy it should be to talk to your significant other in bed. Immediately stating that this is not the case, he goes on to describe how time and the elements help erode one’s sense of worth in an ever-changing world. The right words are getting harder to find and frankly harder to maintain.

You can read the full poem here.

subjects

The main theme of this piece is: insignificance through and in relation to loneliness and time. Larkin talks about how even in the most intimate of situations, like in bed with a lover, you’re still at the mercy of the world. The wind never rests and “dark cities” continue to loom on the horizon.

No matter how much you care for the world, it doesn’t return that affection. Through the conclusion, Larkin has placed the reader in a state of confusion and questioning that mirrors his own. One should, as the speaker does, look for words that are “at once true and kind / or not untrue and not unkind.”

pictures

Larkin uses images of nature and its strongest elements alongside descriptions of turmoil to depict the pressures of life in the modern world. The stillness of two people “talking in bed” is contrasted with the constant movement of time and the “incomplete restlessness of the wind”. It builds and publishes and travels through the “dark cities” of the world.

Analysis of speech in bed

Lines 1-4

Talking in bed should be the easiest

(…)

But more and more time passes in silence.

In the first four lines of this piece, the speaker begins by depicting a situation in which one is “talking in bed”. There are no specific characters in the poem. Instead, Larkin leaves the personal element open. In this way it is possible to insert one’s own experiences into the context of the poem. It also forces a reader to dig deeper to understand what Larkin is talking about. The language is somewhat ephemeral with double negatives building on each other.

He is interested in exploring solitude and how even in the least lonely of situations nothing is easy. When a couple is intimate, it should be “easiest” to talk to each other, but that’s not the case. Larkin speaks of this type of intimacy as part of a larger love pattern that stretches back to the dawn of mankind. This connection to the past is one of the reasons there are no specific characters. The couple in the poem is more of an “emblem” than a specific pairing of people. If you imagine yourself in this situation, the poem suits you.

Larkin knows that exposing yourself physically and emotionally to another person should bring out your truest self, but that’s not the case. The world is still spinning around this imaginary couple and it’s getting harder and harder to tell the whole truth.

Lines 5-7

Outside the incomplete restlessness of the wind

(…)

And dark cities loom on the horizon.

In the next three lines, Larkin makes the transition to speaking more generally of the influence of the outside world. That there is no “restlessness” is due to the continuous time that is happening outside the bedroom and the constant movement of one’s mind. Larkin emphasizes this fact by saying of the

[…] the incomplete restlessness of the wind

He is interested in how it “builds and dissipates clouds”. It has the power to change the landscape of the sky and ensure it is never the same second to second. Finally he comes to the last line, which describes how the same elements cause the building of “dark cities…on the horizon.” Instead of describing light in the distance and depicting hope, he speaks of “dark cities” which are inherently premonitions.

Lines 8-12

We are not interested in any of that. Nothing shows why

(…)

Or not untrue and not unkind.

In the last lines, the speaker summarizes his opinion of the world with the line,

We are not interested in any of that.

It refers to the earth, the wind and the “dark cities” in the distance. Even the most obnoxious aspects of Earth completely ignore the couple’s concerns. No matter how aligned you feel in the world, that will never be a complete truth.

In the second half of line eight, Larkin returns to the theme of isolation. He marvels at the oddity of the couple’s “unique distance from isolation” and enduring feelings of loneliness. The couple is closer to the loneliness they are trying to escape from than they might like to believe. This causes a rupture in their communication, tying the end of the poem to the beginning.

The couple can’t find the right words, the words that come to mind are neither “true and kind” nor “not untrue and not unkind”. This odd double negative is meant to throw a reader off balance. It helps put yourself in the same confused position as this iconic couple.

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Home is so Sad by Philip Larkin is a thoughtful poem about the importance of home. The poet examines what happens to a home when people leave it.

In this poem, the poet addresses themes of home, loneliness, separation, and even loss. There is also an inherent nod to the coming-of-age theme in Home is So Sad. It is the most obvious reason, aside from perhaps death, why people leave home. You may come back, but it’s never the same again. The tone is sad, expressing a loss felt by the house, those left behind and those who left.

Summary of Home is so Sad

“Home is so Sad” by Philip Larkin is a touching ten-line poem that describes what happens to a home when people start moving away from it.

The poem uses personification to describe home as a suffering creature, something that has lost what it loved and would do anything to bring it back. There is a soothing space it creates for those who left it behind. It’s always ready to let that person back in. In the second stanza, the speaker notes some of the diverse images that mark changes and losses in a home.

You can read the full poem here.

Structure of the house is sad

‘Home is so Sad’ by Philip Larkin is a two stanza poem composed of phrases of five lines or quintanes. These lines follow a simple rhyme scheme of ABABA DEDED. Larkin also chose to use an iambic pentameter as the regular metric pattern connecting each line. This means there are five sets of two beats per row. The first of these is unstressed and the second is stressed. By using this pattern, the poet creates a steady rhythm that encourages the reader to read at a pace that is neither too fast nor too slow.

Poetic Techniques in Home is so sad

Larkin uses various poetic techniques in “Home is so Sad”. These include caesura, personification and enjambment. The first of these, the caesura, is one of the most dominant. It occurs when a line is split in half, sometimes with punctuation marks, sometimes not. The use of punctuation at these moments creates a very deliberate pause in the text.

A reader should consider how the pause affects reading rhythm and how it might precede an important turn or transition in the text. For example, the first line is: “Home is so sad. It remains as it was left”. Or, another great example, the last line of the poem. It reads: “The music in the piano chair. This vase”.

