The best written love songs don’t always carol the joy of romance. Great songwriters since the start of time have penned the ups and downs of being in love that are still revered and echoed today. There are the sunshines and rainbows type, or the gut-wrenching, heartstring-pulling kind; all delicate and gripping to the heart. Here are our top 20 love song picks to admire musically and lyrically.
“I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words / How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.” Elton John (Your Song)
“She lets the river answer that you’ve always been her lover / And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind / And you know that she will trust you / For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.” Leonard Cohen (Suzanne)
“I don’t believe in the existence of angels but looking at you I wonder if that’s true / But if I did I would summon them together and ask them to watch over you / Both to each burn a candle for you to make bright and clear your path / And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love / And guide you into my arms.” Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Into My Arms)
Listen to the full playlist here.
“Kissed her face and kissed her head / Dreamed of all the different ways I had to make her glow.” The Cure (Just Like Heaven)
“Because you’re gorgeous, I’d do anything for you.” Babybird (You’re Gorgeous)
“I want her everywhere / And if she’s beside me I know I need never care / But to love her is to need her everywhere / Knowing that love is to share / Each one believing that love never dies.” The Beatles (Here, There And Everywhere)
“As you’re shrinking figure blows a kiss / I catch and smash it on my lips / Darling I can’t seem to quit / Completely falling to bits / I really might be losing it / The idea that you’ve existed all along’s ridiculous.” The Last Shadow Puppets (Sweet Dreams, TN)
“I’m in love / I’m a believer / I couldn’t leave her if I tried.” The Monkees (I’m A Believer)
“I’ll shine up the old brown shoes / Put on a brand new shirt / I’ll get home early from work / If you say that you love me.” Cheap Trick (I Want You To Want Me)
“Laugh until we think we’ll die / Barefoot on a summer night / Never could be sweeter than with you / And in the streets you run a-free / Like it’s only you and me / Geez, you’re something to see.” Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (Home)
“You were lazy about it / You made me wait around / I was so crazy about you I didn’t mind.” Jack Johnson (Do You Remember)
“Well I was told to put my job in front of you / But it won’t hold me like you do.” Ed Sheeran (Gold Rush)
“And when I come to her that’s where I belong. Yet I’m running to her like a river’s song.” Van Morrison (Crazy Love)
“I got you babe / I got flowers in the spring / I got you to wear my ring.” Sonny & Cher (I Got You Babe)
“Flowers on the hillside, bloomin’ crazy / Crickets talkin’ back and forth in rhyme / Blue river runnin’ slow and lazy / I could stay with you forever and never realise the time.” Bob Dylan (You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go)
“Afterwards we drop into a quiet little place / And have a drink or two / And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like “I love you.”” Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra (Somethin’ Stupid)
“Like a river flows surely to the sea / Darling so it goes / Some things are meant to be / Take my hand, take my whole life too / For I can’t help falling in love with you.” Elvis Presley (Can’t Help Falling In Love)
“I’m gonna steer clear ‘cause I’d die if I saw you / I’d die if I didn’t see you there.” John Mayer (In Your Atmosphere)
“People are boring / But you’re something else completely.” Father John Misty (Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins))
“I’m watching every stand-up comedy / Just hoping that it’ll rub off on me / So you’ll smile at everything I say.” Kali Uchis (Melting)
