Healthiest and Unhealthiest relationships in songs?

😦 'Vagina Dentata - The Musical' 😁

'I Got You Babe' Sonny and Cher, 1965.

Financially unhealthy
'They say our love won't pay the rent..'
but
Put your little hand in mine
[I think she sings that to him]
There ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb
awwwww

In real life there were several hills or mountains they couldn't climb, and it all ended in an acrimonious divorce🙁

Just like no, he didn't still love her tomorrow.
And yes, he did give her up, let her down, ran around, and deserted her.
And no, she didn't still need nor feed him when he was 64..

It's only rock and roll, but we like it😁

I despise The Coward of the County by Kenny Rodgers. His wife’s just been raped by a gang of brothers, so does he comfort her or try to help? Does he fuck. He leaves her crying and traumatised on the floor while he grabs his gun and dashes off to prove what a big man he is. Bastard.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, even though it’s nauseating is at least positive.

I haven’t read the whole thread but any early Pulp songs , from Pencil Skirt to I Spy to - well. a lot but not all

Things became a bit more balanced later

I’m a big Pulp fan btw

@Lins77 @AnniesFrangipani Harvest Moon is lovely. Neil Young wrote it for his wife of 36 years. Then cheated on her with Daryl Hannah and left her heartbroken.

Wow! Proof that rude lyrics aren’t new

Genius

That snare drum fill doth much to excuse the appertaining rage though. How about Whole Lotta Love? “You need coolin, I’m going to send you back to schoolin”

Don't forget the one where he hides in the girl's sister's wardrobe to spy on what she's getting up to with David from the garage up the road 😄

I don't know why but Jarvis being a perv was somehow okay, it felt more like he was subverting it by playing that character, or am I being too kind?

I don't know but he somehow gets away with things others can't. Maybe because he said things others thought but didn't dare sing about, and they were always sharply observational with no embarrassment. He often never got the girl, just fantasied about her as teenage boys / young males did but didn't in any way follow up with in action: they wouldn't dare! It was all in their oversexed heads. In the song you quoted he used the euphemism "I got it on" as he spied from that wardrobe. I loved the sanitised video they used, where "David" was a poster of David Cassidy, wildly popular at the time with teenage girls.

Pencil Skirt was more brutal

I only come here cause I know it makes you sad
I only do it cause I know you know it's bad
oh don't you know
That it's ugly and it shouldn't be like that
But oh it's turning me on, oh

He has sort of apologised for that song, saying it was a "dirty little song" and moving onto more "healthy" songs, and there are plenty, especially on "More" when he talks of proper grown-up love.

Thanks for responding, I find Jarvis fascinating!

He often never got the girl, just fantasied about her as teenage boys / young males did but didn't in any way follow up with in action: they wouldn't dare!

That was definitely the case with Common People - the girl was based on a real encounter but he's said she was not remotely offering to sleep with him 😄 the desire was all on his side!

Yup, not a fan of this song.

Nooooo 😢 Mind you, I didn’t know he wrote it for his wife in the first place!

Kiss with a fist by Florence and The Machine is horrendous.

And it seems like quite a lot of Kate Nash’s songs are about a deeply dysfunctional relationship. I hope it wasn’t all written from life…

I love Pulp, but lots of the songs are just filthy, but somehow ok!

My mum pointed out that there are a lot of songs about "I don't suppose one last shag is out of the question?"
One more night - Phil Collins
Stay another day - East 17
Before you leave me - Alex Warren
There are probably more...

Long thead but my singing group sings "Torn" and now I can't listen to it anymore.

Stay Another Day by E17 is allegedly about the brother of the guy who wrote it, who took his own life RIP.
If that's true, it looks like he used the tradition format of a pop song with kissing and handholding, which is a bit odd but I suppose pop songs are very format-driven.

David Bowie's Oh You Pretty Things is also about his brother [half-brother] who had mental health problems and also took his own life RIP.
Look out my window, what do I see?
Crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me
All the nightmares came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay.

Bowie had the genius to ignore the pop-song clichés, E17 not so much...

Tom Paxton has some lovely ones about all sorts of relationships - friends, his children, his father, family in general, and this one for his wife:

"Dance In The Kitchen"

I love the candle light, I love the soft violin
I love the dark corner table, the bottle of wine
But when I'm holding you, just when the music begins
Honestly darling the kitchen will suit me just fine

Dance in the kitchen honey, dance to the radio
Right across the kitchen floor that's what they make 'em for
We'll dance again like we used to dance when love was new
Come on and dance in the kitchen honey, I wanna slow dance with you

Isn't it strange just a couple of minutes ago
I was all down in the mouth about all my affairs
Then two things happened when I switched on this radio
This song began and sweet darling you came down the stairs

Dance in the kitchen honey, dance to the radio
Right across the kitchen floor that's what they make 'em for
We'll dance again like we used to dance when love was new
Come on and dance in the kitchen honey, I wanna slow dance with you

I see Rod's Maggie May has been listed as an unhealthy one, but it's perhaps still marginally better than the other Maggie May, about a prostitute who steals a punter's clothes and wallet and gets transported. Although it might be pushing it to describe that as a 'relationship'.

Black Velvet Band doesn't go well, either. Nor does Whiskey in the Jar.

Tracy Chapman's Fast Car is a disaster of a relationship. Ella Fitzgerald's Black Coffee is deeply depressing.

And the Carpenters' Only Just Begun is lovely, but even that loses a little shine when you learn it was written for a bank advert.

I may have to retreat to the optimism of It's De-lovely.

Black Velvet Band doesn't go well, either. Nor does Whiskey in the Jar.

That reminds me - from the Country and Western canon - Brad Paisley, Whiskey Lullaby. Doesn't end well. Featuring Alison Krauss for extra sparkle

Lord Darnell he jumped up,
and loudly he did bawl,
He struck his wife right through the heart,
and pinned her against the wall.

"A grave, a grave!" Lord Darnell cried,
"to put these lovers in.
But bury my lady at the top,
for she was of noble kin."

Fairport Convention’s version of a nice English traditional

Lord Barnard in Christy Moore's version. But I think it's the same tragic song ?