Another important technique often used in poetry is enjambment. It occurs when a line is clipped before its natural breakpoint. Enjambment quickly forces a reader to the next line and the next. One has to move forward to comfortably solve a phrase or sentence. For example, the transitions between lines two and three and lines three and four. Along with the caesura, these two techniques help define the way a reader understands the lines.

Finally, personification occurs when a poet imbues a non-human being or object with human characteristics. In this case, Larkin uses it to represent the house as missing or missing something like a human would.

Home’s analysis is so sad

verse one

home is so sad It remains as it was left

Shaped for the comfort of the last to leave (…) Having no heart to put aside theft

In the first stanza of “Home is so sad,” the speaker begins using the line that later became the title. The statement is explicit, in a way Larkin rarely is. However, it works in two different ways. First, it’s sad to be home because of what’s missing. Second, because of the personification that follows immediately, the house itself feels sad like a human would.

When people leave the house, the house doesn’t spring back. The space they left remains empty and ready to receive that person again. It is interesting to look at the inspiration behind this as you read this article. Larkin wrote it after or while visiting his mother’s home, where he used to live. He created one of those metaphorical empty spaces in this house. Larkin felt that emptiness and brought it to life in Home is So Sad.

The house is serious, caring and willing to do anything to bring all of its people home. It is “deprived”, after all, “of pleasing someone”. Without that, the house withers like a flower without sunlight.

stanza two

And going back to where it started (…) Look at the pictures and the cutlery.

The music in the piano chair. This vase.

In the second stanza, the speaker proceeds to use a series of images to discuss what leftover things in the house mark this loss. The house tries its best to make things the way they used to be, but falls far short. What’s gone is gone. The speaker switches to the second person and addresses the reader or anyone who has had the same experience. He says: “You can see how it was”. It is evident in the “pictures and cutlery”. The last line contains another good example of a caesura. The narrator notes the “music in the piano stool” with moving finality. This vase”.

The vague but specific nature of these images allows anyone who reads them to pick them up and use them to envision their own home.

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A summary of a great Larkin poem

Written in August 1960, Talking in Bed is one of Philip Larkin’s most popular poems. It was published in his 1964 volume The Whitsun Weddings. Like many of his poems, “Talking in Bed” takes a recognizable and relatable setting – two lovers lying in bed together – and then draws on that small, specific scene to meditate on larger, more existential questions. You can read Talking in Bed here; What follows are a few words of analysis.

In summary, Talking in Bed does what so many of Larkin’s poems do: it takes a very simple, specific scene and then examines its broader meaning and how it tells us something about our lives, but the conclusion is less simple than the setting what led to it. The poem is about how what should be the epitome of intimacy and honesty – two people lying in bed together – actually only manages to make us poignantly aware of our loneliness and insignificance in the universe. And it becomes rather more difficult to be honest and kind with the person closest to you (both physically and emotionally), although – as is so often the case with Larkin’s poetry – he cannot offer an answer as to why this might be the case be the case. Nobody can. “Nothing shows why…” Notice the pun on the word “lying” in that second line: lying in bed, but also lying in bed, or at least finding it hard to be true, in bed.

Larkin’s poem is a masterpiece in terms of rhyme scheme. Arranged into a series of three-line stanzas or tercets, ‘Talking in Bed’ begins with an aba rhyme, followed by cac and then dcd, ending with eee. In other words, the rhyme on the first and third lines of one stanza becomes the rhyme on the middle line of the next stanza, until this pattern breaks down and we get the simple triplet of find/kind/unkind. This final triplet, like the speaker of the poem, is isolated: fittingly, this final stanza was introduced with the word ‘isolation’ stuck at the end of the previous line. It is not simply a trio, but a triplet, since all three lines end in the same rhyme.

The fact that a poem about “two men who are honest” is written in three patterns, namely the three-line stanzas, is also suggestive and certainly significant. Is this simply meant to indicate incompleteness – something less than perfect or “weird” about the relationship between two people trying to be honest with each other – or does it also indicate a third person in the relationship preventing the two lovers from being to be honest with each other? (Not that we want to reduce this poem to a biographical reading in light of Larkin’s own life, but for much of his life he shared his life—and his bed—with more than one woman.)

“Talking in Bed” contains what we like to call “Larkin-Zoom”: It starts with something local and mundane (and often unremarkable and perhaps even unpromising as material for poetry) and then zooms out to encompass the broader themes and issues picking up resonances suggested to the poet by this local starting point. From two people in bed we move to heaven, whole cities, maybe even the whole meaningless and indifferent universe.

If you would like to read more of Larkin’s work, we recommend The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin

. Discover more about his poetry with our commentary on Sunny Prestatyn, our thoughts on Larkin’s recent masterpiece Days, our review of Larkin’s poignant poem about the home, and our round-up of Larkin’s magnificent poem about the environment

Image: Larkin with Gin & Tonic, 1961; Photographer unknown. First published in Selected Letters, edited by Anthony Thwaite. About Simon K on Flickr (share-alike license).

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A summary of a Larkin poem about books

A Study of Reading Habits was written in August 1960 and published in Larkin’s 1964 volume The Whitsun Weddings. It touches on one of Philip Larkin’s favorite themes in a far more humorous way than many of his most famous poems, and is great fun to analyze. You can read “A Study of Reading Habits” here.

