Valentine's Special: Top Ten Love Songs.
Feb. 14th, 2007 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
logansrogueI'm not talking those cheesy saccharine horrors you get on cheap song compilation CDs. There are rare songs that seem to capture something of what it is to be in love, some of them are ridiculously popular, some of them strangely obscure. All of them range the different states love brings about - happiness, despair, confusion, heartbreak. So I thought I'd share them with you all, whether you are waiting for the right one or have the right one next to you.
So, in no particular order, ten love songs that I recommend and adore.
Top Ten Love Songs.
10. The Sensual World - Kate Bush
One of the sexiest songs ever. With 'mountain flowers' and 'down of the peach', rescuing it 'between my breasts', it's one delicious lyric after another. A staple when I'm writing sex scenes in my fiction, I always listen to it. Playful, elemental and eternal.
9. Amoureuse - Kiki Dee
Kiki was under the wing of the brilliant Elton John and he wrote this song for her to sing. It's a tender, heartbreaking ballad of loving someone but it not quite being enough, of just missing out and regretting it. Kiki's vocals are just heart-wrenching. An underrated song.
8. Joan Armatrading - Love By You
You've lost them, and now you have to go on without them. But if there was a song that could say how much you miss them and how that space is just not being filled, this is it. Joan's low, tremoring voice and the elegant piano clutches the heart and doesn't let go.
7. Such A Woman - Neil Young
If a man wrote a song like this for me, I honestly don't know what I'd do - probably cry and not stop. A monument to one's love for a woman, how one feels when they adore a woman so very much it consumes them. More beautiful piano, the honest, open voice of Neil Young, and the sweet warm glow of his female back-up singers. If you ever have a hard time telling your girl how you feel - play them this. She'll be yours forever. (Unless she happens to hate Neil Young, which is entirely possible).
6. I'm Not In Love - 10CC
The ultimate song of denial, some would say cheesy as hell, but one I thoroughly enjoy and have related to. Probably most well known for the 'nasty stain that's lying there' line, as well as the 'Be quiet, big boys don't cry' middle eight. I like it for the beautiful harmonies and the fact that it nicely illustrates how some people can be so hurt by love that they'll shun it, or engage in shallow relations just to avoid being hurt again.
5. Stardust - Nat King Cole (and various other artists)
There's not a lot I could say about this song that can top the lyrics themselves. The first lines are: "And now the purple dusk of twilight time, Steals across the meadows of my heart. High up in the sky the little stars climb...Always reminding me that we're apart." The rest are just as good, the melody just as haunting. A heart-squeezer.
4. Kissing You - Des'ree
The stand-out love song from 1995's Romeo + Juliet soundtrack. Just Des'ree, a piano and some strings and some chord progressions that kick my arse and make me tear up immediately. In fact, I bawled like a baby the first time I heard this song, and I doubt it had much to do with DiCaprio's acting.
3. We'll Do It All Again - Bleu
Sometimes you quite literally 'fall' into love. You don't realise what's happening, all you know is you suddenly have a habit of someone you never want to get out of. Bleu's song captures the delicious descent into a confusing love affair that leaves one breathless.
2. Thank You, Baby - Godiego
Unless you were a fan of the TV Show Monkey, or you're a Japanese person who was young and hip in the late seventies, you probably won't know this one. With delightfully cheesy synth and the melancholy swooning of the male singer, there's a gentle honesty in this song that shines and warms the heart. It was also played whenever a pair of lovers had a heart-to-heart on the show, so I have many good memories of ridiculously accented dubs and pretty costumed Japanese people fretting over whether their lovers are demons or not.
1. Love of My Life - Queen
It was a tie in my mind with this and 'You Take My Breath Away'. I think they're both songs that are like two arms in a big warm hug. You can't have one without the other. But for the purposes of the list, I picked Love of My Life. It encompasses all of it. Losing, loving, making up and growing old together. One of Queen's most loved ballads, Freddie would often sing it with sparse backing at concerts to the delight of fans the world over. Queen were consumate love song writers, and their songs spanned the gamut of the joys and frustrations and sadness that love can bring. This song has a vulnerability about it, and it's complicated. It's not a straight-forward love song - there's difficulties in it, but in the end it doesn't matter. The love remains.
Have a good one, all.
So, in no particular order, ten love songs that I recommend and adore.
Top Ten Love Songs.
10. The Sensual World - Kate Bush
One of the sexiest songs ever. With 'mountain flowers' and 'down of the peach', rescuing it 'between my breasts', it's one delicious lyric after another. A staple when I'm writing sex scenes in my fiction, I always listen to it. Playful, elemental and eternal.
