Four Color Love Song (Part 2)

Everyday, my son and I listen to the Metasciences' Four Color Love Song. I've got the song stuck in my head - or the lyrics rather - and it's a song that I enjoy discussing with my six-year-old. He's become analytical about music lyrics, so it's a good workhorse song for that, given that he enjoys superheroes, and there's enough cryptic elements to get a good discussion going.

My son asked me today why songs had choruses. "Is it because they can make more money with a chorus," he asked me today? I said no, that's not it exactly. It seems there must be some reason for it, in that people prefer songs that return to a few lines that repeat - and if so, then song writers probably want to make songs with choruses, so they can make more money. But, I didn't say that, I just said that there must something intrinsically satisfying about them that makes singers want to put them in there. I like the chorus in this song, because it is a variation of the lines,

"I love my life
I love this universe"

And each time, the context and the phrasing is slightly different, giving a slightly different meaning. At the beginning, it's light-hearted and romantic, but towards the end, it's darker, and yet still intensely romantic, as in the end, the hero considers the fact that his enemies might try to kill his lover, causing him to say

"You are my life
You are my universe
You're everything I need"

I like the hook, but I also like that last part (my emphasis in italics). The melody at that point falls a bit, and you sense the seriousness of his love - that he would throw away everything to protect her.

When I think about it, I think this a risky song; how easily it could fall into something campy and stupid, but it manages to be a touching love song. It's not the most profound song in the world, obviously, but neither is superficial. It touches upon many classic elements in song. For instance, take the issues of time which is woven throughout the second half of the song. Tthe singer is conscious of the timelessness of his love, their lives, and comic book universes in general. There's a reason why it feels like 1963, and that they don't look a day over 23. It's because in the superhero universe, no one ages much. But, it's also because of that feature that you run into so many problems with "continuity" wherein historical contradictions inevitably (optimally?) creep in, requiring all kinds of masking tape and jury-rigging (also called "retcon") to fix it.

But, that their love is timeless, too, is in there, and that reminds me of that John Keats poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" which basically does something very similar - the two lovers embracing on the urn is frozen forever. In this comic book universe, how could he not love it? She cannot die except at the hands of an enemy. Their love is permanent, because the writers essentially keep the lovers written in a honeymoon-esque phase of their relationship. I wonder if this is partly what he means when he writes that

Gwen Stacy isn't dead, she's only sleeping.
And Elektra isn't evil or insane.

When is Gwen Stacy sleeping? Of course there is a period where lives, but it's actually a very short period of Peter Parker's past. For most of his comic book life, she's been dead. Likewise, by the time we meet Elektra, she's completely insane, and totally evil. So when in this time he's talking about?

I'll probably have to have one more post to finish these thoughts. I'm still not done with this song.