In summary, Larkin’s narrator tells us that reading books enabled him to escape early: first at school, where reading offered solace from bullies by letting him live out his fantasies of defeating the school bully; then, as a young man, reading provided an outlet for acting out all his sexual fantasies, and he could imagine himself being the dashing heroes of the novels he read that “bludgeon” women with sex. Eventually, Larkin’s spokesman concludes that middle-aged reading has lost its appeal because the novels that provide such vicarious satisfaction are now all too familiar and thus fail to convince their escapist visions. They all have the same plots and the same characters and have become dowdy and unpredictable. The narrator of the poem ends by advising that it is better to pass your time getting drunk: it is a more efficient way for the disaffected reader to escape the disappointing realities of the world.

Such a paraphrase, of course, belies Larkin’s wit and the confident way in which he writes not only about his (or his speaker’s) earlier attitude towards reading, but also about his older, more jaded attitude. The phrase “dirty dogs” in the first stanza sounds as if it came straight out of one of those school stories or adventure stories the boy reader has devoured: like Pip in Dickens’ Great Expectations, Larkin’s narrator looks back on his childhood and reads from it glimpses of adulthood , and there’s something impishly ironic and knowing about that opening verse. Similarly, the second stanza’s rhymes—specs with sex, fangs with meringues—are weird and surprising, and the grammatical inaccuracy of “Me and my cloak and fangs” (not “My cloak and fangs and I,” or, less awkward, “I, with my cloak and my fangs”) suggests a naivety on the part of the speaker’s youthful expectations, both of sex and of its reading.

The final stanza focuses on the novel’s Western genre, as indicated by the words “dude,” “yellow,” and “store” (not “shop”). Westerns are often associated with offering a version of masculinity rooted in notions of heroism and daredevilry: the cowboy always gets the girl. But the reader has come to recognize all the tropes found in Westerns as generic and formulaic. The bluntness of the advice “Get stewed” hits us hard, as does the rudeness of the last line. (We should remember that Larkin was a librarian: of course, he’s not suggesting that all books are crap, just the kind of escapist novels that he or his narrator found solace in.)

What is odd about this last line is that it deviates from the technique found in many of Philip Larkin’s poems. Many of his poems begin with a rather crude statement – see This Be The Verse, High Windows, Sad Steps and Vers de Société – but then move on to something more all-encompassing, subtle and, for lack of a better word, poetic . But these are all later poems, and A Study of Reading Habits was written some years before them. Throughout this poem, Larkin maintains the rather bluff personality.

In short, A Study of Reading Habits analyzes the various stages of development of the average reader and arrives at disillusionment, a hallmark of Philip Larkin’s poetry. It’s naïve, says the poem, to live your life through the books you read—especially bad novels—but neither does the poem suggest that you can encounter the real world without some sort of escape route. Drinking replaces books: Temporary relief from life’s hardships and disappointments is the best we can hope for.

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When everyone else was gone to Mass

from Clearances III – In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984

When everyone else was at the fair

I was all hers when we were peeling potatoes.

They broke the silence, dropping one by one

Like solder dripping from a soldering iron:

Cold consolations settle between us to share things

Shiny in a bucket of clean water.

And drop again. Small pleasant splashes

From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the pastor at her bedside

Went hammer and tongs at the death prayers

And some reacted and some cried

I remembered her head bowed to my head

Her breath in mine, our flowing diving knives –

Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

Seamus Heaney (1939 – 2013)

This is a personal poem about a precious incident between a mother and son that will always be remembered. Both are busy with a household chore working together, and perhaps more importantly, they’ve had the time to peel potatoes together while the rest of the family was away for mass. “I was all hers” are key words, as Seamus reveled in a time of perfect togetherness. And he had evidently seen the solder melt and form drops falling off the heated iron. And likewise, the potatoes fell when they were peeled, and the splashing would break the stillness of their intense community and bring them to their senses. You can easily imagine this intimate scene.

The sextet lines are much later in the relationship when his mother is dying and the vicar is present. The priest dominates the scenery with a lot of noise (hammer and tongs). Unaware of the religious background, Seamus recalls that one incident when he was closest to his mother – “her breath on mine,” the marriage with the octet words “I was all her.”

I think for all of us, when we empty the purse of life, we’ll keep such gold coins under the rug.

Here is a reading of this poem by Seamus Heaney.

This sonnet was voted by the public (via a national broadcaster poll) as Ireland’s favorite poem of the last 100 years. Here is a link to the eight sonnets Heaney wrote in memory of his mother, Margaret Kathleen Heaney.

A detailed analysis with pictures of mother and child can be found at this link.

Seamus Heaney – An Irish poet, playwright and translator is widely recognized as one of the most important poets of the 20th century. He is the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism and editor of several widely circulated anthologies. He won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature “for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, celebrating everyday wonder and the living past.” He taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and was Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-2006). . 1994). His tombstone reads “Walk on air against my better judgment” from his poem “The Gravel Walks”.

A link to Seamus Heaney on Wikipedia.

Our pick of the 10 best Philip Larkin poems and why you should read them – selected by Dr. Olivier Tearle

Attempting to come up with a definitive top ten list of the best Philip Larkin poems is impossible, not least because every Larkin fan will come up with a slightly different list. However, we have done our best to bring together some of Larkin’s most classic poems here. Whether you’re an avid fan of the great man’s work or looking for an introduction to a handful of his best poetry, you should find something of interest here. (If you’re a Larkin fan, you might also like our picks for the best of W.H. Auden’s poems – Auden was a major influence on early Larkin.)

