So, from time to time, I listen to the Paul McCartney: A Life in Lyrics podcast, which features conversations with the former Beatle and the poet Paul Muldoon. One episode finds the pair discussing the genesis for “Silly Love Songs”; for those unfamiliar with the song, which topped the U.S. charts for five weeks in 1976, it found him slapping back at critics who accused him of writing sappy songs about matters l’amour. That the defense features one of the greatest bass lines ever only makes it that much better. As he points out, and I’m paraphrasing, love encompasses more than boy likes girl (or vice versa) and the ensuing courtship. Love is the well that our spiritual forebears encouraged everyone to drink from. But even when songs dispense soppy sentiments, well, what’s wrong with that? McCartney’s “My Love” may not be everyone’s cup of tea (it’s not mine; I prefer coffee), but c’est la vie. Should Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Pablo Neruda be dismissed as scribblers of schmaltz simply because they wrote of love?
To borrow a phrase from singer-songwriter Jackie Minton, the heart is meant for giving away. She has a knack for writing catchy tunes and pairing them to lyrics that tap into more than typical lovey-dovey sentiments. “For Giving” is a great example. It’s not a new song; she released it in 2022 (and I first spotlighted it here). Between then and now, however, she reconnected with Anton Weidner, a friend who’s now a director-producer at Silver Lantern Studios. Along with cinematographer-producer Michael Uyehata, they’ve created a luscious production loosely framed around the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale.
Of the song: Her vocals flow low one moment before flying toward the sky the next, while the lyrics—possibly derived, as she posits in this discussion with Weidner, from Theology of the Body deep dives she attended around the time the song came to her. (All she remembers is that she was driving when the song came to her.) That said, I hear more at play: “He that loses his life will save it/He that changes his mind will make it/If you want to live/Then you’ve got to give yourself away/You might be surprised when you finally realize/Everything’s a gift anyway.” At root, it’s not all that different from what McCartney sang on Abbey Road: “And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.” The Torah, Bible, Quran and other holy texts—along with the Youngbloods in “Get Together”—urge us to love one another. It requires faith to embrace not just another, but all others.
That’s not to say there isn’t a romantic underpinning to the song. Minton deftly springs the personal from the universal, singing of false starts (“I’ve been picking up crumbs/Getting off track/Calling it love/Taking it back”) and her determination to soldier on. Her heart, like all hearts, is meant for giving—and, by song’s end, she’s positive a certain someone’s is meant for her, too. It’s as sweet as it is deep.
The Old Grey Cat 