It Won’t Be Soon Before Long - Maroon 5

Joseph Smith | 15 August 2007

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Maroon 5’s follow up to Songs About Jane should perhaps be called Songs About Lost Love and Infatuation.

It Won’t Be Soon Before Long hits all the same heights as their debut album with enough radio-friendly poppy jazzy hooky tracks to make this album a definite keeper. I really enjoyed the music a lot.

Lyrically, vocalist Adam Levine has covered similar territory to Songs About Jane in singing about lost love and relationships predominantly based on sexual relations.

On the very upbeat album opener If I Never See Your Face Again Levine marvels at the fact that he and the girl he was with for just a short while have gone ‘further’ than they ever expected. It’s presumably a one night stand or a summer fling. And it’s this kind of casual attitude to relationships that sets the tone for the album.

The first single Makes Me Wonder is another pleasant, upbeat track, until you listen to the lyrics and realise the vocalist has enjoyed the sensual pleasures of a woman’s body one night, but really cannot see what else there is that might keep them together. Even Levine senses the folly of consummating a relationship at the start rather than after true commitment in marriage is achieved.

In Little of Your Time Levine acknowledges that he and his woman are “passionate lovers with trouble under the covers” but is optimistic that if she just comes back to bed he can say the right words and do the right actions that will make her “feel it”. To Levine, sex seems to be a cure all for deeper relational problems.

Christians are certainly not prudish about sex. Song of Solomon is a book all about the joy of sexual relations between a committed (married) couple. Even 1 Corinthians 7:5-6 stresses the importance of a healthy sex life for husbands and wives.

“Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

However, Levine sings about sex like a commodity that can be used to attract and manipulate people.

Wake Up Call has a more sinister sound to it musically which appropriately mirrors the lyrics. The vocalist and his lover are fighting over giving and taking love, but it all boils down to an act of infidelity by his lover.

Levine has hit on a truth about the pain of infidelity that Christians and non-Christians alike can share. But rather than following the Ephesians 5 principles for marriage of love and submission, which presumably lead to sacrifice, compromise and service for one another, Levine sings of the common error that people in relationships fall into. Love is used as a commodity or a weapon. It becomes conditional, depending on our mood, rather than being offered freely as modelled by Christ.

Songs about break-up

Nothing Lasts Forever will be familiar to many listeners. The chorus was used as a sample in Kanye West’s 2005 single Heard ‘Em Say. The song itself is a bitterly sweet track that laments the distance that exists between the couple in this romantic relationship.

Better That We Break is a song that deals with the complex area of knowing when it is right to end a relationship. He sings “It’s not right, not okay” but acknowledges it might be “better off this way”. He also acknowledges the lasting pain that comes from break ups.

Back at Your door works as a part 2 toBetter That We Break. The lyricist admits that he has been an unworthy partner. “Your friends say he’s just wasting your love and time”. However, there is a longing he feels for his loved one. Whether it is out of habit or love, he finds himself drawn back to her.

Many of the tracks on It Won’t Be Soon Before Long are reminders of the imperfect, fallen world we live in and the effect on human relationships. Thankfully, Jesus does mend the most important relationship between us and God, and also offers true peace between humans. True, Christians also fail at relationships at all levels, but as this album shows, turning sex, love and forgiveness into commodities or weapons is never fulfilling.