MUMBAI: There has been a time in everybody's life when they have shunned themselves out from the rest of the world with just a touch on the I-pod or if you are an old-timer, you are probably still not over your Vinyl records that are reminiscent of your high school love affair. That’s how strong songs can be and if you have an aching heart then you would know what’s it like when a love song talks to you. These tunes that we call ‘love songs’ have been putting broken-hearted people to sleep at night from time immemorial.

Songwriters have described this fuzzy emotion in the most compelling manner over the years from calling it the colour of the soul to making it the drug that leaves you high and dry. Love has travelled around the seven seas with changing facades and has gone through worldly revolutions that have altered its meaning in certain ways. But if you cut all of that out, it’s just the emotion that lingers on and that’s where music comes in. A compilation of notes in a complicated construction of harmony that communicates the most basic emotion and that is why music is for everybody. This is exactly why we have songs from ages ago on our playlist only for the simple reason that it appeals to a certain emotion.

However music and love both have undergone a change of perspective over the years and it is not surprising, given the technological development throughout this time period. Music and love both are now a click away with Savan and Tinder ruling their respective markets. People do not write about how wonderful their lady love looked at a party anymore, they’d rather pull them closer in the backseat of their rovers with probably ‘I gotta stay high to keep you off my mind’ on the radio.

Although Bollywood has always been prompt in picking up trends from the west, it has still managed to not distort our native concepts of love songwriting despite songs like ‘Pyaar Ki Ma Ki’ still ruling the charts. The biggest example of this would probably be ‘Kali Kali Aankhein’ hit-maker Anu Malik, coming up with ‘Moh-Moh Ke Dhaage’ shows how if you give an artiste his creative space, he can come up with something as beautiful. B-town has never compromised on love songs with artists like Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Sonu Nigam, being flag bearers of this genre, have never put the commercial tag on its romantic songs. But unfortunately, with the advent of online music streaming, artistes like Lucky Ali and Mohit Chauhan have stopped coming up with those golden albums that made up a huge part of our childhood. Funnily we grew up in a time when everything around us starting from cars to music was waiting on the threshold of change. The two centuries have seen very different concepts of life altogether with LGBTQ community standing up for its rights to turning feminism into a trend, all of this has impacted love songs. Earlier a song like ‘Carnival Of Rust’, a passionate expression of gay love wouldn’t have been accepted the way it has been in today’s time. Also expressing love through a hard rock number like ‘Sweet child o’ mine’ wouldn’t probably be a cult number in today’s EDM infected generation. The best way to enunciate this would be to simply compare your music collection with your dad’s. It’s funny how not only music but the ideas behind songs have changed and in fact, the entire approach to listening to music has.

Earlier love songs were mostly about the experience, mostly heartfelt and sometimes progressive in nature. Artists like Leonard Cohen left no stones unturned in expressing his lust but the difference was the packaging of the song. Nowadays apart from artists like John Mayer and Jason Mraz who still make music an emotion that doesn’t confine to mere ecstasy owing to its repeated loud beats, --which is the most important ingredient in a hit song nowadays -- there aren’t many artistes pouring their souls into their songs. It’s not in demand anymore. Even lyrical content of love songs these days restrict themselves to catchy one-liners to go easy on this dynamic world’s fleeting attention.

However the changes might have been this feeling and this art have made it through it all just by adjusting and changing shapes as and when required but never has it refrained from showering its serenity on those who ask for it. So this Valentine’s Day if you don’t have a date (sad) just try listening to a love song from another time zone and maybe you will discover a part of you that you did not know existed.