Lunch is what makes the world go round

Many moons ago, circa 1967 probably, I was glued to my transistor radio listening intently to a BBC World Service programme called My Music, a witty and amusing quiz show in which some very erudite and musically inclined speakers were asked questions on various genres and aspects of music. In one particular episode, one of the participants decided to go off the deep end. He asked an apparently crackpot question to the rest of the panel, ‘What would happen if we replaced the word love with the word lunch in many well-known songs?’ I cannot, for the life of me, remember any of the songs that were suggested. All I can recall was the sheer hilarity that ensued as each participant went to town giving his or her own version, and often even singing it. Desperate as I was, what with the weekend drawing near and my self-imposed deadline to post a blog in jeopardy, I decided to draw inspiration from that programme and provide my own list of love songs, or rather, lunch songs to see what comes out of it. The results, to say the least, were surprising. Since love is a universal theme for songs, I am sure you, dear reader, can add to this list immeasurably. With that preliminary pourparler, here goes nothing.

When The Beatles released their immensely popular hit, All You Need Is Love, with a chorus line that made it a singalong song for the ages, I tried to imagine what the implication would have been had the song been titled All You Need Is Lunch. It is a valid proposition for discussion. After all, if the stomach is not properly taken care of, if hunger pangs are not fully sated when the call comes, love can take a nosedive. It is an existential issue. I daresay during their early days of struggle in pre-Thatcherite Liverpool, Lennon and McCartney, along with Harrison and Starr might have been worried about when or where their next egg or ham sandwich is coming from. Not to put too fine a point on it, they were not born rich. Around the time, they also composed It’s Only Love, a poignant number which would have been far more appropriately titled, It’s Only Lunch. Thus, striking a philosophical note as if to say, ‘Don’t fret lads, a big hit is just round the corner and we could have all the 5-star lunches and dinners our hearts could desire.’ And so it came to pass.

There have been many recorded versions of the 1950s song Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, first released as part of the soundtrack of the film bearing the eponymous name. My own favourite rendition is by the man with the honey-dewed voice, Nat King Cole. Had the song been called Lunch Is A Many-Splendored Thing, you would not have found too many people disagreeing. Like The Beatles, Nat King Cole, a school dropout, also emerged from modest beginnings where a sausage roll would have passed for a decent repast. When the great crooner achieved worldwide fame with songs like Autumn Leaves, Unforgettable and L.O.V.E., the fanciest restauranteurs in the world would have laid out the red carpet for him to enjoy many a splendored lunch or dinner.

The much loved, gravelly-voiced Canadian poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen wrote many songs that his army of diehard fans loved. None more so than Ain’t No Cure For Love and Dance Me To The End Of Love. From what little we know of Leonard Cohen’s personal life (he was quite a private person) I can make an educated guess that to the extent that he thought of food, he could have been an epicurean’s delight. The term is derived from the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who was devoted to refined, sensuous enjoyment, especially in matters of food and drink and one who sought pleasure but not excessive or self-indulgent pleasure. That he (Cohen that is, not Epicurus) lived on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s with his girlfriend Marianne (So Long, Marianne) seems entirely apposite. Epicurean? It’s an adjective that fits Leonard Cohen to a T. So, when you listen to those songs of his, tweak them to Ain’t No Cure For Lunch and Dance Me To The End Of Lunch.

Celebrated hard-rock British band Led Zeppelin, you would have thought, hardly qualifies to be spoken of in emotionally-charged tones involving soft feelings like love and matters inspired by Cupid. However, their earthquake-inducing number Whole Lotta Love was a monster hit which took Led Zep to the top of the world charts, registering 7.5 on the Richter scale. Had I been their manager (fat chance), I would have advised the band’s songwriters Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to cool down a bit and by great contrast, come up with Whole Lotta Lunch, with lyrics showing they are not just acid-dropping freaks but can enjoy a decent meal that would have made their grandmothers proud. No such luck. They went on their merry ways and ruled the rock music world, often skipping lunch and dinner but supplementing their energies with plenty of liquid nourishment of a kind their grannies would not have approved.

Another old classic, much popularised by the likes of Frank ‘Old Blue Eyes’ Sinatra was I Am In The Mood For Love. We all know Sinatra and his notorious Rat Pack gang loved the good life. He loved his food and wine and was a hearty trencherman. I daresay every time he felt the clarion call from his rumbling stomach, he would warble I Am In The Mood For Lunch and a luncheon spread fit for a king would have been his for the asking. Sinatra singing for his supper? Maybe, but not quite in the way you might think.

During the 50s and 60s there was no greater pop sensation than Elvis ‘the pelvis’ Presley. Until The Beatles and The Rolling Stones came along and rained on his parade. However, when Elvis bestrode the world of pop music and cinema like a Colossus, he was nonpareil. His seductive voice and killer good looks had the girls and boys ‘all shook up.’ His hit songs like Jailhouse Rock, It’s Now or Never (a.k.a. O Sole Mio), Wooden Heart, Teddy Bear and so much more had everyone foot-tapping and in a frenzied tizzy. And when he belted out, I Need Your Love Tonight, every teenage girl and her mother imagined they were enjoying wedded bliss with the star who demanded I Need Your Lunch Tonight. And in their dreams, they were only too willing to oblige, even if it meant serving left-over lunch warmed up, for dinner!

Bob Dylan is not the kind of singer-songwriter you would associate with writing soppy, sentimental love songs. He was the poet who shook his angry fist at the establishment and at the world’s wrongdoings while warning his publics that The Times They Are A’Changing and that answers to difficult questions are Blowin’ In the Wind. In saying that, I might be doing injustice to the man from Minnesota, originally christened Robert Zimmermann. He did address matters of the heart a number of times, none more plaintively than Lay, Lady Lay and I Want You. However, his song Love Minus Zero found me scratching my head. The lyrics do not even mention the title. I then thought that if Dylan visited a restaurant and ordered a Lunch Minus Zero, the waiter, long used to the star’s obsessive weight-watching, would holler out to the kitchen, ‘Lunch for Bob, low calories and no carbs please. And a diet beer to wash it down.’ He might have added ‘Don’t think twice Bob, it’s alright,’ if he had been aware of the bard’s output.

While concluding this idiosyncratic piece, it occurred to me why I could not find any songs from women who could fit the bill. Before I get brickbats hurled at me from the distaff side, I had to do some quick thinking. Women look at both love and lunch in completely different ways to men, and I was predisposed to put forward the male point of view. But hey, women musicians have given us some beautiful songs extolling the noble virtues of pure love. Carole King’s Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Joni Mitchell’s Solid Love and Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, spring to mind amongst several others. However, I do not wish to satirise or trivialise them by force-fitting the lunch motif into those lyrics. Gastronomy, sometimes bordering on gluttony is still a male preserve. Lunch comes first before their thoughts turn to gentler emotions. Don’t take my word for it. No less than George Bernard Shaw said, ‘There is no sincerer love than the love of food.’