Gentle melancholy at its best. Let’s Go Out Tonight has the feel of a late, rainy evening, more like the last jazzy ballad of the night, sitting on the last bus home, watching city lights, their promises that always seems to slip away. And yet it’s full of hope. The evening is still ahead.
The narrator senses that something is wrong, maybe the relationship isn’t quite what it was supposed to be. But there’s the question: what’s so wrong tonight? It could be simple ignorance that is the root of the problem, inability to communicate or to empathize properly, seeing that your partner is troubled but not understanding the reasons.
Yet, another way to see it is that it’s willful ignorance, turning a blind eye on what is supposed to trouble us, since on the cosmic scale all our problems are very small. And they could also be small when considering the relationship as a long narrative. What we’ve gone through together, the moments we might still have. The city with countless cars, time passing ceaselessly, speeding minutes and hours that shouldn’t be wasted on worrying about nothing. And how often the things we worry about are actually nothingness, just stories we could discard in favour of something happier, more hopeful, more loving.
The song leaves the situation uncertain. Is the relationship ending? What really matters is this moment of hope, praying for love to exist, to survive. Capturing these moments of transition feels very human. We know that something is changing, and maybe hope alone is enough to ensure something positive is coming. Where is the place where everything’s alright? Right here in the heart, in the depths of your own hope.
It’s cynical yet romantic, with idioms and images that sound clichéd, but presented in such combinations that the song turns into a kind of kaleidoscope, fascinating while ordinary, a collection of contradictions.
The title comes from an Alexander Pope poem and refers to the use of excessive force to achieve something minor. The “wheel” means Catherine wheel, a torture device meant for breaking bones. Calling love something that breaks the wings of a butterfly sounds cynical, but feels somehow familiar to anyone who’s ever been disappointed. If one doesn’t think of the wheel as a torture device I guess it might be possible to see it as something positive too: love is a powerful emotion that smashes through our fears as if they were always very fragile. It is the knife that cuts through our preconceptions, the expectations of rejection, indifference and unkindness, so common in this world that genuine affection and caring is surprising, always transformative.
A butterfly on a torture device, the trembling, shivering human soul. Going through heartbreak and disappointment one might feel that love is something to be avoided because it made us vulnerable. But there’s another way to see it. Love only reveals the vulnerability that was always there. Two contrasting viewpoints: love is blindness, or love is clarity. Perception is always subjective, our theories of reality coloured by our emotions, unconscious fears and desires turning into rationalized arguments. I cannot say which would be correct, but I do believe life is more pleasant, social situations more stimulating and fulfilling, if you see love as clarity, something that reveals the true nature of things. Saying that no true essence exists may provide intellectual satisfaction, yet in ordinary life we always recourse to something more emotional to take the place of truth.
Also this idiom: “All is fair in love and war”. It sounds like a recipe for abusive relationships, stalking and harassing. Like many old sayings, from today’s perspective it seems completely wrong, and believing in its truthfulness only leads to sorrow. People have wildly different concepts of love, sometimes so different that they seem complete opposites. It may be gentleness and acceptance, but also obsessiveness relabeled as passion. And when the different conceptions clash, what was an expectation of safety in vulnerability turns into torture.
Regardless of the approach, love is something that makes us feel complete, or at least it’s a vision that promises completeness. It does not have to be a romantic partner who triggers it. Love is trust that makes us transcend our ego and direct our gentleness toward the world, whether it is toward humanity, our children, or something more abstract and vague.
All these colourful encounters, the small touches, the eternal springtime of a trusting disposition. I see your beauty in the grey light of an ordinary cloudy day. I see my own significance in a universe where a human being is a speck of dust, I reach out toward you. We smile. We greet. We thank each other for small favours, and for existing, for seeing and hearing. The small talk, the visit from a neighbour, the completeness of existence each moment despite the tendency to see imperfection, things to be corrected, silence to be achieved. And the happy greeting, the acknowledgement that this is the person you share your life with, choosing him or her time after time. Love, the healing balm, the attentiveness, the presence, the tenderness. If only we could always see each other like this.
Another song of longing that yet feels like it’s for someone specific, with images and feelings that are so clearly defined that it’s almost like the loved one is already here. When there is already love within, the line between songs of longing and love start to blur.
