Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Biology of the Love Song
Chapter 2: Procreative Music
Chapter 3: Sappho and Confucius
Chapter 4: The Rise and Fall of the Roman Love Song
Chapter 5: The Thousand Year Repression
Chapter 6: The Middle East -- North African Connection
Chapter 7: The Troubadours
Chapter 8: The Triumph of the Love Song
Chapter 9: A Love Supreme
Chapter 10: Profane Love
Chapter 11: Love at the Opera
Chapter 12: Folk Ballads
Chapter 13: Love and the Rise of the Music Business
Chapter 14: Love Songs in Modern Times

About the Author

Ted Gioia is a music historian and the author of nine books, including The History of Jazz and Delta Blues, both selected as notable books of the year in The New York Times. Love Songs continues his pioneering research into the music of everday life, previously featured in Work Songs and Healing Songs, both winners of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award.

Reviews

"[a] wide-ranging and fascinating study" --PD Smith, The Guardian
"Gioia's book covers a tremendous amount of ground and gives you something to remember on almost every page." -- The New Yorker
"Gioia has constructed a mind-expanding, deep-focus piece of scholarship here..." -- The Atlantic
"Gioia's is always an intellectual odyssey worth attending to." -- The Buffalo News
"Taking a somewhat chronological approach to the subject, Gioia has used his extensive knowledge of love songs throughout time and human history to write an unorthodox examination of this topic. The reader is transported from bird song to ancient Rome, from the troubadours to folk songs, from crooners to contemporary rappers. This is a fascinating approach. Essential." --Choice