For each poem we have given the year of origin and not the publication date; Given that all but one of the poems on the list appeared in one of only three volumes of poetry (published in 1955, 1964, and 1974), and given that Larkin sometimes kept a poem for several years before publishing it, we thought we knew when Having written it (or, more accurately, finished it) is more useful than knowing when it was first printed. Links to online copies of the poems are provided for each poem in the listing. All poems are from the essential The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin

, which we unreservedly recommend. We’ve rounded up some fun facts about the life of Philip Larkin here.

10. “Deceptions” (1950).

An early masterpiece, written while Larkin was still in his twenties, “Deceptions” was included in Larkin’s first major volume of poetry, The Less Deceived (1955); the poem also gave the volume its title (an inversion of Ophelia’s “the more deceived” from Hamlet). It takes as its inscription and inspiration a real-life case of a young girl being drugged and raped by a man, a story told in Mayhew’s Victorian book London Labor and the London Poor. Larkin speaks to the girl – who is, of course, long dead – and tries to understand how she must have felt by comparing her mind to an open “knife drawer”. (When Margaret Thatcher met Larkin, she reportedly expressed her fondness for this poem, recalling only that it was the one in which the “girl’s mind was full of knives.”)

9. “Going to Church” (1954).

Church Going is a meditation on the role of the church in a secular age, written by a poet who described himself as an “Anglican agnostic”. One of Larkin’s most popular poems from The Less Deceived, Church Going is a great secular poem about churches. In the poem, the poem’s speaker visits a church on one of his bike rides and stops to take a look inside — though he’s not sure why he stopped. The title has a double meaning: both going to church (and if only to look around than to worship) and the going or disappearing of churches and the church from British life.

8. “Mr. Bleaney” (1955).

This poem is about a man who rents a rather small and plain room in a house and reflects on the life of the previous occupant, Mr. Bleaney. It shows Larkin’s excellent handling of syntax: the last two stanzas form one long sentence, culminating in a simple three-word statement. We particularly like the image of the speaker stuffing cotton into its ears to drown out the TV of its (most likely semi-deaf) landlady in the living room below.

7. “Afternoon” (1959).

“Deprivation is to me what daffodils were to Wordsworth,” Larkin once remarked. This poem, something of a “wild card” in this selection, is one of our favorites. By depicting young mothers in the local park pushing their children on slides and swings, it perfectly captures the dissatisfaction of post-war Britain and the age of austerity. But it also becomes something more timeless: a reflection on how generation soon follows generation and (as in many of Larkin’s poems) everyone grows old and finally reaches “the only end of old age” (as he puts it in another). ). Poem “Dockery and Son”).

As the commenter on a website citing the poem puts it, “This poem is an epic man.” Perhaps not in the Homeric sense, but we reflect that. It is also one of Larkin’s rare non-rhyming poems (see his meditation on religion “Water” for another).

6. “Aubade” (1977).

Perhaps Larkin’s last great poem. Larkin finished “Aubade” in November 1977, and the poem was published in the Times Literary Supplement on December 23 – which, as Larkin himself had predicted, ruined quite a few Christmas dinners. He had begun the poem in 1974, the year his final collection, High Windows, was published, but he put it aside and returned to it three years later, in the summer of 1977. But it was the death of Larkin’s mother, in November of that year, that seems to have inspired him to complete the poem. But the poem is primarily about Larkin’s death and offers a stark and harrowing vision of human mortality.

In summary, ‘Aubade’ is about the poet who wakes up at four in the morning in ‘noiseless darkness’ to the horror of his own death, which with the dawn of a new day ‘now draws a full day closer’. He can’t say how, where or when he will die, but that doesn’t stop him from contemplating his own death – a horrifying thought.

Published in the Times Literary Supplement two days before Christmas 1977, it is a moving and frankly frightening meditation on the prospect of death, that “certain extinction to which we are journeying”. We include “Aubade” in our selection of the most beautiful morning poems.

5. “Toads” (1955).

One of the jewels in The Less Deceived, “Toads,” is one of Larkin’s meditations (or perhaps invective) on work. When asked years later by an interviewer (Larkin was very reluctant to give interviews despite appearing on BBC Radio’s Desert Island Discs) how he came up with the comparison between work and toad, Larkin gave the Wildean answer: ” sheer genius”.

4. “The Pentecost Weddings” (1964).

The title poem of Larkin’s third major volume of poetry, The Whitsun Weddings, is a long poem in Larkin terms. It describes a train journey from Hull to London over the Pentecost weekend. The narrator (probably Larkin himself, or quite an approximation) observes all the newly married couples joining the train as it stops at various stations and ponders the future of the married couples whose lives are so full of happiness and excitement at this moment is. (See “Afternoon” above for a contrast where the wedding albums of nondescript families are found “lying by the television”—“lying,” as so often in Larkin’s poetry, is a pun full of truth.)

Does the rain of arrows that becomes rain at the end of the poem represent Cupid’s arrow turning into the misery of married life? Or should the rain be seen here as a positive, life-giving force? Given that we’re talking about Larkin here, we’re inclined to think it’s the former, but Larkin cleverly leaves the image ambiguous. We discussed this and other curious aspects of the poem in our analysis of The Pentecost Weddings.

3. “That’s the Verse” (1971).

Written in 1971, this is another of Larkin’s most famous poems. Its opening line is probably the best-known of all poems — but don’t recite it too loud in your local library.

