10 gutsy, humorous, honest, and/or intense love songs
Jun 05 '01
The Bottom Line There are far too many wimpy, sentimental, syrupy love songs. Here are ten love/romance songs which are gutsy, humorous, honest, and/or intense
I have been reading other member submissions on best romance mixes and many of them are really great. However, a few of them are so full of gutless, treacle ballads, that just looking at them makes me feel like I just went into diabetic coma! Love and romance don’t necessarily require syrup to be yummy. Sometimes the best music for romance is gutsy, humorous, honest, and/or intense!
Now for me, the best kind of music is what used to be called new wave. I am also a rock and alternative music fan, so my romance compilation has a mix of these different styles. I have limited myself to one song from each artist, and that is not easy, considering how many wonderful love/romance songs some of these artists produce.
So, in no particular order (except for the last 3 songs), here is my list of gutsy, humorous, honest, intense, new wave/alternative/ rock music tinged romance songs.
1. Why Can’t I Be You, by The Cure
Ah yes, Robert Smith, leader of The Cure, and king of heartbroken, Goth-tinged, macabre, lightened up a bit on this tune. I remember going to nightclubs and dancing to this song. This song is full of fond, playful sentiment, and an up-beat rhythm. This is a great love song. Check out these lyrics:
you're so gorgeous I’ll do anything
I’ll kiss you from your feet
to where your head begins
you're so perfect you're so right as rain
you make me, make me,
make me hungry again
everything you do is irresistible
everything you do is simply kissable
why can't I be you?
I wish I could hum a few bars for you, it would stay in you head forever. (The Cure runner up: Love Song)
2. Fat by The Violent Femmes
This may not seem like a love song at first, it is hilarious. But, let’s be honest, wouldn’t you just love to have someone feel this way about you. Songwriter, Gordon Ganno, tells his love target that he would love her if she were enormous, just as long as she takes him back:
I hope you got fat
I hope you got really fat
'Cause if you got really really fat
You just might want to see me come back
I hope you got fat
I don't care, I don't care
How heavy or how skinny
Just gimme gimme something to love
A little extra weight would never look no nicer
On nobody else but you
And I could always use a little bit more
To hold on to
And If I get a fright in the middle of the night
I'll cling to you
I hope you got fat
I hope you got really fat
'Cause if you got truly fat fat fat
You just might want to see me come back
I hope you got fat
Gotta love it!
3. Wild is the Wind performed by David Bowie
Here we have true romance. This song was originally performed by Nina Simone, and I really like her performance of it. Despite the fact that David did not write or originate this song, I still prefer his version of it. Soft and gentle at first, he builds to a crescendo of emotion. You can feel the intensity of passion and desire. He also performs some impressive vocal gymnastics on this tune. I read in an interview that if he could point to one vocal performance he was most proud of, it would be this one. If you hear this song, off the album, Station to Station, you will understand why.
4. Question of Lust by Depeche Mode
Don’t be fooled by the title, this is a love song, and a romantic one at that. I think that what I like so much about it, aside from Martin Gore’s impressive vocals and the smooth production, is its honesty. The song is about what keeps a relationship together. It never uses the word love, although it is implied. Instead, it focuses on intimacy, honesty, desire, familiarity, support and acceptance. Theses are key elements of a lasting relationship. This is the chorus:
It's a question of lust
It's a question of trust
It's a question of not letting
What we've built up
Crumble to dust
It is all of these things and more
That keep us together
5. Night and Day performed by U2
Written by Cole Porter, U2 covered this song on the album Red Hot and Blue, which was an AIDS benefit album of contemporary artists perfuming songs by Cole Porter. The song itself is beautiful and filled with desire and longing. Add in Bono’s haunting vocals and you have an intensely personal, passionate song. When I think about the lyrics in the context of the fact that they were written by a gay man, in a time and society in which homosexuality was completely unacceptable, the song becomes even more poignant. Here are some of the lyrics:
Night and day, you are the one
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It's no matter darlin' where you are
I think of you, night and day........
