Of Pop Grammatology

While writing yesterday's post, I was reminded of one of life's great mysteries (as opposed to Father Dowling's Mysteries) that I really really really wish someone could solve and that is this:

What the hell is up with song titles with embedded parentheses?

Examples:

I'll Be Loving You (Forever)
(You Got It) The Right Stuff
Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)
(I've Had) The Time of My Life
All Night Long (All Night)
(Everything I Do) I Do It For You
(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection
Get Up! (Before the Night Is Over)
(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me
My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)
Whoomp! (There It Is)
I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
Sweat (A La La La La Long)

And the list (not to mention, the beat) goes on. Perhaps the part in parentheses is secondary, like if you were writing up the song in a magazine article or high school essay (eg. 300 words on "Why I Think Nelson Is The Awesomest") you could drop that part if there wasn't enough room to print it. This makes sense in some cases, but not in others (ie. "Whoomp").

I will say that in the instance of Meatloaf's "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), the parentheses actually make sense grammatically. If I'm not mistaken, words in parentheses should be either explanatory or qualifying (props to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English). The qualifying thing definitely explains the Meat Loaf song, and also "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" (those New Kids weren't going to be tied down). But the rest, not so much. (It's Just) and (I've Had)? Which episode of Schoolhouse Rock were these people toking up to?

Whether arbitrary or artistic, the only people worse than pop music songwriters about deliberately reckless punctuation are deconstructivist theorists, but their thing tends to be more the "/" than parentheses. Maybe there's some kind of punctuation turf thing going on here, I don't know. But somehow, some way, I am going to (get to the bottom of this).