“Science Vs. Romance” by Rilo Kiley

“Science vs. Romance” by Rilo Kiley is the second Track off of their debut Album, Take-Offs and Landings. It is also their debut Single.

“Science vs. Romance” by Rilo Kiley
from the Album, Take-Offs and Landings (2001)

The Song is said to be an attempt to connect scientific themes with love. Even though the title of the song suggests conflict, in fact, the lyrics read as the love song of a scientist, a scientist that has been spurned too many times and is trying to reconnect with humanity by trying to love again. (from Wikipedia)

“Text versus romance,
you go and add it all you want.
Still, we’re not robots inside a grid.”

Here’s something I wrote about this Song back in 2012:

Sometimes I find myself so baffled by love. I sound older than my years to say I do not quite understand all the machinations of modern romance, and that often I am just muddling through it all, trying hard to just be myself in all of it. I was never one for playing games, disguising my feelings, or relying on well-tested tricks to get ahead in matters of the heart.

I think that science and love do not play well together, and that when I try to sort it all out all I do is over-think. And, just as in the critical nature of self-editing as a writer, there is something pure and raw and real that gets lost when you over-think love.

Though I do love the mathematics, and the science, and the brain meets the heart kind of lyrics that make-up this song; geek music love personified or something like that.

I’m not sure if I understand so-called Modern Romance any better now, six years later. Maybe. Maybe not. I know so much of it is a game of chance and odds. Two people meet and like each other. That’s magic right there, or is it science? Is it a case of your chemicals mixing well with mine? Is it all chemistry and mathematics, odds playing and optimization. My boyfriend and I met through a dating app. I was just there trying it out. He claims to have used science in the way he worded his “ad” (for lack of a better word, though I’m not fond of thinking of people as ads). That his optimizing would find a better match. We are on our second celebrated Valentine’s. Does that mean it worked? I know I didn’t put that much thought into how I put myself out there. Was that luck then? Or my own kind of random science?