Love Is... (song)

"Love Is..." is a song by avant-garde band King Missile. It was the only single from the band's 1994 album King Missile.

Content
In "Love Is...," a dirge-like track with elements of doom metal, frontman John S. Hall dryly recites several examples of what love is ("beautiful / Like birds that sing") and is not ("ugly / Like rats / In a puddle of vomit"). The chorus consists of Hall ominously chanting, "Love is beautiful."

Maxi-single
The "Love Is..." maxi-single was intended for promotional use only, and not supposed to be sold; nonetheless, copies are sometimes available in "used" sections of record stores, because some people who received the maxi-single sold it anyway.

Track listing
All lyrics by Hall. All music by Roger Murdock, Dave Rick, and Chris Xefos.


 * 1) "Love Is..." [clean version] – 3:38
 * 2) *This "clean" version is identical to the album version except for the partial muting of a word that the King Missile liner notes claim is "shipload" but may actually be "shitload." (According to Hall, "on the [King Missile] lyric sheet we [the band] submitted to Atlantic, we changed all the curse words to acceptable words, figuring nobody would listen to the record, and we [would] get away with not having a warning label. This actually worked!")
 * 3) "These People" – 4:26
 * 4) *This track also appears on King Missile.
 * 5) "Lost Land" – 4:32
 * 6) *This track appears exclusively on the maxi-single.
 * 7) "What If" [alternate version] – 2:24
 * 8) *This track, which appears exclusively on the maxi-single, differs from the King Missile version of "What If" in that the lyrics are spoken throughout rather than both spoken and sung.
 * 9) "Love Is..." [album version] – 3:38

Music video
The video for "Love Is..." was directed by Richard Kern. The video contrasts shots of the band performing in a white room with shots of a dark, sordid party at which attendees engage in heterosexual, homosexual, interracial and zoophilic partnerships.

MTV refused to air the video. Hall believes this rejection was motivated by the shots of multi-instrumentalist Xefos kissing another man.