Love: Romantic Biochemistry

The Science of Love

2012-02-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Article in Parade Magazine, February 12, 2012The Science of Love

(Thanks to Deb Cunefare for sending that.)

"My longing has no time when it ceases"

2011-05-16T23:14:00.000-06:00

Kate Abbe sent me a note and a link to a TED Talk by Helen Fisher.

"You've probably heard of this lady but just in case you haven't here's the Ted Talk she gave. It could go with your collection on love and chemistry."

Fire runs through my body with the pain of loving you
Pain runs through my body with the fires of my love for you
Pain like a boil about to burst with my love for you
Consumed by fire with my love for you
I remember what you said to me
I am thinking of your love for me
I am torn by your love for me
Pain and more pain
Where are you going with my love?
I am told you will go from here
I am told you will leave me here
My body is torn with grief
Remember what I said, my love
Goodbye my love Goodbye.

"... about a fifth of a second."

2011-01-12T11:50:00.002-07:00

From Deb Cunefare:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101022184957.htm

"A new meta-analysis study conducted by Syracuse University Professor Stephanie Ortigue reveals falling in love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain. Researchers also found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second."

Interesting article, I thought you'd like to see it. :)

All I have to do

2008-08-12T10:08:00.003-06:00

All I have to do
Is look at you to show you
How much I love you

Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) sang it, but I can't find who wrote it. I'm guessing Joe Raposo or Jeff Moss. If anyone knows for sure, please leave a note.

If I were a poet
I would write a sonnet
It would say "I love you"
Your name would be on it
If I were a farmer
I'd give you a bunny
If I had a beehive
You would get free honey
Fa la la (many times)

If I were a baker
You could have a cruller
If I were a painter
Choose your favorite color
If I had some diamonds
I'd give you a few
Anything to show you
How much I love you
Fa la la, etc.

Did you guess my secret?
I am not a poet
Couldn't write a sonnet
And I think you know it
I am not a farmer
Can't give you a bunny
I don't have a beehive
Sorry 'bout the honey
Fa la la, etc.

I am not a baker
Don't know bread from batter
And I am not a painter
And it doesn't matter
I don't need a present
All I have to do
Is look at you to show you
How much I love you
Fa la la, etc.

"Your ability to reason is swept away"

2008-05-27T17:54:00.005-06:00

Love runs deeper than any ocean
It clouds your mind with emotion.

Everybody Plays the Fool

Ok, so your heart is broken
You're sitting around mopin', cryin', cryin'
You say you're even thinking about dying
Well, before you do anything rash, baby, listen to this

Everybody plays the fool, sometime
There's no exception to the rule, listen baby
It may be factual, it may be cruel, I ain't lying
Everybody plays the fool

Fallin' in love is such an easy thing to do
But there's no guarantee that the one you love is gonna love you
Oh, loving eyes they cannot see a certain person could never be
Love runs deeper than any ocean, it clouds your mind with emotion

Everybody plays the fool, sometime
There's no exception to the rule, listen baby
It may be factual, it may be cruel, but I'm gonna tell you this
Everybody plays the fool

How can you help it when the music starts to play
And your ability to reason is swept away
Oh, heaven on earth is all you see, you're out of touch with reality
And now you cry, but when you do, next time around someone cries for you

Hey, everybody plays the fool, sometime
Use your heart just like a tool, listen baby
They never tell you so in school, I wanna say it again,
Everybody plays the fool

Everybody plays the fool, sometime
There's no exception to the rule, listen baby
It may be factual, it may be cruel, I ain't lying
Everybody plays the fool

[by Rudy Clark, Kenny Williams & Jim Bailey]
Recorded by The Main Ingredient, and other people later: Marvin Gaye, Aaron Neville...

Nietzsche sez...

2008-03-24T07:20:00.001-06:00

"When a man is in love he endures more than at other times; he submits to everything."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Everything is new and everything is you

2008-03-17T18:21:00.002-06:00

I used to think that was sensible
It makes the truth even more incomprehensible
'Cause everything is new
And everything is you
And all I've learned has overturned
What can I do...

I think I quoted this song a year or more ago, but a different part.
ABBA, Lay All Your Love on Me

hot and cold fever and a cool cool sweat

2008-03-15T06:30:00.004-06:00

Read Crazy Little Thing Called Love lyrics

This thing called love I just can't handle it
This thing called love I must get 'round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called love
This (this thing) called love (called love)

It cries like a baby
In a cradle all night
It swings (woo woo)
It jives (woo woo)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish,
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love

There goes my baby
She knows how to rock'n'roll
She drives me crazy
She gives me hot and cold fever
Then she leaves me in a cool cool sweat

I gotta be cool relax, get hip
Get on my tracks
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motor bike
Until I'm ready (ready Freddie)
Crazy little thing called love

This thing called love I just can't handle it
This thing called love I must get 'round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called love

My life depends on your touch

2008-03-14T12:17:00.010-06:00

The song is "Soul Deep," by The Box Tops.

