Segment 74

They said all you need is love. Maybe that’s true. But even if that’s all you need, it’s not all you get. Love’s a powerful force and one to be reckoned with but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In the same way that up has no meaning without down, that white makes no sense without black, and left doesn’t exist unless there’s right. You can’t have love without having hate. I suspect it’s what Freud was writing about in: “Antithetical Meanings of Primary Words.” But I never read it so I can’t say for sure. In a metaphorical way, we can apply the laws of physics. For every action there’s an equal and opposite RE-action. Let’s call that Newton’s Third Law of E-Motion. Love and hate are opposite sides of the same coin. It’s like William Congreve said, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned.” And that was back in 1697 so this ain’t exactly a new idea.

Now if it’s true that songs are the sounds that emotions make, how come love songs outnumber songs of hate? My guess is the reason there are more love songs is because songwriters are such a romantic lot. They see relationships through rose colored glasses and they wear their hearts on their sleeves. And even when they acknowledge the negative side of love, it’s usually with self-pity, me and my broken heart, poor poor pitiful me. Well, self-pity’s one way to respond to having your heart broken, but it’s not the only way. And today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl takes a look at the alternative. It’s a set for anyone who’s had a broken heart and got pissed off about it. And while there aren’t nearly as many hate songs as there are love songs, there are still too many to fit in one set. We had to leave out the J. Geils classic. Been through diamonds, been through minks, been through it all. Love stinks. And while Lou Reed’s “Vicious” would have worked, turns out somebody stole my copy of Transformer, otherwise we’d have heard Lou suggesting his former flame should just swallow some razor blades. All you need is love? Here’s Kip Addotta.

Wrapping up a hateful little head-time theme-trip, that’s Chrissie Hynde explaining how the sweetest woman in the world can be the meanest woman in the world, if you make her that way. And what’s the other line in that song? Action speaks louder than words? Well in addition to the two versions of “Thin Line Between Love and Hate” we heard about Joe, taking some action with that gun in his hand. That’s just one of the ugly outcomes that’s possible when affairs of the heart crash and burn. Of course as Harry Nilsson showed, you don’t have to shoot anybody to show that you’re pissed off. You can just curse at ‘em the way does in “You’re Breaking My Heart.” That’s from his album, Son of Schmillson, which reminds me of the title of a Spooky Tooth album: “You broke my heart so I busted your jaw.” Somewhere in the middle Tonio K from his debut album, Life In The Foodchain, we heard my all-time favorite pissed-off-ex-lover-song: “H-A-T-R-E-D”. The line in there about Jackson Browne and “Fountain of Sorrow” is priceless.

The Kinks were in there too with “Hatred (a Duet)” — “Why don’t you just drop dead and don’t recover? You hate me and I hate you. So at least we understand each other.” A couple of comedians in there as well, at the very top we heard Kip Addotta with a bit called “Separation” from his album “I Hope I’m Not Out of Line” and that was Loudon Wainwright III explaining how they used to be in love but now they are in hate, she used to say he came to early but turns out she’s the one came too late. Well, much as I hate to say it, we’re all out of time. Thanks for listening, I’m Bill Fitzhugh and you can track me down on Amazon or Facebook or my website, billfitzhugh.com. Otherwise, just stick around and I’ll be back with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl sooner or later, and I hope you’ll join us, right here in the Deep Tracks.