The next song I will be looking into is probably the most classic love song out there, a staple song at any wedding ever (it was my parent’s wedding song in fact), and that’s Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley.

The first verse goes “Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can’t help falling in love with you. Shall I stay? Would it be a sin? If I can’t help falling in love with you”. Many people advise from rushing into serious aspects of serious relationships, such as saying “I love you”, but Presley can’t help it in this case, despite the warnings he has been given. He says that it’s not a “sin” to fall in love with and to love someone so there is no real reason that he can’t do it.

The chorus goes “Like a river flows surely to the sea, darling, so it goes, some things are meant to be”. Just like any river will end up flowing into the ocean, it was inevitable that he was going to fall in love with her, it was just the way that fate and nature intended it to be and there is no way to stop nature since it’s such a powerful force.

The second verse goes “Take my hand, take my whole life, too, For I can’t help falling in love with you”. This verse quickly escalates from him asking her to take his hand (in marriage I assume) to taking his whole life. This verse truly shows how infatuated he has become in a (supposedly) short period of time. He trusts this woman with his entire life, which goes back to the first verse, which is probably why he was warned not to rush right into to mad love because it would make him do “dangerous” things without thinking beforehand.

The chorus plays again and then the outro goes “Take my hand, take my whole life, too, for I can’t help falling in love with you, for I can’t help falling in love with you”. The mood in this verse pretty clearly reflects the mood in the verse prior.

This song is really quite simple and it’s the simplicity it delivers such a clear and direct message and that’s why I believe that it has remained such a staple in the “love song” category through-out almost every generation that has heard it.