There is something cinematic about this, and I associate the tune with scenes that felt like that. One is from the time I used to listen to this song a lot: a tiny street in a small town in Wales, the buildings looking taller than they are because the houses were so close, with just enough room for one person to walk and one car to pass, and the street curving so that I’m reminded of a maze, even if there wasn’t enough complexity to get lost. There one evening I was walking briskly in the rain when I saw a couple kissing, oblivious to anything that happened around them. The rain didn’t exist, and the drab little town was transformed into something special. The blue and the gray suddenly more vibrant, full of life, the rain all the more romantic.
I have seen a similar scene only a couple of times. The rain makes it special because it reminds me of what love can be like, how it makes us forget anything that we normally deem bad, like being wet and shivering, because we suddenly have the confidence that no matter what happens, there is someone near, someone who cares, holding hands or kissing. It doesn’t matter if the world is cold and people are indifferent to suffering. If there’s only one person, that is enough, “Burning slow, walking in the soft rain”.
It’s a simple thought: “Somewhere there is someone who can see what I can see” – whatever we see, there is the wish that we could share it. But it’s not at all evident that sharing is possible, because what we hold dearest may be something that others do not even see, at least not in its full significance. Be it kisses in the rain, an iridescent beetle on a forest path, the softness of moss, the shape of a stone perfect to hold, whatever we find beautiful, what makes the world meaningful, we want to share it. There might not be any intrinsic purpose, or even intrinsic beauty: it is all subjective, and thereby we cannot take for granted that others will understand our view. It is such a great experience to feel the beauty of the world, but right next to it is the feeling of loneliness if we are led to believe that no-one else understands, no-one sees it the same way, or even pays attention to it.
And that’s what the song reminds me of. The sounds, the scents of summer: they may be different in each part of the world, like all the things we find significant in the landscape. Some people look at the hills and the horizon, others listen to a blackbird, want to smell the bark of a pine tree. And the most significant thing of all seems to be the moment when you can share these things, experience beauty together. And when a relationship ends, one of the hardest things is that when you have got used to sharing everything, it’s difficult to return to finding significance in all these things in themselves, without the extra jolt from finding wonderment together, in the world, in each other, in yourself.
Golden lights, dreams so real they feel like memories of the future, of all the summers spent together, knowing not who it may be, what forms your journey of mutual discovery may take, where you might find all the beauty that this connectedness, this communication entails. The recognition of hope, intangible, though the dreams take specific shapes only to fade away. The thought remains that it must be real in some form: someone, somewhere in summertime.
It’s not hard to understand why Cliff chose to cover this Dave Townsend song. The story goes that Townsend wrote the song for his girlfriend and recorded it on an album that was shelved by Island Records, which then recouped the cost by offering the songs to be covered. The arrangement on the original is pretty much the same as here, including the phrasing, but Richard’s soft voice and slight vocal emphases do make the song just a little bit more tender.
Cliff Richard is not only known for a long career singing love songs, but he’s also often ridiculed for being a vocal born-again Christian. This song seems to hit both spots. Even though it’s written for a partner, the arrangement makes it sound like a gospel song, a kind of hymn. And it’s not a huge stretch to imagine the “you” in the lyrics being God, something longed for, someone who knows all the secrets you have and still loves you.
It’s not an uncommon trope, but one I find quite fascinating because the writer must walk a fine line to retain the ambiguity between the sacred and the profane in such songs. It represents love as salvation and the ultimate meaning of life, a transformative experience that is our only possibility to transcend earthly worries. But it is not always described as pleasant. Some albums that come to mind are Leonard Cohen’s Various Positions and I’m Your Man, as well as Depeche Mode’s Songs of Faith and Devotion (the title itself a Cohen reference, I believe). These albums are filled with songs that are presumably addressed to a loved one, with slight hints of bitterness, while using the language of religious texts
In this song there’s no such bitterness, but some disappointment thinking about the world, the loneliness that is the human lot, and yet there’s hope that love offers salvation. Even if love is present, nights become long when you’re not connected. But what is really required for the connection to be true? I’d say that what you need is a connection to the love itself and not its object, a connection to your own feelings, being present to yourself and the surroundings.
