"Love, Love, Love" by As Tall As Lions

Lyrics:

Have I ever told you before
I think you're beautiful when you're sleeping?
I have faith you watch me in my slumber, too.
If I'm all that you're looking for,
tell me, why is there a river streaming
down your face?
Sometimes makes me wonder
all about you
love, love, love.

After some time it's something i find true. 
Love's not a grave, it won't decay on you.
So many days I was afraid of love.

What if nothing is just that and
suffering's the only thing we're good at?
Dreaming, picture that a whole world in a slumber.
But don't get too attached to the living,
even every single memory's fleeting.
That's a fact, being torn asunder.
But to my surprise, no reason
why, one day I woke up and realized.

After some time it's something i find true. 
Love's not a grave, it won't decay on you.
Too many days I was afraid of love, love, love, love, love..

Give it to me,
love, love, love, love.
Give it to me,
love, love, love, love.
I'll keep you in my focus with love and affection.
I'll keep you in my focus with love and affection.
I'll keep you in my focus with love and affection.

The song starts with the question, “Have I ever told you before I think you're beautiful when you're sleeping?” I always thought that this was interesting because usually when people describe the person they love in songs they talk about the way they do things or the way they move. Here, the singer is admiring his lover in her sleep, but it is more than just her sleeping face that he’s admiring. A person is perfect when they are sleeping because they can be everything that you want them to be, they don't speak or do things that would ruin your image of them. They are just lying there, beautifully.

The very next line of the song is sung in the background, “I have faith you watch me in my slumber, too.”  Because this line is almost hard to catch if you aren't listening closely, the meaning changes slightly here. The singer was very confident in his feelings for his lover, but it seems that his feelings might be somewhat unrequited because he says “I have faith”. He doesn't know for sure whether or not his lover is reciprocating his feelings at the same depth as his. He also uses the word “slumber” which is a much stronger word than sleep. It makes it seem that he is so enraptured with his dreams of her that he isn't just asleep; he is in a deep impenetrable “slumber”, reluctant to wake.

But, further in the song he goes on to say “But to my surprise, no reason why, one day I woke up and realized...”. Eventually, he wakes up from this dream, this fantasy he's had of his lover and the love that they share and begins to see the reality of love. He sings “Love's not a grave, it won't decay on you.” He is saying that love isn't a sorrowful place to visit, like a grave. Past loves shouldn't be seen as something you lock away in a cemetery with the fear that if you don’t it will always haunt you. He realizes that love isn't something to constantly fear even though it can sometimes be a scary thing. 
I really like this song because it asks you to wake up from this fantasy you have of the person you love. If you're in love someone, don't love them from within the safety of your dreams and fantasies because you fear the outcome of your feelings. Just love. "Every single memory's fleeting", so if you don't love them for them as opposed to who you imagine them to be, you will completely lose track of who they actually are.

I think this song speaks to what we've learned from many of the books we've read for class. There were many characters who were afraid of love, or fled from it. There were even characters who refused to see the reality of their relationship and, instead, indulged in their own fantasies. Madame Bovary, for example, was unable to see how uncommitted Rodolphe was in their relationship because she was so caught up in the excitement of the rebelliousness of the affair itself. Ricardo refused to let go of his mysterious fantasy of the Bad Girl, even after meeting her father and learning about her childhood. Many characters seem to fear the reality of the person they love or even having one constant love, as if their feelings will grow to fade or “decay”.