Love's In Need

Two short portraits set up the need. In one, "a man will cry out for help to meet others' needs" while "his voice no one wants to heed." In the other, a mother sits "in a lonely tear" because "hatred of someone else" took her child. Fred Hammond leaves both sketches unresolved and goes straight to the refrain: "love's in need of love today. Don't delay."

The remaining verses move from diagnosis to remedy. "Your tenderness can heal a heart / that's broken and scarred and torn apart," he says, and nobody should "pretend we don't need love or a true friend." The line "it wasn't meant to be this way" hints at a better design, and the prescription is humility: "yesterday's gone but we can get down on our knees today."

The vamp widens to the world, "love, love, love, that's what the world needs now," asking for love "before it goes too far," and the band is told to "break it down a little" because "love is very peaceful." 1 John 4:7 grounds the call to love in God, Matthew 22:39 gives the command to love your neighbor, and Psalm 147:3 matches the picture of broken hearts being bound up.