The more sensual you are, aware of the stars, aware of the cold sheet, aware of the wind whimpering outside, the more you transcend earthly worries simply because you’re not focusing on yourself. Ecstasy, considering its Greek root words, literally means standing outside, which I gather means standing outside yourself, the concept of who you are. It doesn’t matter. And that feeling is something very close to what we can achieve with the loved one, feeling complete while forgetting ourselves, whether it is in the little unselfish acts or in the physical union, every touch, every kiss becoming a method of being more present in the world and less trapped in our thoughts.
Of course for many people such an experience is not easy to achieve because it requires surrendering. The layers of protection we place upon our being are too thick to just drop suddenly, so it may require practice. It’s as if the soul is permanently clinched around itself and needs to open up after all the insults, coercion and demands we often face when becoming adults. Protecting ourselves from unhappiness we also place barriers against happiness.
But it’s not happiness that would be waiting outside to enter. It’s happiness that is generated simply in the act of reaching out, sensing the world, smiling, seeing that smile returned, touching another beautiful person, getting to know all the similarities and differences there are.
This surrendering is essential, which is why these songs that hint at the sanctity of love are so touching. It is a shame that pop music in the recent decades has largely veered away from such expressions, preferring strength and defiance lest one is considered ridiculous, too mushy. But love cannot really flourish when there’s fear of being ridiculous. Love is the ability to be ridiculous because you are accepted, no matter how naive your actions may look to others.
Napoleon XIV is really only known for his 1966 novelty hit They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! An album with the same name followed, filled with songs about mental health issues. The style of the songs is quirky, which makes them somewhat humorous despite the serious topics. The approach is unusual. I remember hearing the hit song as a child and thought it was funny, but as an adult who knows about the suffering people go through, it is difficult to hear the comedic aspect; the artificial strangeness becomes reminiscent of how someone with deep-seated issues sounds unusual when they try to put on a happy face. It is not the same, of course, when done for comic effect, but an adult recognizes that the issues are real, and it’s hard to laugh knowing it.
Let’s Cuddle Up in My Security Blanket is one of the songs that sounds almost normal. It is a plead to stay together even for a moment, hiding from the world. The song is fascinating because if the presence of a security blanket wasn’t mentioned, this could be an ordinary love song. A baby may need a comfort object to fall asleep, but an adult singing about it reveals neuroticism and an obsession. And yet despite the security blanket the song is all about the longing to be loved, to feel safe in a world that seems hostile.
Thus the security blanket in the song sticks out like a sore thumb. It is the only strange aspect of the lyric, and yet it changes the meaning completely. Since the addition of only one element can make the song appear to be about insecurity and obsession, what does that tell about how we perceive love in general? Especially in the early stages of a relationship the feeling may be exactly the same, only the blanket under which the lovers cuddle up is not thought of as a comfort object. Instead, the lovers treat each other as comfort objects, while still wrapped up in a blanket.
There’s also this feeling of camaraderie: “Why should we care if others conform?”. It is mostly an illusion. Just like everyone is from their own viewpoint basically a good person, or at least sees their actions justified, and evil is always somewhere else, conformity is mostly seen to exist outside of ourselves. We are merely individuals forming a secret society of two lovers. We are different, therefore we must be together. Just like every other couple that exists.
This instability in the lyrics is what raises it above ordinary love songs. You’re forced to wonder where the line is drawn between healthy and unhealthy behaviour, since anyone can recognize the yearning for safety, and the presence of the blanket seems like such a small thing compared to that very human need of intimacy and love.
The song itself doesn’t necessarily imply that it’s about romantic love. When I had a cat and she’d meow for some mysterious reason, I sometimes sang to her the opening line “What’s wrong my pet, you seem so upset, tell me what’s bothering you”. And it does fit the song to think of the “pet” label to be literal. The song is about such a basic need that it goes beyond romantic love. It is also love for pets, or love in parenthood.
Yet it is mostly in the context of a new relationship that adults are allowed to indulge in such primal longing. And why state “are allowed” in the passive? Because there usually isn’t anyone saying that it is not allowed, only ourselves, after having grown into a conception of what adults must not do, not feel. And the question the song poses about whether one should conform could be just about that: the beginning of a relationship is a moment when one can see through the need to be an adult. Conformity may simply be the ideas we grow into when trying to define ourselves as adults by ignoring some longing or a need. And in that sense it is indeed significant to ask why we should care about what other people think about our adulthood. Let’s just be safe, snuggle up so cozy and warm. Whether a blanket is deemed necessary or not.