Our parents ruin our lives, perhaps unwittingly, because they pass on their own flaws to us (since we inherit their genes) and instill more flaws in us through the way they raise us. Larkin then says in defense of parents everywhere that this wasn’t their fault: They, too, were damaged by their upbringing from their parents, who spent their lives either being emotionally buttoned up or, if they showed any emotion, fighting and a tense one create family life for their children. He concludes by saying that this is the way of mankind: we pass our own misery on to our children, and they pass theirs on to their children’s children’s children, and so on.

You can read our analysis of This Be The Verse here.

2. “An Arundel Tomb” (1956).

Reflecting on the effigies of a medieval earl and countess buried side by side, this poem is a tender meditation on the love of one of poetry’s most celebrated bachelors (Larkin was a bachelor, having never married; however, he had Relationships with multiple women—at the same time). Like many of Larkin’s poems, it takes the form of an internal debate in which the poet discusses two sides of a particular situation, prompted by witnessing an event or moment (here the visit to the Arundel tomb of the title).

The inspiration for An Arundel Tomb came during a New Year’s holiday in early 1956, when Larkin was visiting Chichester Cathedral with his longtime partner Monica Jones. Inspired by the stone effigy of the medieval Earl and Countess found in the Cathedral, Larkin wrote a poem about love and our attitude towards love. The identities of the figures in the real Arundel tomb are Richard FitzAlan and Eleanor of Lancaster from the 14th century, who are actually buried at Lewes Priory. Although Larkin calls the effigies a “grave,” they are technically a “memorial” because the bodies are buried elsewhere. But let’s face it, “An Arundel Tomb” sounds better than “An Arundel Memorial”.

You can read our analysis of An Arundel Tomb here.

1. “MCMXIV” (1960).

One of Larkin’s most famous poems, “MCMXIV,” is titled 1914 in Roman numerals. Larkin contrasts the world before World War I with the world shortly after. His last line is often quoted, but his ambiguous penultimate line about slightly longer-lasting marriages (because husbands would soon be killed in war, or because people then stayed married longer?) is often overlooked.

One final note: Compiling this list has been a great pleasure, but also a rather painful act of literary selection. That’s because picking just ten of Philip Larkin’s best poems is extremely difficult given the man’s writing of so many classics. So don’t hesitate to register your displeasure and/or shock that we didn’t include High Windows, Ambulance, Here, The Trees, Going, Going, or The Explosion. We could go on. In all honesty, we don’t think two Larkin fans’ top ten lists of his best poetry would look the same.

But as I said, that’s because he left a whole lot of great poetry, not just a few. And our final recommendation is to get the collected poems from your local bookstore or library and start reading them all. Go on. It won’t take that long. He didn’t leave many poems, but what he left behind were many classics. If you don’t already own it, treat yourself to a copy of Philip Larkin: Collected Poems. Well worth it for the price of lunch.

If you enjoyed this selection of Larkin’s best poems, check out our selection of the best poems by John Betjeman and seven of the greatest poems by Dylan Thomas. You might also like our brief introduction to English poetry, told through 8 short poems.

The author of this article, Dr. Oliver Tearle is a literary critic and Lecturer in English at Loughborough University. His publications include The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.

Image (above): Philip Larkin Plaque in Belfast (Author: Albert Bridge, 2007), Wikimedia Commons. Image (below): Statue by Philip Larkin (Author: Dragoon47, 2013), Wikimedia Commons.

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Marcel – Durban, South Africa Haddaway (born Alexander Nestor Haddaway on January 9, 1965) is a Trinidadian-based eurodance and house musician. He grew up in Europe and the United States and has lived in Cologne, Germany since 1989. This was his only major hit in the US, but he had several more in Europe. >>

Despite the song being an upbeat dance track, the lyrics are quite heartbreaking as Haddaway sings about trying to love a girl who won’t love him.

The song was written by Haddway’s producers Dee Dee Halligan and Junior Torello. Halligan is a German producer also known as Tony Hendrik and Torello is a producer/lyricist better known as Karin Hartmann. Together they founded the Coconut Records label, which signed Wolfgang Petry and Andreas Martin. As Halligan recounts, Haddaway was singing demos in the basement of Coconuts Studios when he decided to let him record “What Is Love.” Coconut released the single in Germany in 1992 and later that same year it was picked up by British label Logic and American label Arista. In the UK it peaked at number 2 in June 1993 and in the US it peaked at number 11 in October 1993.

Halligan and Torello also wrote and produced Haddaway’s next hit, “Life (Everybody Needs Somebody To Love)”, which peaked at #2 in the UK and #41 in America.

This song gained popularity when it was used in a recurring Saturday Night Live skit about three guys going to clubs. They dress alike – in outdated fashion – and torment the women in the clubs by forcing their dance on them. There is very little dialogue in the sketches, and this song plays throughout, with the three men moving their heads simultaneously. In 1998, the skit was expanded into a full-length film entitled A Night At The Roxbury.

The two leads in the sketch (and film) were SNL cast members Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan. The show’s host was often her third man in the bits – Jim Carrey and Sylvester Stallone each played a role as head-shaking swingers.

In a kickstart to the Saturday Night Live bit, this song was used in a 2008 Super Bowl commercial for Pepsi Max. In the track, various people can be seen dozing off, but after taking a few sips of Pepsi’s elixir, they wake up and their nodding picks up the rhythm of the song. Celebrities appearing in the ad include LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott. At the end of the spot, a piqued Chris Kattan yells “Stop it” to some enthusiastic Nods.

Eminem sampled this song on his 2010 track “No Love”.