9. Amoureuse - Kiki Dee
Kiki was under the wing of the brilliant Elton John and he wrote this song for her to sing. It's a tender, heartbreaking ballad of loving someone but it not quite being enough, of just missing out and regretting it. Kiki's vocals are just heart-wrenching. An underrated song.
8. Joan Armatrading - Love By You
You've lost them, and now you have to go on without them. But if there was a song that could say how much you miss them and how that space is just not being filled, this is it. Joan's low, tremoring voice and the elegant piano clutches the heart and doesn't let go.
7. Such A Woman - Neil Young
If a man wrote a song like this for me, I honestly don't know what I'd do - probably cry and not stop. A monument to one's love for a woman, how one feels when they adore a woman so very much it consumes them. More beautiful piano, the honest, open voice of Neil Young, and the sweet warm glow of his female back-up singers. If you ever have a hard time telling your girl how you feel - play them this. She'll be yours forever. (Unless she happens to hate Neil Young, which is entirely possible).
6. I'm Not In Love - 10CC
The ultimate song of denial, some would say cheesy as hell, but one I thoroughly enjoy and have related to. Probably most well known for the 'nasty stain that's lying there' line, as well as the 'Be quiet, big boys don't cry' middle eight. I like it for the beautiful harmonies and the fact that it nicely illustrates how some people can be so hurt by love that they'll shun it, or engage in shallow relations just to avoid being hurt again.
5. Stardust - Nat King Cole (and various other artists)
There's not a lot I could say about this song that can top the lyrics themselves. The first lines are: "And now the purple dusk of twilight time, Steals across the meadows of my heart. High up in the sky the little stars climb...Always reminding me that we're apart." The rest are just as good, the melody just as haunting. A heart-squeezer.
4. Kissing You - Des'ree
The stand-out love song from 1995's Romeo + Juliet soundtrack. Just Des'ree, a piano and some strings and some chord progressions that kick my arse and make me tear up immediately. In fact, I bawled like a baby the first time I heard this song, and I doubt it had much to do with DiCaprio's acting.
3. We'll Do It All Again - Bleu
Sometimes you quite literally 'fall' into love. You don't realise what's happening, all you know is you suddenly have a habit of someone you never want to get out of. Bleu's song captures the delicious descent into a confusing love affair that leaves one breathless.
2. Thank You, Baby - Godiego
Unless you were a fan of the TV Show Monkey, or you're a Japanese person who was young and hip in the late seventies, you probably won't know this one. With delightfully cheesy synth and the melancholy swooning of the male singer, there's a gentle honesty in this song that shines and warms the heart. It was also played whenever a pair of lovers had a heart-to-heart on the show, so I have many good memories of ridiculously accented dubs and pretty costumed Japanese people fretting over whether their lovers are demons or not.
1. Love of My Life - Queen
It was a tie in my mind with this and 'You Take My Breath Away'. I think they're both songs that are like two arms in a big warm hug. You can't have one without the other. But for the purposes of the list, I picked Love of My Life. It encompasses all of it. Losing, loving, making up and growing old together. One of Queen's most loved ballads, Freddie would often sing it with sparse backing at concerts to the delight of fans the world over. Queen were consumate love song writers, and their songs spanned the gamut of the joys and frustrations and sadness that love can bring. This song has a vulnerability about it, and it's complicated. It's not a straight-forward love song - there's difficulties in it, but in the end it doesn't matter. The love remains.
Have a good one, all.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 01:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 03:54 pm (UTC)Well, may be I know them but I have no ideao who sings it or how it's called, like the Queen's one. I bet I know that one but don't know it's called like that :3
Happy V.day, Nancy! hmm wait, it's late there, happy belated day then! xD *loveshugs&kisses*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 01:41 am (UTC)sakejbciprygfwsdnrfck
Date: 2007-02-15 01:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 06:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 01:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-14 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 01:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 12:07 am (UTC)It's on Craig Armstrong's "As If To Nothing" CD, which also includes an amazing version of U2's "Stay (Faraway So Close)" featuring Bono and an orchestra.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 01:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 02:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 05:17 am (UTC)If the sun refused to shine
I would still be loving you
When mountains fall into the sea
There will still be you and me...
Into My Arms by Nick Cave is also incredibly soppy.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 09:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 06:32 am (UTC)The problem is I was to make such a list, I think it would have several songs on it from 69 Love Songs, by the Magnetic Fields. Busby Berkeley Dreams is a particular favourite.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 10:31 am (UTC)