Is This What You Call Love?

[GIORGIO]
Is this what you call love?
This endless and insatiable
Smothering
Pursuit of me
You think that this is love?

I'm sorry that you're lonely
I'm sorry that you want me as you do
I'm sorry that I fail to feel
The way you wish me to feel

I'm sorry that you're ill
I'm sorry you're in pain
I'm sorry that you aren't beautiful
But yes, I wish you'd go away
And leave me alone!

Everywhere I turn
There you are
This is not love
But some kind of obsession

Will you never learn
When too far is too far?
Have you no concern
For what I feel
What I want?

Love is what you earn
And return
When you care for another
So much that thе other's
Set free
Don't you see?
Can't you understand?

Lovе's not a constant demand
It's a gift you bestow
Love isn't sudden surrender
It's tender and slow
It must grow

Yet everywhere I go
You appear
Or I know
You are near
This is not love
Just a need for possession

Call it what you will
This is not love
This is the reverse
Like a curse
Something out of control
I've begun to fear
For my soul...

[STEPHEN SONDHEIM, spoken]
We had a very difficult time during previews with Passion because the audience would not buy the idea that this good-looking guy would, would fall in love with this obsessive, grasping, difficult, unpleasant woman. So I wrote a song called "Loving You" which is very simple but which is very heartfelt. It's a very Oscar Hammerstein-like song. And by the end of that song, the audience was softened enough towards her and realized that her love was pure even though her behavior was not. And it sort of, um, turned the corner of the show.