“So I thought I’d pull everything away and let the song’s story tell. I feel like the original is more about the mood and the track than the song. My version is almost like a ballad version of it. ” Canadian singer Kiesza covered this Eurodance tune and turned it into a vulnerable, heartbreaking ballad. She told Redbull.co.uk, “I’ve always loved the song, but I noticed that there was a connection to this song feels great and gets up and dances, but then I listened to the lyrics and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, this song is so depressing. It’s so sad. How did I not notice?’ There’s a whole aspect of the song that you don’t tap into.” it’s about the song. My version is almost like a ballad version of it.”

1993 single by Haddaway

This article is about the Haddaway song. For other songs of this name and all other uses, see What Is Love (disambiguation)

What Is Love is a song recorded by Trinidadian-German eurodance artist Haddaway for his debut album The Album. The song was released as the lead single from the album on May 8, 1993. It was a massive hit in Europe, becoming number one in at least 13 countries and reaching number two in Germany, Sweden and the UK. Outside of Europe, the single was a hit worldwide, peaking at #11 in the US, #12 in Australia, #17 in Canada, and #48 in New Zealand. The song earned Haddaway two awards from the German Echo 1994 in the categories “Best National Single” and “Best National Dance Single”.

background [edit]

“What Is Love” was written and produced by German music producer and composer Dee Dee Halligan (Dieter Lünstedt a.k.a. Tony Hendrik) and his partner/wife Junior Torello (Karin Hartmann-Eisenblätter a.k.a. Karin van Haaren) of Coconut Records in Hennef (Sieg). . near Cologne. They had previously produced songs for successful groups such as Bad Boys Blue and Londonbeat and were waiting for the right singer for their new song. Trinidadian-born singer Nestor Alexander Haddaway was then chosen to sing it. He worked as a producer, dancer and choreographer before being signed to the label.[5] The producers wanted Haddaway to try to sing the song like Joe Cocker. He told them, “I love Joe Cocker, but I’m not Joe Cocker.” Then he had his own idea of ​​how to sing it, and after the producers let the singer try it his way, “What Is Love” was born. Hendrik locked himself in the studio and eight or nine days later he came out with the song as we know it.[6] In a 2012 interview, Haddaway opened up about the making of What Is Love:

We just used ideas that were fresh at the time and tried to do something that no one else had (…) The song came really quickly. I had the idea for the melodies in about 45 minutes and the overall structure of the song was ready in a day and a half.[7]

The female vocal on the track was a standard sample released on the Zero-G Sample Compilation CD “Datafile 1” produced by Zero-G co-founder and Jack ‘N’ Chill member Ed Stratton, aka Man Machine, and was aimed at dance producers, DJs, programmers and artists.[8]

Release and Legacy[ edit ]

What Is Love was released in Europe in May 1993 and in the US in August 1993. It reached number one in 13 countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Zimbabwe. It reached second place in Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom. In the latter, the song reached that position in the UK Singles Chart in its fifth week on the chart, on 27 June 1993. [9] Additionally, “What Is Love” was a number 3 hit in Iceland and also made it to the top number one on the Eurochart Hot 100. The song debuted at number 87 on August 28, 1993 and peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. The song also peaked at number 12 in Australia. By March 1994, worldwide sales of “What Is Love” had reached 2.6 million.[10]

When asked about the meaning of “What Is Love” in a 2015 interview, Haddaway said:

People always ask me what I mean […] I meant that “what love is” must be defined by everyone by their own definition. It is unique and individual. For me it has to do with trust, honesty and dedication.[11]

Critical reception[ edit ]

AllMusic editor Jose F. Promis called “What Is Love” “one of the most important dance tunes of the 1990s”. In 2015, Victor Beigelman of The A.V. Club considered it a “Europop banger that, more than 20 years later, remains relentlessly catchy and far more profound than it ever deserved.” explained that “a wildly catchy chorus is complemented by a sophisticated, synth-heavy arrangement. Haddaway will conjure up images of Seal and Sydney Youngblood with his secular baritone performance. A surefire dance hit that has the power to make its way into pop formats with ease.”[14] Milo Miles of The Boston Globe wrote, “He infuses such tenderness and anguish into the short phrases that they ring out loud Become a whisper that stays in your ear. With perfectly greased synthesizers bouncing behind him, Haddaway shaves valuable miles off minimal lyrics.”[15] The Columbia Daily Spectator student newspaper said it “will transport you instantly to the golden age of house music.”[16] Jim Farber of Daily News noted that “What Is Love” “uses every sound it has to hit the punch: a stabb synth line, a tight bass line, an uplifting lead vocal, and an encouragingly frantic female vocal in support.” It’s a sound that’s simultaneously insinuating and haunting, sensual and wild.” He also thought it was “the natural continuation of the world” of Robin S.” Show Me Love”.[17]

Dave Sholin of the Gavin Report commented, “Try to sit still seconds after this upbeat entry begins.” He also noted that Haddaway’s style “is reminiscent of the Fine Young Cannibals and just as exciting.” [18] Idolator’s Mike Wood called it a “catchy” anthem that “permeated our collective consciousness in the face of heavily repeated airplay”.[19] Music writer James Masterton stated in his weekly UK Chart commentary that the song was “undoubtedly one of the best soul releases of the Haddaway’s deeply soulful vocals are definitely on par with anything to come out of Chicago’s deep house scene in quite some time.”[21] Wendi Cermak of The Network Forty described the track as “splendiferous,” noting, that “the eargasmic synthesizer stabs in the extended mix provide Vegas dancefloor-filling capabilities and the processing screams radio airplay…”[22] Luke Turner of The Quietus wrote, that “What Is Love” “bangs because it manages to be two things — a terrific soul song, but also pretty severe, with nagging like hell synth lines and nagging repeats in the rhythms.”[23]

music video[edit]

The music video for “What Is Love” was directed by German music video director Volker Hannwacker.[24] It shows Haddaway in a mansion being pursued by three femme fatales, one of whom is a vampire.

