"After the Love Has Gone" asks what two people do with the space where a feeling used to live. Earth Wind & Fire recorded it in 1979 as a ballad about a relationship that has exhausted itself. The love has not been betrayed. It has simply evaporated. No fight. No betrayal. Just the slow realization that the thing holding them together has disappeared without anyone noticing. The aftermath, not the breakup. The quiet aftermath is harder to write about than the slammed door.