I swear that Let’s Stay Together by Al Green includes the lyrics “love and devotion”, but I search, and it doesn’t - it’s just about love and devotion.
After more internet digging, I find that the song with the lyrics I was thinking of is Rock the Boat, by Hues Corporation.
It was a disco hit in 1974 and it still slaps, and I never until this moment paid any attention to the lyrics. We are looking in on a couple who have been each others’ safe place ever since they met. It feels very much to me like three years into a healthy marriage.
Ever since our voyage of love began
Your touch has thrilled me
Like the rush of the wind
And your arms have held me
Safe from a rolling sea
There's always been a quiet place
To harbor you and me
Our love is like a ship on the ocean
We've been sailing with a cargo
Full of love and devotion
And then something happens — we don’t know what, but one of them is pushing against the boundaries of the relationship. Suddenly they are no longer on the same page. A warning is issued, and it feels to me like something an exasperated parent would say to their troublemaking teenager. “I’d like to know where you got the idea to release live chickens into the football stadium”. Quit messing around before you really get into trouble. That type of thing.
So I'd like to know where you got the notion
Said I'd like to know where you got the notion
To rock the boat
Don't rock the boat, babyRock the boat
Don't tip the boat over
Rock the boat
Don't rock the boat, baby
Rock the boat
I love the metaphor of a relationship as a boat. These two people are moving in the same direction together, battered by storms but still afloat, them vs. the world. I like that the boat can tip pretty far over before it’s flipped, that there’s plenty of time for communicating and course-correcting. There is space for making mistakes and for wondering what the world is like outside of their boat. Neither person is imprisoned on the boat — they are free to choose to tip the boat over if they want to.
This feels like a loving relationship built on trust and recognition of each other as autonomous adults in the world. Which is why I find devotion to be an interesting word to throw into this boat, because it implies something a bit less healthy. There is an element of subservience in the act of devotion to another person or to a relationship. An “on board, no matter what” mentality that goes beyond commitment or dedication and veers into enmeshment and codependence. When people say that someone is a “devoted wife and mother”, they usually mean that she puts her family’s needs before her own. Spiritual devotion calls for worship without placing any demands in return. Abraham Lincoln called dying for your country “the last full measure of devotion”.
Then there’s Sandy, moping around the yard singing Hopelessly Devoted to You about Danny, who has just embarrassed her in front of all of their friends:
In her case it worked out! And it was honest. But my wish for Sandy, and really for everyone out there navigating their way through love, would be to find yourself in a Don’t Rock the Boat type of relationship instead of a Hopelessly Devoted one.
READ: The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty
WATCHED: Poor Things