Expert opinion from University of Auckland - Waipapa Taumata Rau
Opinion: “What’s love got to do with it?” asked Dr Alistair Reese at the Waitangi dawn service, referencing the rhetorical question posed by Archbishop Don Tamihere at Tūrangawaewae. “The answer is, everything,” Reese continued. “Because love is the foundational ethic of creation.”
The reference to the Tina Turner song was reported by Stuff as “bringing back the romance” to Waitangi, but I couldn’t help reflect on the context and meaning of this quote in the original song.
“What’s love got to do with it?” In the context of the sermon by Dr Reese, this is a valid question in the broadest context. However, the contextualisation relating it to the song threw things out of alignment for me. Lyrics have power and a strong relational context. The use of the lyric brings to mind connotations that may or may not have been intended. I considered the many ways a listener could take it, especially considering that the relationship between the Crown and tangata whenua is largely transactional and, many would argue, not based on love, aroha, or care.
But what’s love got to do with the original lyric? The song was written by Graham Lyle and Terry Britten in the early 1980s and recorded by Tina Turner in 1984 for her album Private Dancer. (It was turned down by Cliff Richard, which would have created a very different song from the one Turner made her own.)
The song was one of Turner’s best charting singles, and one of her most enduring hits. A lot of people understand – or think they understand – the lyrics without needing to see them written out.
If you read the lyric in context you can see that the nature of the song’s narrative is vastly different from the one intended by Dr Reese and Archbishop Tamihere. It’s about transactional relationships based on sex. The question posed by the song is answered by the refrain that it’s “but a secondhand emotion” and the narrator affirms that love is a “sweet old-fashioned notion”.
The song frames the idea of love as being unimportant in the context of relationships, and in fact it is an emotion to be avoided because love can break your heart, and “who needs a heart when a heart can be broken”. In another reading of the lyrics, the narrator could be seen as a prostitute and the ‘love’ being sold is financially transactional and nothing to do with love.
Because song lyrics are often open for multiple interpretations, they should be handled with all care. Inserting a pithy lyrical quote into a speech may seem like a good idea, but using a line from a well-known song out of context can be problematic for the speaker and the audience when both parties’ interpretations can be vastly different.
Isolating one line in a song can be dangerous, and completely change the meaning of the lyric, or it could completely change the meaning that the speaker is wanting to convey through the lyric. Dr Reese’s speech at Waitangi really was a call for love, aroha, and care to be the guiding principle of the relationship between the Crown and the peoples of Aotearoa, tangata whenua in particular.
When I watched his speech later, I could understand the full context of the use of this question and appreciate its purpose. Framing it through a quote however, especially this particular quote lessens the impact of his message. It creates problems in reporting (the “reinvention of romance at Waitangi”), and creates questions consequent to the decontextualisation of his speech and the quote.
We often hear lyrics of a song out of context, and most people don’t think about the overarching meaning of a song before they use a quote, or use the entire song because one isolated part of it resonates with the listener. Politicians do this all the time (witness the US Republican party getting in trouble repeatedly with Bruce Springsteen’s lawyers over the use of his song “Born In The USA”), as do couples getting married and choosing songs for their service or first dance.
But here’s an idea for anyone wanting to quote song lyrics in a public and/or political forum: listen to the whole song and focus on the lyrics before you borrow from it. What is the context of the lyric? What is the song saying? Is it saying that love is all, or “love is all we need”? Or is it saying, as the song clearly is, love is inconsequential, and all relationships are transactional? Context is everything, including when borrowing from a song. Words matter, including those borrowed from another person’s songbook.
The most pertinent quote here comes from Te Tiriti itself, which begins ‘Ko Wikitoria te Kuini o Ingarani i tana mahara atawai ki nga Rangatira me nga Hapu o Nu Tirani’ – Victoria the Queen of England, in her caring concern for the Rangatira and the Hapu of New Zealand….’ In the Williams dictionary of te reo, atawhai is translated as ‘kindness,’ and a sentence is given in illustration: ‘Ko te rangatiratanga o te wahine nei, he atawhai ki nga tangata o tona iwi’ – the rangatiratanga of this woman was shown in her care for the people of her iwi.’ Te Tiriti is supposed to be based on kindness and care from the Crown towards the rangatira, the hapu and the indigenous people of New Zealand.
According to Henry Williams himself, who translated the Treaty into te reo, he told the rangatira at Waitangi that Te Tiriti was “an act of love towards them on the part of the Queen, who desired to secure to them their property, rights and privileges.” That aroha is what Reese and Tamihere are invoking.
There was precious little of it in the responses from government Ministers at Waitangi; and none at all in Act’s campaign of misinformation about the promises made in Te Tiriti. Who is paying for that, by the way??
Aleisha- thank you for your comments. I take note of your caution. Although on the day it was a somewhat successful rhetorical device (according to some) , your contextual explanation of the song demonstrates how careful we need to be. In reference to Te Tiriti, I sometimes liken the Crown to an “unfaithful or violent spouse “. Given Tina’s experience with Ike perhaps the song has more relevance than I might have thought. Dame Anne is correct in that my intention was to highlight the foundation of the Crown’s stated and implied intent: ara te atawhai me te aroha hoki. Given their historical failings and the context as you have pointed out re Tina’s song, Māori are right to ask “what has love got to do with it”?.