I used to have a Project Playlist link but it died. This is SO CLEVER!

Although I don't know much
I know I love you so much
My life depends on your touch
   And my love is a river runnin' soul deep
   Way down inside me it's-a soul deep
   It's too big to hide and it can't be denied
   My love is a river runnin' soul deep

I'd work myself to death for ya
Just to show I adore ya
Nothing I wouldn't do for ya
   Cause my love is a river runnin' soul deep
   Way down inside me it's-a soul deep
   It's too big to hide and it can't be denied
   My love is a river runnin' soul deep

All I ever, ever hope to be
Depends on your love for me
Baby believe me
If you should leave me
I'd be nothin' but an empty shell
I know darn well, I can tell, now

I don't know much
I know I love you so much
My life depends on your touch
   And my love is a river runnin' soul deep
   Way down inside me it's-a soul deep
   It's too big to hide and it can't be denied
   My love is a river runnin' soul deep

— Wayne Carson Thompson

Wrapped around my heart, refusing to unwind

2008-03-11T15:00:00.007-06:00

Tonight I'm gonna break away
Just you wait and see
I've never been imprisoned by
A faded memory

Just when I think I'm over her
This broken heart will mend
I hear her name and I have to cry
The tears come down again

It happens all the time
This crazy love of mine
Wraps around my heart
Refusing to unwind
Ooh-ooh, crazy love, ah...

Count the stars in the southern sky
That fall without a sound
And then pretend that you can't hear
These teardrops coming down

Tonight I'm gonna break away
Just you wait and see
I've never been imprisoned by
A faded memory

————————
Poco recorded it in 1979.
I think it was written by Rusty Young, of Poco.

The heart has its own reasons...

2008-02-14T11:28:00.003-07:00

I lifted this from a calendar entry for Valentine's Day:

French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) wrote ‘Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas’-which translates as ‘The heart has its reasons which the mind knows nothing of.’

I think it points to biochemistry beyond conscious awareness and control.

Heat Wave

2008-01-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

Martha and the Vandellas, 1963:

I can't explain it, don't understand it
I ain't never felt like this before...

Lightning is Striking Again

2007-12-16T18:22:00.000-07:00

Lou Christie:

Nature's taken over my one-track mind
Believe it or not you're in my heart all the time

People Say

2007-08-26T20:42:00.000-06:00

The Dixie Cups, in "People Say," describe the feeling that love will last forever, and that other people's opinions are easy to disregard.

People say it's just a summer romance
People say our love won't last for long
They're so sure we will part
But I know deep in my part
That they are wrong
(backup singers: I don't care what the people say)

People say it's just the way the stars shine
And it really isn't love at all
But each time that we kiss
I just know we'll be like this
Summer, winter and fall...
(backup singers: I don't care what the people say)

In the fade out, the background parts is:
"I don't care what the people say
I don't really care 'bout the people.
I don't care what the people say
I don't really care 'bout the people...."

How Do you Do It?

2007-08-22T13:12:00.000-06:00

You give me a feeling in my heart
Like an arrow passing through it
'Spose that you think you're very smart
But won't you tell me how do you do it?

Gerry and the Pacemakers, 1960's

The only time I feel alright is by your side

2007-07-26T22:16:00.000-06:00

This is not as sweet as some of the other songs here, but still it seems to express the feeling of "foreverness" and nesting, and the exclusion of the rest of the world.

The Kinks, from 1964:

I'm not content to be with you in the daytime
Girl I want to be with you all of the time
The only time I feel alright is by your side
Girl I want to be with you all of the time
All day and all of the night

I believe that you and me last forever
Oh yeah, all day and night I'm yours, leave me never
The only time I feel alright is by your side
Girl I want to be with you all of the time
All day and all of the night

"We're always going to be newlyweds."

2006-08-01T22:14:00.000-06:00

Last July Katie Holmes said she and Tom Cruise would
always be in the honeymoon phase.

This July Heidi Klum said of her marriage to Seal: "We're always going to be newlyweds. I really hope so. Things are good."

The feeling that love will last forever seems universal to the "in love" experience.

I don't know how I feel about you

2006-08-01T22:08:00.000-06:00

I don't know how I feel about you

There is no one way.
I feel so many things, and all at once.

Happy…
but kind of scared too.
Excited.
Calm.
Lost.
Found.
I feel safe in a way that I've never known, but in danger too.

