Illustration by Jillian Tamaki.
Love songs are often ridiculed, and I suspect it’s because the people doing the ridiculing are resentfully aware of music’s innate power. While the greatest love songs achieve something close to transcendence, even the most tacky, schmaltzy tune can work like an aural narcotic, beating our rational defences into submission.
Like love itself, love songs have a way of confounding explanation. Maybe it’s a piano motif that does you in (Coldplay’s Clocks), or the wail of a saxophone (Wham!’s Careless Whisper — I’m speaking hypothetically here, people). Most often, it’s a vocal melody — the way it soars and swoons, or the way the singer’s voice quivers at a decisive juncture. American balladeers Sufjan Stevens and Sam Beam (a.k.a. Iron & Wine) — both melodic geniuses — have brought me to tears more often than I can remember.
Like many people born in the early ’70s, I have Michael Jackson’s Thriller to thank for my initiation into pop music. I thrilled to Billie Jean and Beat It, oh yes, but I also remember experiencing fuzzy feelings for The Girl Is Mine, Jackson’s duet with Paul McCartney. Whether it was Jackson and McCartney’s jealous sparring or the song’s mellow synth vibe, this ballad stirred me at age eight, long before I had experienced romance, or had even the faintest intimations of it.
With age, we gain an appreciation of the context of love songs. But instead of building up a resistance to it, we only become more susceptible, as we unwittingly conflate the lyrics with our own experiences — I can think of no other justification for my continued fondness for top-40 slush like Vanessa Williams’s Save the Best for Last or Roxette’s It Must Have Been Love.
Having said that, the human ear isn’t always inclined to literal meaning. In many instances, the songs that fill us most with love were not written with that intent. I attended a wedding once where the groom serenaded his new wife with an instrumental he’d written for the occasion. Performed on an electric piano, the song was heartfelt and tender and achieved its intended effect: his bride was flush with emotion. Similarly moved, the crowd encouraged the groom to extend the performance. He asked his beloved for a request.
“On My Own!” she shouted lustily. It was all I could do not to laugh. The 1986 duet between Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald — did no one see the irony? This faux pas is one of my favourite wedding memories, but really, who am I to sneer? Obviously, something about the song moved her: the mincing synth riff, LaBelle’s inimitable wail, McDonald’s foggy warble — who’s to say? Whatever it was, it convinced her that a song about breaking up (“Now we’re up to talking divorce / And we weren’t even married”) was a fitting tribute on her wedding day.
It only shows that when it comes to so-called love songs, like campaign promises, we hear what we want to hear. One of my favourite “love” songs is Massive Attack’s 1992 single Protection; the chorus contains the line “I’ll stand in front of you / take the force of the blow,” which always struck me as a valiant pledge of devotion. The fact that the song is actually about kicking a drug dependency scarcely matters. The beauty of a pop song — indeed, most art — is that its meaning can be malleable. If you separate a lyric from its proper context, then that lyric becomes the context. (And if it comes with a super-sexy beat like Protection, then, logic be damned, it’s a love song.)
Regardless of their ultimate intent, here is a list of the songs that have moved us. — Andre Mayer
Opera singer Muriel Smith as Carmen. (Lee Tracey/BIP/Getty)
Jessica Wong, news writer
Spend My Life with You, Eric Benet (feat. Tamia). For me, a great love song is one I can listen to on repeat, and this little ditty is a guilty pleasure. Despite its faults — including at least one grammatical error that makes me cringe every time — this tune fits two musical categories I’m a sucker for: “first dance” picks at weddings, and the neo-soul, Quiet Storm slow jams of my formative years.
Wouldn’t It Be Nice, The Beach Boys. Paul McCartney once said that performing God Only Knows with Brian Wilson reduced the former Beatle to tears, but I’ve always had a soft spot for this Beach Boys ditty, the sweetest little song about youthful frustration.
The Way I Am, Ingrid Michaelson. For the most part, I don’t have an issue with musicians licensing their songs for ads or TV shows. Otherwise, I might never have discovered Ingrid Michaelson, whose deceptively simple and innocent song I include in the company of happy-love classics like Stevie Wonder’s You Are the Sunshine of My Life.
Wild Horses, The Sundays. Who would have thought Keith and Mick could come up with such a delicately beautiful and poignant song? I favour ethereal-sounding female vocalists, so for me, the cover version by The Sundays is especially lovely.
Tie: Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen and Drinking Song from Verdi’s La Traviata. It may be because I’m still an opera neophyte, but my favourite love songs of the genre are two of the most easily recognizable: Habanera from Carmen (in which our feisty heroine warns the target of her affection to “watch out!”) and Brindisi (or Drinking Song) from La Traviata, which is especially sexy when sung by the hot pair of Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon.
Bryan Ferry, lead singer of Roxy Music. (Keystone/Getty)
Martin Morrow, feature writer
More Than This, Roxy Music. When it comes to conveying the headlong rush of falling in love, you can’t beat this, the opening track to Roxy Music’s Avalon, one of the all-time great romantic albums. I love Bill Murray’s tentative karaoke version in Lost in Translation, which gives the song added poignancy; if you prefer to get lost in Bryan Ferry’s bedroom eyes, check out the original video.
