“All you need is love,” sing the Beatles. As a stickler for detail, we might add that you also need deep-dish pepperoni pizza and cappuccino-chip ice cream. But as always, the Beatles have a point: every human being yearns for love. Just ask that squirrely guy who invented e-Harmony. If everyone just wants to be loved, you might wonder why so many relationships go awry, why so many people end up looking for love in all the wrong places. Maybe it’s because, at the end of the day, you still have to live with yourself. If you and yourself aren’t getting along, you’re apt to have trouble with other people, too.
Questions About Love
- What is that second love that the title refers to? In other words, what is the love that comes after love? Is it self-love? True love? Love of milkshakes?
- Based on your answer, what is the first love that the title refers to? Romantic love? What parts of the poem give you your answers to these questions?
- What’s the difference between loving yourself and being totally selfish? How might the speaker answer this question?
- Who do you think wrote those love letters, and to whom? How do you know?
Chew on This
This poem wants us all to know that there is no love without self-love.
Actually, it’s the other way around: the only way to truly love yourself (according this poem) is to love another first. To put it another way: self-love is the egg; love of others is the chicken.