This thing between us, whatever it is, it's stronger than me.
Being with you is stronger than me alone.
That's new to me.

Dean Cain got to speak those words in the "Ordinary People" episode of Lois&Clark
written by Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner, Season 3, Episode 2

"I only want to be with you"

2006-01-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

Dusty Springfield sang:

I don't know what it is that makes me love you so
I only know I never wanna let you go
'Cause you started something, can't you see
That ever since we met you've had a hold on me
It happens to be true, I only want to be with you.

It doesn't matter where you go or what you do
I wanna spend each moment of the day with you
Oh look what has happened with just one kiss
I never knew that I could be in love like this
It's crazy but it's true, I only want to be with you.

You stopped and you smiled at me and asked if I cared to dance
I fell into your open arms; I didn't stand a chance

Now listen honey—
I just wanna be beside you everywhere
As long as we're together, honey, I don't care
'Cause you've started something, can't you see
That ever since we met you've had a hold on me
No matter what you do, I only want to be with you.

(This song is creditted to Ivor Raymonde & Mike Hawker—don't know which did lyrics.)

Strong as wild horses

2005-12-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

"Love will make you strong
as a team of wild horses"

(from You're a Big Boy Now, by The Lovin' Spoonful

lyrics by John Sebastian I think)

Strongest Knight Loses Strength

2005-09-15T15:19:00.000-06:00

Dap? I'm trembling with fear, and the strength has left my arms, and terrible feelings burn within me. Tell me. You're older than I. You know this earth better than I. I only fell upon it a few hours ago.

(Dap:) "What are you talking about?"

Guenevere.

So spake Lancelot in the musical Camelot. Someone wrote those words, and Franco Nero spoke them with real feeling on Lancelot's behalf. That doesn't make it binding, but it's more evidence. He felt it as a weakness in his arms (which would indicate a biochemical change). And he had the feeling of the world being all new to him.

"I just feel it in my guts."

2005-08-20T16:25:00.000-06:00

On page 210 of About a Boy, by Nick Hornby, Nick is telling Marcus that he wants Rachel to be his girlfriend. Some is what he says, and some is what he thinks:

He wanted Rachel to be his wife, his lover, the centre of his whole world; a girlfriend implied that he would see her from time to time, that she would have some kind of independent existence away from him and he didn't want that at all.
. . . .
(Marcus:) "How do you know you want her to be your girlfriend?"

"I don't know. I just feel it in my guts." That was exactly where he felt it. He wasn't feeling it in his heart, or his head, or even his groin; it was in his guts. . . .

The whole chapter is about love, and how one knows, and what it feels like. Much of the rest of the book is, too.

A grown-up woman: Is love for kids?

2005-08-20T11:52:00.000-06:00

I think people imprint and it might have something to do with biochemical love. I think some people imprint a culture when they first really fall in love, and for the rest of their lives the kinds of clothing, food, music, houses and furnishings that were around them at that time will seem right, virtuous, homey. Maybe this nesting urge involves more than the clingy capture of the mate of choice.

Today I'll post twice, because I had already planned to come and transcribe a book passage, and the book is here on my typing stand, but I needed to work on a photoshop project and so while I was doctoring the shadows off of scanner art, I wanted to listen to something I wouldn't have to listen to very hard, and stuck in Abba Gold, a greatest hits CD.

SO! Here are song lyrics sneaking into my morning:

It was like shooting a sitting duck
A little small talk, a smile and baby I was stuck
I still don't know what you've done with me
A grown-up woman should never fall so easily
I feel a kind of fear
When I don't have you near
Unsatisfied, I skip my pride
I beg you dear...

(From "Lay All your Love on Me," by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus)

Should grown-up women not fall so easily? Is it something people tend to outgrow, biochemically, or do they just become more logical and strong-minded and able to see it for the temporary state it is?

Beauty and the Beast

2005-07-27T11:16:00.000-06:00

"Love can turn a man into a beast, but love can also make an ugly man handsome."

—the newly-transformed former-beast, to Belle, in Cocteau's 1946 Beauty and the Beast which is on DVD and has WONDERFUL extra features (in addition to being pretty impressive for a 60-year-old movie)

Amortentia

2005-07-19T13:00:00.000-06:00

"Amortentia doesn't really create love, of course, it is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room—oh yes," he said, nodding gravely at Malfoy and Nott, both of whom were smirking skeptically. "When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love."

—Professor Slughorn,
in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"always in honeymoon phase" ?? Not.

2005-07-08T14:37:00.000-06:00

"Tom and I will always be in our honeymoon phase," Holmes says in W, on newsstands July 22. In the interview, a theme emerges with many similar comments, including "Tom is the most incredible man in the world."

