Today’s song is ‘How Deep Is Your Love’. This song is a pop ballad written and recorded by the Bee Gees in 1977 and released as a single in September of that year. It was ultimately used as part of the soundtrack to the film, ‘Saturday Night Fever’. It was a Number 3 hit in the United Kingdom and Australia. In the United States, it topped the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ on 25 December 1977 (becoming the first of six consecutive US Number-1 hits). The single spent six weeks atop the ‘US Adult Contemporary Chart’. It is listed at Number 22 on the 55th-anniversary edition of ‘Billboard’s All-Time Top 100’. Alongside Staying Alive’ and Night Fever’, it is one of the group's three tracks on the list.
‘How Deep Is Your Love’ ranked Number 375 on Rolling Stone’s list of ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’. During the Bee Gees' 2001 Billboard magazine interview, Barry reportedly said that ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ was his favourite Bee Gees’ song.
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I suppose that none of us really knows how deep one’s love is until it is truly tested. It matters not if it is the love of self, parents, children, family, partner or God, it is only when the chips are down that we only ever learn.
My wife, Sheila, unlike me, never needed or desired to parent children. Instead, she seemed to spend most of her adult life being the mistress to a long line of rescue dogs; and the rough collie breed (lassie dogs) were her preference. When her last dog, ‘Lady’ was alive a few years ago, I would frequently joke with my wife that she loved her dog more than me. Sheila would tactfully reply, “I love Lady ‘Differently’ to you, Bill, not ‘more’ than you.” It was at this diplomatic stage of her answer that I would pose her a situation that would definitively reveal her true answer.
As my working career involved the study of the human response (voluntary and involuntary response) for almost thirty years, I knew that only those responses the body makes naturally/ automatically/ unthinkingly/ involuntarily to be our ‘most natural’ responses; not those reactions we make after we have had time to voluntarily/consciously consider them beforehand. So, I would set Sheila my human-trap puzzle.
I would give Sheila the following situation. Imagine that you are half-way across one of those lengthy bridges that is often seen in tropical countries; the type made from platted vines by the natives, and which swing precariously in a pendulum motion as you walk across it gripping both sides, 1000 metres above a rocky ravine below. Suddenly; as you are in the centre of the bridge, the platted vines which have held it firm for two hundred years begin to snap at both sides of the bridge and you become aware they are tens of seconds remaining before they collapse completely and you are fatally thrown into the ravine below. If you run at breakneck speed, you can make it to one side of the bridge. You don’t even have the luxury of one second to make up your mind which side to run to. Your dilemma is that at each side of the bridge are the two loves of your life; your lifelong spouse and your faithful dog. Your husband is frantically beckoning you to run to his side of the bridge and your dog is barking loudly for you to run to its side of the bridge. Only in that briefest of unconscious moments as you automatically dash to one side of the bridge unthinkingly, will be determined if Sheila loved me or Lady the most!
Most of us, thank God, is likely ever to be asked to die for our love, but if we are wise, we will all choose to live for our love.
I know that without the love of my mother to rely on as I grew up, this child would have grown into much less of a man. I know that without the love of my friends as a wild teenager, that there would have been many a night I slept in a ditch instead of making it back home with a couple of broken ribs following a fight. I know that without the love of Mr Northrop; a greengrocer whose shop I stole from at the age of 15 years, and his invested trust in hiring me to work in his shop on a Saturday morning, I would have probably remained a lifelong thief instead of becoming a Probation Officer. I know that without my love of reading, I may not have been introduced to the importance of 'Second Chances'; the central theme of Victor Hugo's novel 'Les Miserables'. Without the love of music, song and dance, there would have been no romance in my life worthy of remembrance.
I know that without the love of my God, I would have already died half a dozen times on the operation table, and without the ongoing love of my beautiful wife, Sheila, I could not be as content as I am today. Though cancer is my ongoing medical affliction, the love of my beautiful wife is my only cure. I also know that without the love of myself, I could not have loved at all; I could not have ever loved my neighbour or achieved what I have done in my lifetime.
‘Love’ is the deepest well of the body and soul. The well of ‘Love’ blesses all who drink heartedly from it. The more we draw on it in our daily lives, the less our thirst for vengeance or supremacy is allowed to reign in our lives, the more forgiving, understanding and wholesome we become, the purer is our thoughts, the gentler our actions, and the greater is the spiritual nourishment that feeds our heart and soul.
I dedicate my song today to my Facebook friend, Mary Anderson, who lives in Santa Fe, California. We have never met, Mary, but I see in yourself and the regular comments on your Facebook page that, like myself, you are a political animal who takes a great interest in the politicians who govern our country. Your love of your family and country shines through for all to see within the daily entries of your Facebook page. Thank you for being my Facebook friend, Mary. Have a wonderful day. Bill x
Love and peace Bill xxx