Scared to Say ‘I Love You’?

Posted on the 24 October 2013 by Angela Young @AngelaYoung4

Last week Paul McCartney admitted to John Wilson on BBC Radio 4′s Front Row that he was scared to say ‘I love you’. Instead he wrote the words into a song for his wife, Nancy Shevell. The song, Scared, reviewed at the end of this link, is a hidden track at the very end of McCartney’s new album, NEW. It’s a beautiful wistful ballad in true McCartney Yesterday style and its lyrics, which begin at 5’40″ on this link include the words:

I’m scared to say I love you; Afraid to let you know … .

This week SPEAKING of LOVE, a novel that asks why those words are so very hard to say, is reissued in a new Kindle edition. As one of the characters says:

The real risk, it seems to me, lies in not talking about the things that matter the most. That’s what made Iris ill. What we don’t say doesn’t go away.

I know, in the past, I haven’t said the words for fear of ridicule and rejection. Do you know why you haven’t (if you haven’t)?