A great love song will always find itself in the position of conversing with all the other great love songs of the past, quietly announcing itself to be a continuation of the elusive, sometimes fleeting and always mysterious emotion that songwriters so frequently gravitate towards as a subject or as an expression.
Tekla Waterfield’s song “I Wanna Love You Forever (aka Tina’s Song)” picks up such a direct sentiment from Bob Marley’s “Is This Love?” going from “I want to love you/every day and every night” to “I want to love you forever,” expanding on this sentiment with just enough specificity to depict a unique yet universal reaction of the soul.
“Forever” is always a dangerous term to use in this setting, as it immediately requires the discerning listener to hear the word on a poetic not literal level. And yet the magic trick of a great love song is to make the poetic and the literal seemingly co-exist on the same plain.
Recent circumstances should remind us again and again that genuine love is not felt out of desperation or loneliness but out of confidence, only felt after words are spoken aloud and a burden is suddenly lifted. If you listen closely, you’ll hear this very delicate process in motion as “I Wanna Love You Forever” plays.