True Love Is Not Nice
-Jonathan Richman
Well, it hurts from the bottom
and it hurts down to your soul
that’s because true love is not nice.
And it brings up hurt from when
you were five years old
that’s because true love is nice.
Oh, pain, pain, pain,
ain’t that just love’s name,
love can bring up hurt
from way down low.
It now be emphasized,
true love is just not civilized.
True love is not nice,
no, no.
Well, you’ve been hurt before,
but now you’re hurt and sore.
True love is not nice.
And if it’s real love then
that hurt won’t go, well,
true love is not nice.
Oh, pain, pain, pain,
rain, rain, rain,
that’s why you felt love’s arrow and said, oh,
Well, you knew from your first flirt,
that love was here to hurt.
And that’s because true love is not nice,
no, no.
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i love jonathan richman.
well, i don’t know if it is unfair. i mean with great love must come some kind of balancing force in the world. whether or not we feel that opposite extreme is unfair is probably up to debate.
but i think that i’ve learned a lot about relationships and myself through a lot of the pain that i’ve had to deal with over the years.
How true, how true… something so amazingly wonderful and fulfilling can end up causing such profound pain… It’s not only “not nice”, it is straight up unfair.
my interpretation of the song isn’t about being in love, it’s about the aftermath of experiencing true love and then dealing with that loss.
if you have the priviledge of experiencing true love, the kind of love that epics are written about, then when it leaves it knifes at your very soul. it ravages you like a wildfire leaving only the bitter burnt remains of its scorn…for what was once true beauty can turn to a bitter void.
that’s the thing about true love. it can make you feel the happiest you’ve ever been, but at the same time once it’s gone it can leave you a wreck. true love is not nice.
How does something that is supposed to make you happy manage to be so mean? What is he trying to say?