Awards[edit]

(*) indicates that the list is unordered.

In popular culture[edit]

“What is Love” saw a revival when the song from the Saturday Night Live skits “Roxbury Guys” was later adapted into the 1998 feature film “A Night at the Roxbury,” which starred two brothers (played by Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell) frequent dance clubs featured a third person (including actors such as Sylvester Stallone and Jim Carrey) referred to as “bar hop”. It was also used in the 2013 video game Saints Row IV and included as one of the tracks in 2017’s Just Dance. The song was also sung by Ulysses Klaue (played by Andy Serkis) while being interrogated by Everett K. Ross (played by Martin Freeman) in the 2018 film Black Panther.

Formats and playlists [ edit ]

“What Is Love” CD Single / 7″ “What Is Love” – ​​4:28 “Sing About Love” – ​​3:12 12″ Maxi-Single “What Is Love” (12″ Mix) – 6:40 “What Is Love” (7″ mix) – 4:27 “What Is Love” (club mix) – 5:00 “Sing About Love” – ​​4:40 CD single, UK “What Is Love” (radio edit 7″ mix) – 3:57 “What Is Love” (Club Mix) – 5:00 “What Is Love” (12″ Mix) – 6:40 “What Is Love” (Tour de Trance Mix) – 6:00 “What Is Love” (Refreshmento Extro Mix) – 5:42 CD Maxi, France “What Is Love” (7” Mix) – 4:29 “What Is Love” (12” Mix) – 6:40 “What Is Love” (Club Mix) – 5:02 “Sing About Love” – ​​4:36 “What Is Love” – ​​Remix CD Single, France “What Is Love” (eat-this mix – radio edit) – 4:19 “What Is Love” (Refreshmento Extro Mix) – 3:52 CD Maxi “What Is Love” – Remix (Eat This Mix) – 6:54 “What Is Love” (Tour de Trance Mix ) – 6:00 “What Is Love” (7” Mix) – 4:27 “What Is Love” – reloaded CD Maxi “What Is Love” – reloaded (Video Mix) – 3:16 “What Is Love” – reloaded (Reloaded Mix) – 6:09 “What Is Love” – reloaded (what is club mix) – 6:39 “What Is Love” – ​​reloaded (Jens O’s hard remix) – 5:32 “What Is Love” – ​​reloaded (Nathan Jolly’s NRG remix) – 6:48 “What Is Love” – ​​reloaded (radio edit) – 2:56 “What Is Love” – ​​reloaded (Lunaris remix) – 6:21

Diagrams[ edit ]

Weekly charts[ edit ]

Certifications and Sales[ edit ]

Cover versions and sampling[ edit ]

Klaas version[ edit ]

In 2009, the German DJ Klaas remixed the song under the title “Klaas meets Haddaway – What Is Love 2K9”. This remix charted in several European countries.

Lost Frequency version[edit]

In 2016, Belgian DJ Lost Frequencies released a cover titled “What Is Love 2016″ as a single from his debut album Less Is More.[109] In fact, it was produced back in 2014 as a remix for Jaymes Young’s cover of What is Love. This version was remade for the album and became a hit on a number of European singles charts and topped the Belgian Ultratop Official Singles Chart.

music video[edit]

An official music video was released, directed by Soulvizion. It features Dutch professional basketball player Don Rigters[110] playing the role of David Rose, a badly injured basketball player trying to make a comeback to the game with the encouragement of his girlfriend (played by Melissa Kanza), his three teammates (Alkenah Wansing, Jeroen Jansen and Lindy Chippendel) and by his basketball coach (played by J.E. Rigters).

track list [ edit ]

Armada / Mostiko, October 7, 2016

“What is Love 2016” – 2:52

Armada / Mostiko, October 28, 2016

What Is Love 2016” (Regi & Lester Williams Remix) – 4:21

Lost & Cie / Armada, November 11, 2016

“Was ist Liebe 2016” (Regi & Lester Williams Remix) – 3:08 “Was ist Liebe 2016” (Regi & Lester Williams Extended Remix) – 4:10

Armada / Mostiko, January 6, 2017

What Is Love 2016 (Mike Mago Remix) 3:29 What Is Love 2016 (Zonderling Remix) 3:11 What Is Love 2016 (Galactic Marvl Remix) 2:54 What Is Love 2016 (Rose Remix) – 3:08 “What Is Love 2016” (Mike Mago Extended Remix) – 5:49 “What Is Love 2016” (Zonderling Extended Remix) – 4:27 “What Is Love 2016” (Rose Extended Remix) – 4:08 “What is Love 2016” (Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike Remix) – 3:29

Weekly charts[ edit ]

Year-end charts[ edit ]

Diagram (2016) top

Position Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[124] 41st

Certifications[ edit ]

Region Certification Certified Units/Sales Belgium (BEA)[125] 2× Platinum 80,000 Germany (BVMI)[126] Gold 200,000 * Sales figures are based on certification alone.

^ Shipping figures are based solely on certification.

Revenue and streaming numbers are based on certification alone.

See also[edit]

Kind of song that deals with love

Call me honey, call me honey. An accordionist plays the melody of a song with the lyrics shown.

