That’s What Love Will Do

Song Meaning

This track paints love as a force of nature, capable of both profound heartbreak and mischievous trickery. It opens with a stark declaration: love will shatter your heart into a million pieces, leaving you utterly sad and blue. The lyrics emphasize love's indiscriminate nature, stating it doesn't care if it breaks up 'he or she.' This sets a tone of inevitable emotional damage, presented as a universal consequence of falling in love. The song then shifts to illustrate love's power to disrupt everyday life and defy authority. The image of a 'study date' turning into a late night, knowingly breaking curfew, highlights love's ability to make one disregard rules and parental concerns. The repeated phrase 'ma and pa, all night, they wait and wait' underscores the anxiety and worry that love-induced actions can cause for others, adding a layer of consequence beyond the individual's emotional state. The central metaphor compares the vastness of the night sky to love's deceptive nature. While one might count 'a million or two' stars, the lyrics suggest love plays even more 'tricks' on everyone, 'including me and you.' This comparison elevates love's capacity for manipulation, implying its reach and complexity far exceed even the most awe-inspiring natural phenomena. The repetition of 'That's what love will do' throughout the song acts as a refrain, a resigned acknowledgment of these powerful, often painful, effects. Ultimately, the effectiveness of these lyrics lies in their blunt, almost fatalistic portrayal of love. By focusing on the destructive and deceptive aspects, the song creates a raw, unvarnished picture of romantic entanglement. The simple, direct language and the insistent repetition of the title phrase hammer home the idea that these experiences, however painful or confusing, are simply what love inherently 'will do.'