Spin the Bottle, Juliana Hatfield Three. Maybe it’s my state of perpetual adolescence, but I’m a sucker for angsty songs of teen infatuation, like this little ’90s gem from the Reality Bites soundtrack. Its giddy tempo and Hatfield’s girlish voice are guaranteed to stir up memories of high-school crushes.
Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me), The Temptations. This 1971 Motown masterpiece, penned by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, is the sweetest of one-sided love songs: a Dante-and-Beatrice scenario with Eddie Kendricks’s tender falsetto building up a domestic daydream from afar.
Beeswing, Richard Thompson. Veteran British folk-rocker Thompson, a titan among songwriters, has made the bittersweet pangs of lost love his specialty. He’s at his creative peak in this achingly vivid tale of two hippie gypsies whose relationship is doomed by the old freedom-versus-commitment tug-of-war.
Northern Sky, Nick Drake. I was getting into Drake at the same time that I met the love of my life, and this became “our song.” If Wordsworth had a guitar, he might have composed this darkly gorgeous ode, in which a new love unlocks the mysteries of the natural world. The New Musical Express once dubbed it the “greatest English love song of modern times;” you’ll get no argument here.
Soul singer Aretha Franklin. (Express Newspapers/Getty Images)
June Chua, news writer
Sea of Love, The Honeydrippers. This version is laconic and sensual — with Robert Plant’s drawl, it has that woke-up-and-had-sex feel to it. You can imagine waves crashing on a beach as some couple makes out.
Love Me Tender, Elvis Presley. Timeless in its sentiment, this is like a lullaby to a loved one; Elvis’s low growl is achingly sincere and beautiful. Sure, it’s the kind of schmaltzy wedding song people might have requested some 20 years ago, but it still gives me goose pimples.
Natural Woman, Aretha Franklin. This song is a woman’s lament: I work so hard, I love so hard and man, do I need you. It’s a plea, but from a very strong woman who has woken up one Sunday morning overwhelmed with inner conflict and sensual emotion.
Somewhere over the Rainbow, Israel Kamakawiwo Ole. This version, which plays at the end of the Drew Barrymore-Adam Sandler film 50 First Dates, is so uplifting it makes me cry. Sung by a very large Hawaiian guy, it is bursting with hope and sweetness. What makes it especially buoyant is that it includes a refrain from What a Wonderful World.
Je t’aimais, je t’aime, je t’aimerai, Francis Cabrel. It’s French, and is sung so gracefully and mournfully and builds to a huge climax. I was in France at the time it came out, pining for a guy in Canada. When Cabrel sings, “L’amour est partout où tu regarde” (“love is everywhere you look”), I feel the desire to embrace this stranger.
Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk. (Kevin Winter/Getty)
Sarah Liss, feature writer
God Only Knows, The Beach Boys. One of the most romantic songs ever written. The jingling bells and clomping percussion sound like a horse-drawn hansom; the layered falsetto melodies could be a seraphic choir. Tony Asher’s lyrics are gorgeously fallible: he wrestles with self-doubt before professing utter devotion. When Carl Wilson’s choirboy voice breaks midway through the chorus (“God only knows what I’d be without you”), your heart breaks right along with it.
I’ll Be Your Mirror, The Velvet Underground. For a po-faced cynic, Lou Reed sure wrote a lot of sweet songs. This is his prettiest, with the delicate murmur of trebly guitar chords carrying Nico’s vocals. Her usual tendency is to sound like a Scandinavian fembot, but here, Nico’s delivery is tender. The sentiment of the title — if only you could see yourself as I do — is the ultimate sublimation of self in the name of capital-L love.
Martha, Tom Waits. I’m a sucker for a great rambling narrative, and Tom Waits is a storyteller sans pareil. A taxicab confession of sorts, this tale follows a protagonist who rings his One True Love after almost a quarter-century. The song’s a bawler for two reasons: Waits’s combo of resignation and regret — he knows Martha has moved on, and is better for it — and the glorious tangle of strings.
Lover’s Spit, Broken Social Scene. The ultimate Gen-Y ode to romance, the sentiment of Kevin Drew’s coming-of-age anthem is half mea culpa, half me-and-you-against-the-world-baby. The ballad opens with eerie reverberations that feel like an aftershock, then lapses into weepy piano chords before building to an orchestral climax. As he listens to the empty promises of the couples that surround him, Drew gazes into his sweetheart’s eyes and realizes, “Hey, I’m ready to grow up and do this right.”
Joga, Bjork. With all due respect to Carole King, this is the sound of the earth moving under a girl’s feet. Bjork chirps and squeals and coos and sighs over a volcanic explosion of violins, cellos and soaring brass.