That biochemical rush is SO STRONG in her (plus there's an overlay of attention and the charge of the focus of Tom Cruise and all HIS attention, direct and indirect) that it feels like it will never end.

It ends. But before it ends, lots of people promise "forever."

Education will hardly help, because people who aren't in love don't feel they need to know, and people who are drenched in the love-chemicals cannot be reasoned with nor dissuaded or distracted.

Fascinating.

The trouble with love is...

2005-06-30T18:17:00.000-06:00

The trouble with love is 
      it can tear you up inside,
          make your heart believe a lie;
                it's stronger than your pride.
The trouble with love is
      It doesn't care how fast you fall,
           and you can't refuse the call;
                see, you've got no say at all.

Composed by Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken
Performed by Kelly Clarkson

"Unidentifiable Malaise"

2005-06-25T16:39:00.000-06:00

A quote, from somewhere (everywhere, recently):

On ABC's Primetime Live, Pitt told Diane Sawyer that tabloid stories saying that his 4-1/2-year marriage to Aniston ended because he wanted children and she did not are, "Ridiculous bull---t ... completely fabricated."

As for what happened, Pitt told W magazine that couples often experience an "unidentifiable malaise." "You don't know what's wrong because the marriage is everything you signed up for."

The end of the wildly biochemical in-love probably feels like "unidentifiable malaise." There are songs about that too, I'm sure ("the thrill is gone" kinds of things) but collecting those would be depressing, so...

ALSO, I thought lately that probably the reason this has been on my mind so much is that I have three teenagers and it might be nice to prepare them somewhat for the in-loves that might come, though I've seen them be very picky about who they'll be interested in. I suspect perhaps it has to do with unschooling, at least insofar as they have been around people of all ages all these years, and they don't have a clique at school expecting them to report all the details of their "dates" or declare who they like.

Petula Clark says...

2005-06-21T18:45:00.000-06:00

My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine,
Softer than a sigh;
My love is deeper than the deepest ocean,
Wider than the sky.
My love is brighter than the brightest star
That shines every night above
And there is nothing in this world
That can ever change my love.

Something happened to my heart
The day that I met you
Something that I never felt before;
You are always on my mind
No matter what I do,
And every day it seems I want you more.

I am so into you...

2005-06-20T18:02:00.000-06:00

. . .I can't think of nothin' else...

I am so into you
I can't get to nothing else
I am so into you
I can't get to nothing else

Atlanta Rhythm Section

Found this commentary in a journal here:

"This is one of those songs that has a strange, complicated story as to why I love it. It's not a song for everyone, and it's definitely not a song for those who are well-adjusted or sane. It is, however, the most romantic song about being compulsively obsessed with someone ever written. In this day and age, it's called stalking. In the 70's, it was called romance." (There's more there.)

My kids have a song they call "That Stalker Song." It's not this one, but it's another one that might be illustrative (or might just be a stalker song):

Every move you make
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you
(and you might as well not call the police,
because it WAS The Police)

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes...

2005-06-20T12:12:00.000-06:00

Of songs that offer clues to how it feels to be "in love" (the big uncontrollable first love), I think nothing says it better than The Troggs' Love is All Around Me.

And nothing shows the oblivion of the lover better than their line

You know I love you, I always will
My mind's made up by the way that I feel.

Yeah. Right.

But it DOES feel that way. And that brings to mind a quote from a recent movie, "Maybe feelings are feelings because we can't control them." A fine movie, partly about love. Not much. And while most feelings can be controlled, "in love" is the least controllable of all.

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes
Your love is all around me, and so the feeling grows;
It's written on the wind, it's everywhere I go,
So if you really love me, come on and let it show.

You know I love you, I always will
My mind's made up by the way that I feel;
There's no beginning, there'll be no end,
'Cause on my love you can depend.

I see your face before me as I lay on my bed;
I kinda get to thinkin' of all the things you've said;
You gave your promise to me, and I gave mine to you;
I need someone beside me in everything I do.

And if you like that, be sure and see the movie Love Actually, starring that song and many other British stars (and a few Americans).

Call for Ideas

2005-06-20T11:13:00.000-06:00

I'm interested in "what love is," biochemically speaking. I read about a very cool study a few years back and can't remember it all, but one aspect was evidence from song lyrics (and poetry and other literature? Don't remember.)

These aren't the study I'm thinking of, but when I find that I'll link it too. Someone said there's a part of your brain (a physical part, not just a biochemical flush) that grows when you're "in-love"/mating, and then recedes after a while. He was collecting song lyrics, too, I heard. Can't remember where I read it. Here's some stuff to read in the meantime.

LOVE: BIOCHEMICAL ASPECTS

What love does to your brain