"I'm not broke / I'm just a broken-hearted man."
The world would be a heckuvalot easier if everybody who ever fell in love decided to follow The Script's example. I mean, if nothing else -- it'd certainly be a whole lot simpler to find people when you needed them.
Their angle?
Pledge your undying love for the girl of your dreams. Head back to the very corner where you first met, then plop right down in that very spot, grab a sleeping bag, and wait for her to come back. How long do you wait?
Umm, well... forever, if need be.
Maroon 5's Adam Levine: Ok, that is SO not fair -- I totally came up with that idea first! You remember "I don't mind spendin' every day / out on your corner in the pourin' rain," don't you?!
Silly Adam.
Waiting forever on a girl who might never come back around is hardly a new concept. Take, for example, the story of The Script's fellow Irishman:
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939): Asked the same woman to marry him more than two dozen times.
When it came to the fire-haired vixen known as Maud Gonne, it's no secret that Yeats had it bad... REALLY BAD. Willy's heartbreak is the stuff of legend -- but dozens of rejected marriage proposals (and quite literally just shy of a HUNDRED separate poems imploring the poor gal to give him a chance) seems to pale in comparison to the steadfast example set by this guy, Yeats' psuedo-neighbor to the south of just one hundred or so years earlier:
Robert Burns (1759-1796): Scottish balladeer, 18th Century Ladies' Man
Adam Levine's gestures are noble, Yeats' perserverance is legendary, and The Script's efforts are admirable, but none of these lovestruck composers have anything on the original Man Who Can't Be Moved. Just how committed to true love was our boy Bobby Burns, you ask?
A Red Red Rose (1794)"O MY Luve 's like a red, red roseAre you getting all of that down?
That 's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve 's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune!
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile."
This dude is willing to put his heart on the line until "a[ll] the seas gang dry," and "the rocks melt wi[th] the sun." We're not just talking about standing outside in the pouring rain or camping out on some broad's corner here, folks -- that's some serious Book of Revelation-level commitment, right there. In short, he's actually willing to wait it out until the End Times, if need be.
So if you ever find yourself pining up and down for a lost love or a romance that never quite seems to turn out the way you'd planned -- at least it's good to know that you're hardly alone in your plight. If you're standing in the pouring rain? Keep standing. If you're waiting on a corner? Keep waiting. And if there's still water left in the seas? Hang in there -- because you've still got a long way to go.
Or, in the immortal words of Winston Churchill:
"If you're going through hell, keep going."