A love song is a song about romantic love, falling in love, heartbreak after a breakup, and the feelings that these experiences bring. A comprehensive list of even the most famous performers and composers of love songs would be a tall order.

Love songs can be found in a variety of different genres of music.

history [edit]

Love songs have been around for centuries and can be found in the history and culture of most societies, although their ubiquity is a modern phenomenon.

The oldest known love song is the Shu-Sin Love Song discovered in the library of Ashurbanipal in Mesopotamia.[1] It is about both romantic and erotic love. Before the discovery of Shu-Sin’s love song, Solomon’s Song of Songs from the Bible was thought to be the oldest love song.

Early history [edit]

There are several theories about the origin of music in general. According to Charles Darwin, it has to do with female-male mate choice (women choose male mates based on musical performances) and so the first music would be love music. Herbert Spencer saw music emerging from passionate eloquence and music emerging as an expression of emotions.[2]

In ancient Greek civilization there certainly was music at weddings and there certainly were love songs, since Erato as the muse was the protector of the love song, but our knowledge is based on myth and on images (such as vases) and not on written music. It was not until the 9th century that a musical notation developed in the Eastern Roman Empire, neume notation, and after the addition of lines, the notation system emerged around the 11th century, with which music from this period is only well documented.

Medieval music[edit]

A highly controversial and intriguing explanation for the origin of love songs can be found in Denis de Rougemont’s “Love in the Western World”.[3] De Rougemont’s thesis is that the love song evolved from the courtly love songs of the troubadours and that these songs represented a rejection of the historical Christian concept of love.

In Middle High German, medieval love songs are called Minnelied, chant d’amour courtois des troubadours (Langues d’oc) or trouvère (Langues d’oïl). The (unfulfilled, unattainable) courtly love in a noble environment is therefore the focus. Adoration of the Lady is a recurring theme. A number of individuals are also constantly returning, such as the lover who regrets being rejected by his lady, the lady who regrets the absence of her master who is on a crusade. Generosity, nobility of character, receptivity to new experiences, and attention to beauty and appearance are also common themes. The 14th-century Codex Manesse contains love songs by dukes such as John I, Duke of Brabant and William IX, Duke of Aquitaine.

Written in Bruges around 1400, the Gruuthuse manuscript – written in Middle Dutch – contains 147 songs, including a number of love songs with musical notation. The manuscript was written by several, mostly unknown, lyricists. [4][5]

Renaissance[ edit ]

Francesco Petrarch sang about his beloved Laura in 366 poems, collected in “Canzonière”. The poems were set to music by Claudio Monteverdi, Orlando di Lasso and Guillaume Dufay (Vergene bella), among others.

Classical music[edit]

Within classical music, romance is most commonly associated with love music, particularly romantic love music, and the love song is referred to as romance, although the term is not limited to vocal music.

The Oxford Dictionary of Music[6] states that “generally implies a particularly personal or tender quality”. A romance can be narrative and mostly amorous, but also a simple aria in an opera, for example Plaisir d’amour by Padre Martini and Georges Bizet’s aria “Je crois entender encore” (Romance de Nadir) from the opera Les pêcheurs de perles.

Franz Schubert wrote several romances, and Giuseppe Verdi wrote “Celeste Aida” about the impossible love for an Ethiopian slave.[7] Poets such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Federico Garcia Lorca wrote romances that were later set to music, such as Leonard Cohen’s Take this waltz.[8]

The close relationship between poetry and song lyrics was underscored when Bob Dylan received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for creating new poetic expressions in the great American song tradition.

pop music [edit]

The love song is not a genre or style of music; it occurs in all styles. However, on the English Wikipedia, there are about 40 albums entitled “Love Songs” (by The Beatles, Elton John, Frank Sinatra, among others), some with “The Love Songs” and a small 20 entitled “Love Songs by” ( Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and Diana Ross, among others).

The music style is “lovers rock”, a subgenre of reggae and “ballad”, including the “blues ballad”, the “soul ballad” and the “sentimental ballad”. A ballad is a melodic pop song,[9] often with an intimate atmosphere. The lyrics are mostly about love. A ballad should not be confused with a “ballad,” a 14th- and 15th-century French verse that is also used as a song in narrative form, such as: B. the ballad by Davy Crockett. In the late 19th century, the term was often applied to any love song, particularly the “sentimental ballad” in popular or rock music.

Another division within the love song is thematic.

The largest group are the love songs about a broken heart, sometimes less melodic and sung rougher like Lucinda Williams’ “Jackson” as opposed to, for example, Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, the theme song from the movie Titanic. The best-selling song about a broken heart is Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” written by Dolly Parton. Taylor Swift had a fondness for songs on the subject.[10]

Songs can also be about a special loved one, as in Gloria, Michelle and Angie, although who they were has never been revealed, or Layla, which was written for Pattie Boyd.

Romantic love is often associated with “candlelight dinners” and “moonlit walks,” so many love songs are about “candlelight” and “moon,” as in Van Morrison’s “Moondance” or “Moon River” from the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s .

Google search returns hundreds of lists of top 10, top 30, and top 100 love songs, some love songs from Billboard’s top 50 (based on number of weeks and position):

Specifically about sex:

Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” has been banned from many radio stations

Rod Stewart’s “Tonight Is the Night” and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy”

Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”

Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan wrote “Make You Feel My Love”, which Adele became a worldwide hit.

See also[edit]

Notes [edit]

The article is based on the Dutch article “Liefdeslied”