a zoo in hell

3.05.2010

When It's Love

Dear Sammy Hagar:  


I found myself listening to "When It's Love" this morning, and I have to let you know that it was singularly unhelpful. Nothing in the song tells me how I will know if it's love, and your own lyrics admit "I don't know but I know it when I feel it". What am I supposed to do with this? Ask you every time I think I may be in love? How do you know if it's "that way"? Forever is a mighty long time, and I'd hate to have to wait that long to see if "it" lasts.  


You offer no guidance at all. Your evidence is just circular logic -- you know it is love because it's love. I get it, Sammy, you feel it if it's love, but that still doesn't tell me how you KNOW it is love. I find myself looking to your contemporaries. Whitney Houston told me how she knew it was love (great job on that one), Tina Turner told me exactly what love has got to do with it, hell, Sammy, even Whitesnake told me that love is the key to open any door.  

Now, I know this is a sore point, but let me point you to "your" band's earlier work "Ain't Talking About Love". Mr. Roth keenly pointed out that he wasn't talking about love. Perhaps you should follow his lead and do the same. Maybe I've got it all wrong. I know you are a student of Zen, so perhaps this whole song is merely a collection of koans intended to create a state of mind conducive to meditating on nothingness and the sublime. Is zen mind the "final love lesson" you cryptically allude to in the third stanza?  


In the past, you've made no bones about telling me that "I could still rock in America" and that you couldn't "drive 55" (how's that prius doin', brah?). So, I know you can do it. You know, I doubt you listen to them, but They Might Be Giants recently updated an old classic to accommodate new science about our very own sun.  


I think you should do this. How about recording a new song, sorry, track, called "This Is Really How I Know It's Love" or maybe, on a different tack, you could call it "I Have No Idea When It's Love, Does Anyone?".  


Haggard, 
Todd