Chris Cagle - “No Love Songs”

Songwriters: George Teren and Craig Wiseman

You know that song by BJ Thomas “Another somebody done somebody wrong song?” Despite it being kind of cheesy and heavy-handed, I love that song. Chris Cagle’s new tune, “No Love Songs”–not so much.

The song kicks off with silly production featuring shakers and zany “ooooh” chants but I was willing to forgive it its lack of seriousness. In fact, I was completely willing to accept it as a summertime, beachball, vaguely mindless anthem. “Ok,” I thought, “so long as it doesn’t overreach and under deliver lyrically, I’ll consider it merely a necessary evil in this day and age of mass-market radio and stadium concert tours.” Unfortunately Chris Cagle had other plans for me.

I don’t think that all songs need to be sad. I really, truly don’t. But you know which songs I think need to be sad? SAD SONGS!

Writers Teren and Wiseman managed to craft a “sad” song without even the slightest hint of tragedy, shame, regret, misery, or existential angst. In fact, the melody on the hook line seems to be constructed specifically to make this one more “fun.” Furthermore, for a song that features a conversation between two people–Cagle is actually one of them, the sad guy recognizes him as “that fella on the TV with the cowboy hat, always playing the guitar”–there is nothing of emotional significance expressed between them; the “sad man” serves as more of a narrative convenience than an actual human being, and Cagle seems like he couldn’t care less about the guy’s problems.

What is Cagle’s response to “sad man’s” problems? “Hey man, listen, check this out, it’s gonna be OK. Alright? I know it hurt, believe me, I know, listen, dude, there’s a lot of fish in the sea.”

Thanks Chris, we can tell how deeply you empathize.

At the end of the song the “sad man” walks away while Chris “the worst guy to be sad around” Cagle is in mid-sentence. That bears repeating. The songwriters had their character leave their song out of disinterest.

What does that tell you?

Chris Cagle - “No Love Songs”