Relationship Tips Through Song by Lynn Lovegreen

 

Since February is Romance Awareness Month, it’s a good time to talk about relationships. While each person has their own style or ways of dealing with others, some things work for most people. Here are my tips for keeping a long-term relationship going. Younger readers might search for the songs online, since I’m showing my age here. 😉

 

Hold on Loosely

As 38 Special sang, “hold on loosely, but don’t let go.” You want to let your love interest know that you care, but don’t cling to them. It’s good to let the other person have their own interests and relationships outside of yours. And it’s important that you have your own life outside of the relationship, too. You’ll both be more well-rounded and healthy, which will enrich the time you spend together. 

 

We Can Work It Out

As The Beatles said, “Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friends.” Keep the communication lines open, but don’t waste time arguing over minor things. There’s probably some things you do that annoys your love interest too, and life’s too short to dwell on it. Pick your battles, and give each other slack on the small stuff. Practice moments of grace.

 

The End

Again, The Beatles: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” My interpretation of this is that there should be equal give and take in the relationship. It’s a kind of karma—you want to spread the good karma. You take love from that person, and give love back to them. That also goes for time, generosity, and all the other things you want from a love interest. It’s like the Golden Rule, which is a good principle for all relationships, whether it’s your neighbor, friend, child, anyone.

 

These tips have worked for me over the years. I hope this helps someone out there who needed to see them spelled out in a list. 

 

Do you have any tips you’d like to share? Please post in the comments.

 

Lynn Lovegreen has lived in Alaska for most of her life. After twenty years in the classroom, she retired to make more time for writing. She enjoys her friends and family, reading, and volunteering for her local library. Her young adult historical romance is set in Alaska, a great place for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com. 

 

All You Need is Love: The Song by Lynn Lovegreen

I say, “All you need is love” on a regular basis. It’s one of my favorite songs, and I grew up on The Beatles. But I didn’t know how the song was written until recently. It’s a good story.

 

John Lennon wrote “All You Need is Love” for Our World, a live satellite television broadcast between 25 countries in 1967. The BBC picked The Beatles for the British contribution to the event. The Beatles had recently completed the Sgt. Pepper album. It was the height of the flower power era, and the peace and love theme fit the time perfectly. The band combined John’s original song with a psychedelic ending that included snippets of Beatles songs like “She Loves You” and other works including “Greensleeves” and “In the Mood.”

John Lennon wrote the song shortly before the event, with input from the rest of the band. Much of the background music was recorded previously, but the group played instruments and sang live. Many of their family and friends formed the audience, including famous names like Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, and Eric Clapton singing along to the chorus. Due to glitches in the live broadcast, they went on a little earlier than planned, but pulled off the performance like only The Beatles can. You really can feel the love.

 

I am so grateful to John Lennon and The Beatles for creating that moment in history, and the timeless song.

 

You can read all the details and see video of the group playing “All You Need Is Love” at https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/all-you-need-is-love/.

 

Information and record photo courtesy of The Beatles Bible

Lynn Lovegreen has lived in Alaska for most of her life. After twenty years in the classroom, she retired to make more time for writing. She enjoys her friends and family, reading, and volunteering for her local library. Her young adult historical romance is set in Alaska, a great place for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com. 

Love is in the Air

With Valentine’s Day falling this month, our blog theme is about favorite romances---books or movies.

That’s a bit of a challenge for me because I can’t really say what my favorite romance movie or novel is. I know so many point to Casablanca as the best romance movie, but I’ve seen it a couple of times and both times it left me..meh.  As for novels, I can’t really pinpoint one of those either because there are too many of them. However, it’s more the author’s work I enjoy most when I think of best in romance. For instance, I’m a fan of  all of Nora Roberts'  romance series—ie; The MacGregors (several books in that series), The Quinn Brothers,  The Calhoun Women...just to name a few. She has such a way with character and plot, you can’t help but fall in love right along with them.  Another author who does an awesome series is Allison Brennan. Her work is romantic suspense and there’s more emphasis on the suspense than the romance, but her current series, featuring FBI candidate Lucy Kincaid, is fabulous! And what’s even better about it is each book builds on the relationship between Lucy and her boyfriend, Sean Rogan (who’s so alpha male you can’t help but drool when he comes onto the scene.)

Anyway, these two authors are what compel me to write and become a better writer, but honestly, when I sit down to write a romance, books and movies are not what motivate me and my characters. In fact, it’s music. Love songs, to be exact.  When I sit down to write, one of the first things I do is turn on the satellite to the music channels and plug in “love songs”.  The poetry and music of the songs really brings out my romantic muse.

Before I started working on this post, I went online to Google top love songs of all time and I was surprised by some of the songs on the list because to me they were ‘break-up’ songs, not love songs.  For instance, Lisa Lisa’s song “All Cried Out” is a beautiful song, but not one that’s going to want my characters dropping to one knee.

So I made my own list based on the songs that most inspire me and included two that weren’t even on the list, (and yes, I know they date me).  And of course I can't not include the song my husband chose for our first dance. Love of a Lifetime by Firehouse. 

 So, here's my list: 

1.       Wonderful Tonight                         Eric Clapton

2.       I Will Always Love You                  Whitney Houston

3.       Endless Love                                      Lionel Richie & Dianna Ross

4.       Always                                                 Atlantic Starr

5.       Your Song                                           Elton John

6.       Unchained Melody                         The Righteous Brothers

7.       My Heart Will Go On                     Celine Dion

8.       How Do I Live                                    LeAnn Rimes

9.       Here And Now                                  Luther Vandross

10.   From this Moment                          Shania Twain

11.   We’ve Only Just Begun                 The Carpenters

12.   Laughter In The Rain                       Neil Sedaka

 

Pretty eclectic, huh?
So what love song get’s you in the mood? ;-)