Singer-songwriter and pianist Elton John. (Mike Flokis/Getty Images)
Lee Ferguson, web designer
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now), Otis Redding. It’s true that an unsettling neediness emerges as Redding pleads his case to the woman who has “become a habit” to him. Still, every shudder, howl and wail of his voice and the slow-building horns conjure up a love so intense, you feel it in your bones.
Coney Island Baby, Lou Reed. Said to have been written for Reed’s transvestite paramour, Rachel, the song’s gentle-as-rainfall guitars and Lou’s whispery vocals create an inspiring (and epic) state, in which he is rescued from his dreary urban existence by “the glory of love.”
Your Song, Elton John. A song for the shy, awkward romantics out there. This classic, which starts with a lone, hesitant piano and gains momentum through its lush strings and oft-repeated refrain “I hope you don’t mind,” is so gentle, unassuming and sweet, you could almost overlook its perfect blend of sentimentality and melody.
Baby It’s You, The Shirelles. My 15-year-old self fell in love with every sugary “sha-la-la-la” in this Burt Bacharach ballad. My grown-up self cringes at the underlying masochism of the lyrics, in which a girl sits alone at home, crying over her cheating boyfriend. Regardless, shimmering production and the halting yet determined way Shirley Owens declares, “Baby, it’s you” make this song a hypnotic, slow burn.
I Melt with You, Modern English. Announcing itself with a burst of upbeat guitars, thunderclap drumbeats and idealistic lyrics, and pausing only for those inspired “hmmm-hmmm-hmmms,” this New Wave gem is pure, blissed-out emotion set to music.
Legendary jazz composer Thelonious Monk. (AFP/Getty)
Andre Mayer, feature writer
I Burn for You, The Police. A paean to all-consuming desire, this late-period Police single is Sting at his most obsessive. (Yes, even more so than Every Breath You Take.) Andy Summers’s chiming, heaving guitar chords create an atmosphere of imminent danger, which only enhances the effect.
Ruby My Dear, Thelonious Monk. This is one of the prettiest ballads in jazz, and like most of Monk’s compositions, Ruby My Dear is filled with idiosyncrasies (knotty chords, deliberate choppiness). For anyone who’s ever tried playing this song, it’s ridiculously complex, which elevates it to the realm of magic.
Presidential Suite, Super Furry Animals. This ballad by the psychedelic Welsh quintet features a majestic, Bacharachian chorus, and the lyric “We belong in a presidential suite,” which conjures images of satin sheets and room service. The fact that the song is actually about the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky imbroglio and contains the line “Honestly! / Do we need to know if he really came inside her mouth?” does not diminish its tenderness.
Wildflower, Skylark. The Vancouver band Skylark is worthy of two footnotes: it featured a young David Foster, and it yielded this lavish single, which sold one million copies back in ’73. Yes, the lyrics are patronizing (“Let her cry, for she’s a lady / Let her dream, for she’s a child”), but the song is brilliantly executed — subtly orchestral with outbursts of bluesy guitar, Wildflower is a smart seduction.
Black Cherry, Goldfrapp. Alison Goldfrapp has one of the most arresting voices in pop — part angel, part dominatrix. I haven’t a hot clue what this gauzy ballad is about (dessert?), but man, is it sublime.
Folk singer Joan Baez. (MPI/Getty)
Susan Noakes, news writer
Diamonds and Rust, Joan Baez. Baez released this song in 1975, 10 years after her ill-fated relationship with Bob Dylan, at a time when she said publicly she was meant to live alone. The song tells the whole story: of a man who was obviously trouble when it comes to love and a woman who should have known better. The question remains: why did she buy him cufflinks?
As Time Goes By, Herman Hupfeld. Written for the 1931 Broadway musical Everybody’s Welcome, the song was most famously used in the film Casablanca (1942). Its message: love is timeless against the great backdrop of history. So go ahead and fall in love; it’s not as if you’re doing something unique. As Bogart said in the movie, the “problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”
Moondance, Van Morrison. At high school dances in the 1970s, the boys propped up the gym wall and watched while the girls danced with one another. Reluctance to dance seems to be a deeply ingrained Canadian cultural tradition. My daughter’s high school dances are exactly the same, which may be why it’s so appealing to rhyme “dance” and “romance” in the way Van Morrison does in Moondance. A recent version by Michael Bublé strips the song of its folk roots — with the aid of a smoke machine.
Fire, Bruce Springsteen. The Boss wrote Fire in 1977 for his idol, Elvis Presley, who died shortly afterwards. The Pointer Sisters took up the female point of view in 1978, their “oo-oohs” as fine as anything that ever came out of Motown. “I say I don’t love you, but you know I’m a liar / Because when we kiss… Oo-ooh, fire!” It’s a paean to lust and whatever demon it is that makes us deny it. The way Springsteen sings it, you can almost hear the King.
In My Life, The Beatles. This song, from the 1966 album Rubber Soul, has John Lennon’s stamp on it. It is an attempt to sort through the accumulation of memories — of people and places — and figure out why things stick with us. Love is mentioned only in one line (“In my life, I loved you more”), but ends up as the thread that pulls the rest together.
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