Squeeze – "If I Didn't Love You" (1980)

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I didn't love you, I 'd hate you

Squeeze is yet another band I first heard on the "Mystic Eyes" radio program, although they became popular enough that I also heard their music elsewhere as well.  

This song is from their third LP, Argybargy, which is a new wave masterpiece – it has a number of very strong and very memorable tracks, and it's essentially impossible not to sing along when you listen to them.  (I was singing along to this one today while on a bike ride, and got a number of admiring looks from the walkers and joggers that I passed while singing at the top of my lungs.)

I have to disagree with Squeeze when it comes to love and hate -- love and hate aren't always mutually exclusive, either-or emotions.  Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel wasn't talking about romantic love when he said "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference," but I think that principle applies to romantic love.  

The French writer, Marcel Jouhandeau expressed a similar sentiment: "To really know someone is to have loved and hated him in turn."  (Jouhandeau also said "The heart has its prisons that intelligence cannot unlock," which may be as good as any explanation why love and hate can go together.)

Love most often turns to hate when it is not reciprocated, or when the beloved is guilty of deception or betrayal.  Perhaps Squeeze should have said Because you don't love me, I hate you, or Even though I love you, I hate you.

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Click here to listen to "If I Didn't Love You."  Like most of the other members of the inaugural class of the 2 OR 3 LINES "SILVER DECADE" HALL OF FAME, it's notable for the intelligence of its lyrics.  

When I'm judging a record, I usually care less about the lyrics than I do about the music.  But when the music and the lyrics are both first-rate, then you've really got something.  Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford – Squeeze's primary songwriters – produced a number of songs that were strong both musically and lyrically.  So did other "Silver Decade" hall of famers like Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, and Chrissie Hynde, to mention just a few.  

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: