CHAPTER ONE LOVE AND THE TIMES – Without music, life would be a mistake – Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols Growing up in the 1950s it seemed that every popular song was a love song. The juke boxes and radios blared the latest hits and almost every one of them was a song aimed straight at the heart. A teenage boy had no chance but to expect that each pop tune would guide him toward the love of his life, at least the love of tonight. Although I was more a fan of jazz and the music of earlier decades in which jazz was a large segment of the popular music, nevertheless the silky tones of Nat Cole, minus his trio, had the power to stir up strange emotions. So, did those of other singers of the early 50s—Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, and many others. Even as Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, renamed Rock ’n’ Roll, took over the pop charts, there were still some mellow singers bridging the gap—Bobby Darin, Johnny Mathis, and others. Even Elvis turned to the traditional love song at time as “Love Me Tender”, for example, demonstrates. The fifties were a period in which, however, times were changing and so, too, the depiction of love in America also changed. That personal experience led me to ponder what the connection between the concept of romantic love and popular music might be. Was it, as Frank Sinatra sang in a ballad of the times, like love and marriage? The song claims you can’t have one without the other. Can we only have a correlational answer or can we delve more deeply for one that suggests some causation? A survey of the top tunes from 1955 to 2005 sheds some light on the issue. It also suggests that “love” means something different from one period to another, leading to all sorts of generational confusion and misunderstandings. This chapter examines whether socio-demographic change affects mass-mediated expression of emotion. Specifically, do objective societal trends affect popular song content? When society is getting better, do pop song lyrics get more positive? For example, does reduced unemployment or increasing income lead to more representation of positive ideas like