This talk examines recent love songs in the popular music of the Toraja region of Eastern Indonesia. For some Toraja critics, romantic love songs raise fears of cultural loss, as they suggest alternatives to the traditional valorization of familial love and performance of duties dictated by family and caste obligations. Indeed, some of these songs suggest a critique of arranged marriage, a key institution in the region’s traditional exchange-based economy. As Toraja songs have moved lyrically toward romantic love, they have also developed a musical representation of individual anguish and struggle, suggesting a rapid ferment of musical, emotional, and economic change that fits well with the free-market economy in which many Toraja people now work.