Day and night, why is it so?
That this longing for you follows wherever I go?
In the roaring traffic's boom,
In the silence of my lonely room
I think of you, night and day.
Night and day - under the hide of me,
There's an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me.
And its torment won't be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
day and night, night and day.......
Night and day, under the hide of me,
There's an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me.
And its torment won't be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
day and night, night and day.......
(U2 runners up: Dancing Barefoot, All I want is You)
6. Don’t Change, by INXS
This up beat number is about acceptance and forgiveness. It is about using those tools to reclaim love. Get up and dance with your honey and gaze into his/her eyes and sing along with Michael Hutchence:
I'm standing here on the ground
The sky above won't fall down
See no evil in all directions
Resolution of happiness
Things have been dark for too long
Don't change for you
Don't change a thing for me
I found a love I had lost
It was gone for too long
Hear no evil in all directions
Execution of bitterness
Message received loud and clear
Don't change for you
Don't change a thing for me
(INXS runners up: To Look at You, Never Tear Us Apart)
7. You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman, by Aretha Franklin
There is such beauty and passion in this song. It is the confidence you feel in yourself when you feel loved and appreciated that this song celebrates. Who doesn’t feel sexy when they feel loved?
8. We’re in This Together, by Nine Inch Nails
I got married on October 15, 2000. My husband and I wanted to have this song as our first dance. It sounds, upon first hearing it, like an angry, hate-filled song. No, no, no! It is a love song by Nine Inch Nails. It is about teamwork and commitment in a relationship! True it is a song you could easily mosh (slam dance) to, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a love song. Check out these lyrics:
the further i fall i'm beside you
as lost as i get i will find you
the deeper the wound i'm inside you
for ever and ever i am a part of
you and me we're in this together now
none of them can stop us now
we will make it through somehow
you and me if the world should break in two
until the very end of me
until the very end of you
all that we were is gone we have to hold on
all that we were is gone, but we have to hold on
when all our hope is gone we have to hold on
all that we were is gone but we can hold on
Now if that isn’t commitment, what is? Unfortunately, we chickened out of making it our first dance because we thought most people would not get up and dance with us, so we made it our third dance.
9. In Your Eyes, by Peter Gabriel
This was the song we used for our first dance at our wedding. When this song first came out in the 1980’s, I fantasized about dancing to it at my wedding. It speaks to the sense that someone you love, loves you so much that it gives you a greatness to which to aspire and a sense of security that you are safe to be yourself in that love. Here are some of the lyrics:
love I get so lost, sometimes
days pass and this emptiness fills my heart
when I want to run away
I drive off in my car
but whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are
all my instincts, they return
and the grand facade, so soon will burn
without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside
in your eyes
the light the heat
in your eyes
I am complete
in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
in your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes
I see the light and the heat
in your eyes oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light
the heat I see in your eyes
love, I don't like to see so much pain
so much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away
I get so tired of working so hard for out survival
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive
10. Perfect Day, by Lou Reed
This is a very simple, straightforward, gentle song about a day spent with a lover. There is no mention of love or lust, nothing sentimental, just a description of the day and the sense that everything is so nice that Lou feels like a better person. I have felt that way with my husband and early in our relationship, it became our song (of course, we have a few our songs). We played this song as we cut our wedding cake.
Just a perfect day,
Drink sangria in the park
And later, when it gets dark, we go home
Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later, a movie too, and then home
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on...
Just a perfect day
Problems all left at home
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun
Just a perfect day
You made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
Someone good...
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on...
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow...
Oh, what a perfect day
So that is my list of romantic/love songs. I left a lot of my favorites off and I have a nagging suspicion that as soon as I publish this epinion I will think of a dozen better ones. I’ll stick with these because they are gutsy, humorous, honest, and/or intense songs that give us a real taste of what love is.
PS:
Bonus song: Silly Love Songs by Paul McCartney and Wings.
I just had to mention this song because it is so honest in being a blatantly silly love song, and Paul really did love Linda.
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Member: Laura
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