By ROD MCKUEN (1933-2015), a singer-songwriter, musician and poet. He was dubbed as The King of Kitsch by Newsweek magazine. One of his biggest hits was the title song for the animated Peanuts film A Boy Named Charlie Brown, for which he got an Oscar nomination. He also wrote songs covered by Frank Sinatra and Madonna, Dolly Parton and Chet Baker, Johnny Cash and Barbra Streisand.
According to QI, the earliest documented evidence where this line was found was in April 1971 when The New York Times profiled McKuen and stated therein that he always left his audience with this famous line. The excerpts of this writing were stated as follows:
He has no solutions to offer, no panaceas to propound and makes no claims to cosmic insights. “I’m not preaching. I’m just talking about the things that move me.” Still, at the end of every public appearance recently, he’s been admonishing his listeners that “it doesn’t matter who you love or how you love, but that you love.”
This, apparently, is a message a great many people want to hear, whether it’s stated directly or merely implied in the way McKuen talks or sings or writes about the things that matter most to him.
This saying may be a cliche to many but it gives a deep and meaningful message about love. It is really difficult to explain what love really is but personally I believe that Love is God. And, so long as love is in our hearts, God is there as well. Love doesn't choose. It doesn't matter who we love and how we love. When we love, we can make mistakes and wrong choices, but we can never be a bad person. Because, when we do something for love, we are also doing it for God.
So, it is not really about how beautiful our partner is, how brilliant our children are and how beneficial our friends and neighbors are to us. When our love is true to them, there are really no conditions. Indeed, nothing else matters so long as we love.