abc - "all of my heart" (from the lexicon of love lp, available for purchase here.)

the lexicon of love is the greatest album ever about the subject. it deals w/ the semiotics & semantics of love, it deals w/ its commodification & its performative aspect : barthes would love it, but The Kids loved it too, and that has much to do w/ the touch of trevor horn. it's precisely what green gartside was trying to do at the time, but he'd understand r&b far better than disco, and it'd be three years before cupid & psyche '85.

"all of my heart" might make barthes blush, but it makes all the rest of us swoon. perhaps he'd also disapprove of my offering up biographical information--as if i were trying to resurrect the author!--but barthes's dead, baby : martin fry was dumped before the making of the album--it's a bit like his de l'amour. the mask drops--one of them, at least, the comedy mask. he's left alone onstage, tragedy his only company. tragedy & an immense orchestra. it's almost too much, but it needs broad shoulders for what it accomplishes : for five minutes, martin fry takes upon himself all of the suffering in the world.

&, naturally, martin hopes & prays--a lot. "it was all wrong but the hoping, and we must always hope." virgil said that. he got dante through hell. but it was only beatrice who could take him to paradise.

so it is a lover who speaks & who says :

once upon a time when we were friends
i gave you my heart. the story ends
no happy ever after, now were friends

wish upon a star if that might help
the stars collide if you decide
wish upon a star if that might help

what's it like to have loved and to lose her touch?
what's it like to have loved and to lose that much?

well i hope and i pray
that maybe someday
you'll walk in the room with my heart
add and subtract
but as a matter of fact
now that you're gone i still want you back
remembering
surrendering
remembering that part
all of my heart

spilling up pink silk and coffee lace
you hook me up, i rendevouz at your place
your lipstick and your lip gloss seals my fate

sentimental powers might help you now
but skip the hearts and flowers, skip the ivory towers
you'll be disappointed and i'll lose a friend

no i won't be told there's a crock of gold at the end of the rainbow
or that pleasure and pain, sunshine and rain
imght make this love grow

but i hope and i pray
that maybe someday
you'll walk in the room with my heart
add and subtract
but as a matter of fact
now that you're gone i still want you back
remembering
surrendering
the kindest cut's the cruellest part
all of my heart

yes i hope and i pray
that maybe someday
you'll walk in the room with my heart
and i shrug and i say
that maybe today
you'll come home soon
remembering
surrendering
surrendering that part - all of my heart.