What is the origin of this phrase and has the meaning changed over the years. Make love to me seemed to be a phrase often used in songs of the forties and fifties.

Well--I was born in '53, so I can't speak to those songs. As far as my knowledge goes, it was popularized in the "Make Love Not War" slogan from the 60's.

About the origin:

link - make

link - love

Take make and love and blend the two etymologies thoroughly and you will have a whole bunch of aspects as to the meaning of make love through time.

(this one is pretty too: ( also from online Ety..)
make (n.)
"match, mate, companion" (now archaic or dial.), from O.E. gemaca, from P.Gmc. *gamakon-, related to gemæca "one of a pair, mate, consort," gemæcc "well-matched, suitable," macian "to make" (see make (v.)

Jamaica? :-)

Rum and Rumba?

I think (memories of very old novels without actually checking anything) that the phrase used to refer to the whole range of wooing and courting activities. It is only more recently that it has come to mean almost exclusively intercourse.
Hmmm, that might be a more societal than linguistic change .

Yes, you're right:"Phrase make love is attested from 1580 in the sense "pay amorous attention to. As a euphemism for "have sex," it is attested from c.1950" Didn't know the phrase was that old. So for almost 400 years it wasn't that specific.

They hadn't invented sex yet - they were too busy looking at ankles.

Or either they din't need no stinking euphemisms.

no stinking euphemisms

They probably had different euphemisms. Speaking of which, my favorite euphemism is faeces for 'shit'. In Latin as the Romans spoke it, there were two words, merda (whence the Romance words) and stercus. In the Middle Ages, some medical person started using faeces, the plural of faex, which means 'dregs, lees' as a euphemism for 'shit'. Excrementum was another one, but an older one; in Latin it could refer to anything expelled from the body, like 'snot'.

In many cases euphemisms are expressing hypocrisy. What used to be ' charwoman or man' is now, at least in this part of the world, called ' interior caretaker' . This tells that their status went up , but their wages didn't.
A forklift driver is called ' logistic assistant' for the same reason. What we (overhere) used to call 'heavy criminals' now are called ' top criminals ' placing them level with ' top lawyers', ' topmanagers' and ' top artists'.
This actually may be not a euphemism.

The garbadge man is still called garbadge man, thanks, but for how long?

I think garbagemen are now called sanitation engineers. And, the antonym of euphemism is dysphemism. There's a good book on the subject by Australian linguist Kate Burridge called Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language Used as Shield and Weapon (co-authored with Keith Allan).

Would that were so, here they are still "garbage men", and since there seem to be no women, it is politically
correct. Political correctness, of course, being a topic for another thread.

What do you call it when a euphemism is changed, as in adding the infix 'freaking*' to 'geez louise' giving us 'geez lou-freaking-uise'?

*'Freaking' is used here as a euphemism for the actual infix in order to keep this a family-friendly site.

Sounds like might be fun to read.
Political correctness is just another face of eufemismness.