As February rolls around we are all reminded that it is time to tell someone that we love them. The reminder can take several forms. Some folks just use the spoken word, some present a box of candy with fancy wrapping, some find just the right card, while others shower the special one with roses. Valentine’s Day is a very joyous time for those who love each other. Not so much when love is one-sided. Unrequited love is an undisputed fact. During the course of human history, it has caused a multitude of problems.

A large percentage of the old folk songs and ballads that have been passed down for generations, many of them from the old European countries, carry the theme of love gone wrong. In most cases unrequited love involves a man who loves a woman but she is unresponsive to his advances.

For most men such an incident just involves getting over the rejection. They just go have a couple of beers, shrug it off, and look for someone else in the next town. But the old folk ballads tell stories of men who couldn’t tolerate their damaged egos so they took some sort of tragic action. Sometimes, they murder the object of their affection and either go to prison or are hanged. Other times, they just kill themselves because they can’t stand the pain. But oftentimes they murder the girl and then kill themselves.

In the grandmother of all the folksongs, Barbara Allen, the poor guy misunderstands Barbara’s response to his advances and kills himself. When she finds out about it, she takes to her bed and dies. In Wexford Girl, from roughly the same era in England, the rejected guy beats the poor girl to death with a club and throws her in the river, “that flows through Wexford town.” In the American annals of tragic romances a song called When First I Came to Louisville tells the story of a young man who kills the man who is beating his time and is subsequently hanged.

If you have read this far you have probably concluded that I am writing about ancient history and that things like this don’t happen in modern times. Don’t you believe it!  Unrequited love that leads to tragedy is still very much with us. I can recall several such incidents that have occurred in central West Virginia during the past ten years. I remember one man who confessed to killing his ex-wife and remarked, “if I can’t have her, nobody else can either.”

When I think about love, I always think of a professor I had at Ohio University. In one of his lectures, he was talking about what causes serious problems in a civilized society. He said, “over half of the social problems that lead to crime in a civilized society boils down to one thing.  John loves Mary. Mary does not love John.”

I have never personally known any man who committed murder or suicide over a lost love, but I have read about some who lived pretty close to me. Love is a very strong emotion and can cause both good and bad things to happen. I think old Marty Robins pretty much nailed it in his song Don’t Worry Bout Me back about 1960 with these two lines:

Love can’t be explained, can’t be controlled
      One day it’s warm, next day it’s cold

Mack Samples is a well-known writer and musician who lives in Clay County. Visit online at http://www.macksamples.com or email him at macksamples@gmail.com.