Why is love so often equated with crime?

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Name me some songs that equate love or the act of love with crime. Then explain to me why pop songwriters find these analogous.

― Mark, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I've been in love for some time and I never felt like I was breaking the law.

― Mark, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"SEXCRIME (1984)" by that Annie and Dave band

― Gage-o, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Sade sang the chorus 'Is it a crime?...' in some old song or other.

I once wrote the line 'Fear is death and love's a crime' - but I didn't MEAN it, la.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Jim Carroll - "Love Crimes"
Magnetic Fields - "It's A Crime To Fall In Love"

But why is love an inherently criminal activity?

― Mark, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Because loving someone means that you might steal their heart, which would otherwise be used to attach the body to mundane things like jobs and groceries.

― dleone, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Because "love" = Big important area of interpersonal interaction in which there are no clearly codified rules of behaviour, no enforced arbitration, no judicial body to punish blatant violations of what few generalized standards we think we can realistically hold others to. Cf. war.

I think the Pinefox would be well suited to write a song about a love crimes tribunal in the Hague. Actually, scratch that; that's clearly an Andy Partridge song.

― Nitsuh, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

NO CLEARLY CODIFIED RULES OF CONDUCT? I think stalking is illegal. And since we're on the subject and talking about music, it is arguable that all these songs about love love love could be considered a sort of aural almanac on the rules and conduct of amore.

― Gage-o, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Hell, everyone knows love is a battlefield.

― nickn, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Sleater Kinney -- The Hot Rock

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Nitsuh -- Your definition of love as a chaotic system seems correct, but it wouldn't that mean "Love is anarchy" more than "Love is a crime." The word "crime" is defined at dictionary.com as "An act committed or omitted in violation of a law forbidding or commanding it and for which punishment is imposed upon conviction," which would mean that "to love" is "to break a law", not "to enter a lawless arena" (battlefield?).

― Mark, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"Guilty" off of the Amelie Soundtrack

― Honda, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Mark: I'm saying "crimes of love," as metaphors, are basically like "war crimes" -- ways of saying, "Yes, this is a chaotic and anarchic system, but you have clearly Gone Too Far." I.e., this situation : love :: crime : everyday life.

― Nitsuh, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"Hotwire My Heart" by--of course--Crime. "Stick Up" by the Honecone. "Armed and Extremely Dangerous" by First Choice.

― Arthur, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"Criminal" by Fiona Apple, "Life Sentence to Love" by Legal Weapon, "Guilty" by Classix Nouveau.

― Arthur, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Because the thrill of sex feels like the thrill of stealing - "I Think We're Alone Now"

― Curt, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I think we should differntiate between love crimes and sex crimes; the definition of the latter is already clear.

― Mark, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

But why is love an inherently criminal activity?

It doesn't have to be. Not when it is given to those who deserve it. Nor does it have to produce very interesting stories: Our House by Crosby, Stills and Nash, all of Wings.

However, our most passionate love is given to rascals who do not deserve it at all. Indeed, it is the very undeservedness that can make it seem like the only true love. When this love happens, all parties - the lover, the loved, the unloved - feel the injustice and want to sing about it. Quite a lot of these stories, but not all, are interesting: If Loving You Is Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Right

― Curt, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Why are dancefloores so often associated with murder, or blood, or staying alive?
― Ronan, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"Only you can set me free,
cos I'm Guilty!
Of love in the first degree".
~ Bananarama.
― DavidM, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Let's just ban italics, eh?

― DavidM, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Hmm ... this last one has crime as a method of implying law, so that one can say about this notoriously vague, subjective thing called "love," "Yes, I am in it, with the absolute certainty of a judicial ruling."

― Nitsuh, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

"I Stand Accused" (Sam & Dave and Elvis Costello & the Attractions)-- I think in this case it's the old adolescent-identified "I can't lose my cool by admitting I love you" at work

― M. Matos, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

The Replacements "Swingin Party."

Just bought a copy of Tim lately and hadn't listened to it all the way through 'til just now. I wasn't going to post anything & the minute I left this thread Westerberg starts singing about love = crime. bug out!
Incidentally I thought I had massive adoration for the Replacements and upon finally hearing them again after several years they sound like the kind of thing a trust fund indie filmmaker boy would be nostalgic about, and I don't identify at all, and I haven't got any love for such types now either.

― daria gray, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

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