The Song of Songs vs. Lady Antebellum's Our Kind of Love

The Song of Songs vs. Lady Antebellum’s “Our Kind of Love” The excerpts from The Bedford Anthology of World Literature entitled The Song of Songs can correlate to the contemporary love song “Our Kind of Love” sang by the notorious, award-winning country music group Lady Antebellum. Besides the fact that these two works were written under antithetical circumstances and during distinctly different time periods, they both share many of the same attributes. Both of these works closely examine the word “love”, a word that is commonly misused in the present day generation. Furthermore, they both portray the profound, romantic feeling that a woman and a man share when they are both mentally and physically attracted to each other. The Song of Songs, is often misunderstood. When many people first read this poem, they find it hard to believe that this sexual, explicit love poem is found in the Bible. Phrases like, “do not rouse her” (210.9), “your lips drop sweetness like the honeycomb” (213.11), “I have stripped off my dress” (214.3), and “I am a wall and my breasts are like towers” (218.10), are present throughout this poem. Many people read these phrases and think of them to be sexual connotations. These phrases are indeed erotic but what most people do not understand is that this poem is meant to show the love that God has created for a male to feel towards a female and a female to feel towards a male when they are in a monogamous relationship. This poem was also intended to be able to be used as lyrical hymn that could be sung. Many songs in today’s culture portray this feeling of love as well. “Our Kind of Love” is a country song sang by the country musical group Lady Antebellum. Although, at first many people may not agree, The Song of Songs, a poem that can be found in the Bible, and “Our Kind of Love”, a song that just recently was produced, share many of the same qualities. The Song of Songs has two main characters: the bride and the bridegroom whom are lovers. The companions are another group of characters in this poem. They are kind of like the narrators of the poem that chime in at certain times. Each of the three characters plays a contrary role in the love poem. In “Our Kind of Love”, the country group Lady Antebellum, sings about the love shared between a male and a female. In this song, a man and a woman take turns singing about their love for each other. Even though “Our Kind of Love” is a song, it can also be considered a poem as well. While reading The Song of Songs, one might doubt that it is a poem because many of the lines contained in this poem do not rhyme with each other however, a poem does not always have to rhyme. One might also disagree that a song such as “Our Kind of Love” can be a poem, but a song was at one time just a poem until it was actually made into a song. When first looking at both the poem and the song together, the stanza in which they are written looks almost identical besides the fact that the song is obviously shorter than the poem. This should be a clue to the readers right away that they are both poems. Another clue that both of these could be poems or songs, is the title of the poem The Song of Songs. The title says it all. “Our Kind of Love” and The Songs of Songs are both about two people madly in love. In both of these works, the characters both explain their love towards each other. However, the way they express their love for each other is extremely different. This is because of the difference in cultures and time periods. For example, in The Song of Songs the bridegroom describes his bride’s beauty by using a large amount of adjectives:

How beautiful you are, my dearest, how beautiful!, Your eyes behind your veil are like doves, your hair like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead (212.1).
In “Our Kind of Love”, the way the male describes to the female her beauty sounds a little bit different than in The Song of Songs. He explains her beauty by using less description:
“You wear your smile like a summer sky / Just shining down on me and you swear your heart is a free bird / On a lazy Sunday afternoon” (Lady Antebellum).
Although these two phrases sound completely different, they are both stating the same thing, that they both think their lover’s are beautiful. The first phrase is written more proper, and the second phrase is more straight-forward and to the point, and this is why a great number of people do not realize that even though the language of The Song of Songs and “Our Kind of Love” is different, a lot of the phrases in both of these works are stating the same or close to the same thing. Another example of the similarity of phrases is when the bride in The Song of Songs explains the type of love her and the bridegroom share and when both the female and the male in “Our Kind of Love” define the type of love they have together. The bride in The Song of Songs declares her love for the bridegroom: My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds where balsam grows, to delight in the garden and to pick the lilies. / I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine, he who delights in the lilies (215.2-3).
In comparison to this phrase, the male and female in “Our Kind of Love” explain their love by singing:
“Just like driving on an open highway / Never knowing what we’re gonna find / Just like two kids, baby, always trying to live it up / Whoa, yeah, that’s out kind of love (Lady Antebellum).
The Song of Songs was written during a much more earlier time period than “Our Kind of Love”. One can tell this by comparing the language that is used in both of these works. “Our Kind of Love” is a contemporary song that just came out in the year 2010. This song consists of everyday, modern language. It is very easy to understand the plot of this song just by listening to it or reading it through once. In contrast, The Song of Songs was written “between 350 and 250 B.C.E.” (208). This poem is much more difficult to understand than Lady Antebellum’s song because it uses more proper, precise language. The Songs of Songs may require a little extra attention in order to clearly understand the poem. This is what throws most people off and makes them think these two works are not alike. However, if one actually takes the time to look over The Song of Songs a couple of extra times, then he will see that they are stating the same objective, just using a different way to say it.
When first looking at this essay, one might not agree with my idea that Lady Antebellum’s recent record-breaking hit, “Our Kind of Love” and the biblical love poem, The Song of Songs are alike. They are indeed written from different time periods and from different cultures however, by now one should agree that these two works are more similar than they are dissimilar. They both have two main characters, a male and a female. Both of these works can be cited as poems or sung aloud. Also, they are both profound love poems. Many say that The Song of Songs was created in order to show God’s creation between a man and a woman and the love they share with each other, and that is what both of these works are doing. Even though The Song of Songs is much longer in length than “Our Kind of Love”, they both have the same point. One should take the time to examine both of these popular love poems/songs, because it is very interesting to see how big of an impact a difference in culture plays in World Literature. It is very amusing to see how a love poem written somewhere between 350 and 250 B.C.E. can relate so much to a contemporary country song.

Works Cited
"The Song of Songs." The Bedford Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Paul Davis, Gary Harrison, David M. Johnson, Patricia Clark Smith, and John F. Crawford. Book 1 ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 2004. 208-19. Print. The Ancient World, Beginnings-100 C.E.
Lady Antebellum. “Our Kind of Love.” Need you Now. Quad Studios, 2010

Cited: "The Song of Songs." The Bedford Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Paul Davis, Gary Harrison, David M. Johnson, Patricia Clark Smith, and John F. Crawford. Book 1 ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 2004. 208-19. Print. The Ancient World, Beginnings-100 C.E. Lady Antebellum. “Our Kind of Love.” Need you Now. Quad Studios, 2010