All you need is love: metaphors of love in 1946–2016 Billboard year-end number-one songs

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This study examines the use of metaphors, metonymies and metaphorical similes for love in a corpus of 52 year-end number one hit songs in the USA from 1946 to 2016 according to Billboard charts. The analysis is performed within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and from quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Our findings indicate that the theme of romantic love is prevalent in US mainstream pop music over the course of seven decades but shows evolutionary features. Metaphors of love evolve from conventional to novel with a notable increase in both heartbreak and erotic metaphors. Remarkably, the study finds that the two predominant conceptualizations of love in pop songs – which in a significant number of cases overlap – are the following: experiential, originating in the physical proximity of the lovers, and cultural, reflecting possession by one lover and showing a non-egalitarian type of love.