I Love You Truly

Not published until 1901, I Love You Truly is generally believed to have been written by Carrie Jacobs Bond about a decade earlier. It is the most popular song from her collection of Seven Songs. The cover to the original published edition carried this inscription: "Seven Songs: As unpretentious as the Wild Rose." While that epigraph describes the spirit of most of Bond's works, it rather perfectly captures the character of I Love You Truly.

The song's text is simple: it consists of just two verses and features rather obvious rhymes ("I love you truly, truly dear; Life with its sorrow, Life with its tear"). Yet the words are heartfelt, if not quite passionate, in their naïve sense of romance. The catchy melody is equally simple in its soothing lilt and instantly familiar sound: its late-nineteenth century, salon-like character is hardly intended to raise the emotional pitch beyond shallow levels, but the music, nonetheless, manages to convey a sweetness in its lack of intimacy and sing-along warmth. The song consists mainly of the melody, its second subject, and repeats. Yet the craftsmanship here is deftly wrought, the melodic goods instantly memorable, and the words sincere and beguilingly innocent.

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