Love = Oxygen?

by Marko Peric

So the night I was listening to Sweet (Napster is a wonderful, wonderful thing), and I happened to listen to "Love Is Like Oxygen." For those of you not familiar with the song, it runs something like this — "Love is like oxygen, you get too much you get too high, not enough, and you're gonna die." Not a terribly deep or complex song, but kind of catchy.

(For those of you wondering why I was listening to Sweet at all, I was also listening to the Kinks, the Vapors, and Roxy Music, so just be thankful I didn't decide to comment on "Turning Japanese.")

So, this all got me thinking, how much is love like oxygen, apart from the two points Sweet provides? Allow me to present a little comparison.

Oxygen: Comprises about 21% of our atmosphere.
Love: According to another song, love is all around, so we can guess it might be at a concentration somewhere near 21%. Score 1 for Sweet.

Oxygen: Can be purchased in cylinders.
Love: I'm going to cite The Beatles on this one. Money can't buy love. Score one against.

Oxygen: You will die without oxygen, in under four minutes, unless you have exceptional lung capacity.
Love: It might not be pleasant, but I think you'll be able to last a good bit more than four minutes without it. Score another against.

Love: Is the topic for a lot of songs. And by a lot, I mean an insane number of songs.
Oxygen: Is the topic for more songs than you might think. A Napster search had no trouble hitting 100 titles, with not all that much duplication. Score another for Sweet.

So where do we end up? I count two points in favour, two against. In short, we can argue that Sweet is at least partially right, love is kinda like oxygen. But you wouldn't want to mistake one for the other.