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Favorite love songs on Valentine’s Day
Today is Valentine’s Day so I thought I would post a few of my favorite love songs. There are so many great love songs out there so I hope others will add to the list, songs that are special to you or just songs you think are beautiful
Probably my favorite love song is Wild Flower by the group Skylark. I don’t know much about the song or the group but have always loved it, just simple and beautiful. Now it reminds me so much of my wife and struggles she went through.
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72 Replies
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Another beautiful song I love is Oh Girl by The Chi-Lites. Not my favorite musical genre at all, especially growing up but you can’t deny a great song and a great voice.
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Kool Tim
I have never heard the original of Oh Girl. I know it from the MTV days. Paul Young had a kool album with an even kooler bass player, Pino Palladino. Here is Paul Young on the Arsenio Hall show, remember that? I do remember when I first heard this, go check out the official video – cheesy, I recall it sounded familiar. My teenage mind knew it was a cover of an old song I had heard somewhere. It was probably in the car with Dad listening to AM radio.
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Valentine’s Day is over, so this may be questionable , but can I add one more? How did we miss this? So many questions…
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By all means, Love should be celebrated every day of the year and I don’t think we can ever run out of love songs to post. Especially if it’s an MLT song, then it’s not questionable at all. Here’s one I’ve been really loving a lot lately.
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Thanks Johnnypee,
Paul Young is a wonderful singer, isn’t he from Australia? I have heard of him but don’t know much about him. If you take a great song like Oh Girl and give it to a great singer it usually turns out pretty wonderful. Yeah I remember watching Arsenio Hall. I thought he was great in Coming To America with Eddie Murphy, funny guy. Always had great guests on his show.
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One more of my favorite love songs is Nothing At All, It was written by country star Keith Whitley who had an early and sad end to his life as his career was blossoming. A few artists have covered the song but IMO no one has done it as beautiful as Allison Krause. She is known a lot for her very excellent bluegrass music with her band Union Station but has a beautiful sweet voice that lends itself well to this beautiful song. over 110,000,000 views so I guess I’m not the only one who likes it.
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One of the greatest songs of all time, imho.
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I’ve never sung this song to a woman. Thought about it though.
He wrote this in high school.
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Chris,
A great love song really only needs great, usually simple, lyrics and a great singer and both of these hit the mark. Frank could certainly deliver a song.
I always loved the one by Kenny Loggins. I remember Ann Murray did a nice cover of that song too but I prefer it by Kenny. I was just watching some videos of Loggins and Messina yesterday, I always liked their music.
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Not all love songs have a happy ending.
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You’re right about that Chris, when you think about it most love affairs don’t have a happy ending. I think we all have a few love interests before we find the right one and them all end in a break up. We could do a whole forum on break up and heartache songs too.
That is a great song by Bonnie Raitt. I’m not real familiar with her music but I enjoy listening to her sing. This one is really beatifully done.
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Bonnie Raitt has written a bunch of great songs in her time. A band I played in long ago, the singer brought in a couple of her songs – older than even this one. That’s when I found out about her.
She didn’t write this song though, it was from a couple country song writers. Maybe Bonnie’s biggest hit. They ran it by some big names and she grabbed it. There’s a writeup on it in wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can’t_Make_You_Love_Me
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Good idea Tim. When it comes to love songs, I would personally differentiate between love songs that are simply beautiful. And love songs that moved me as a teenager. I’m a child of the 80s and I could unleash some horror shockers on you now. But I’ll let that go now… You know: boy loves girl, but girl is not interested. The same old story.
I think the following song by the Beatles has always touched me since I first heard it (like almost all Beatles songs):
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Jurgen, The Beatles were great at writing and singing love songs. They probably wrote more than anyone else in history. I like these earlier ones and especially the ones that John sings the lead. That cry in his voice was so good for these types of songs.
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In 1977 Capitol put out a nice double album compilation of Beatles love songs that I purchased on cassette in the 80’s. It’s a shame it doesn’t get more attention. Here’s a link to the playlist:
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David, I also bought the album “The Beatles Love Songs” back then, but as a Double- LP. Like you said, it’s a beautiful compilation of Beatles love songs. I loved it. It was also on this album that I heard “It’s only love” for the first time. I think the song “Things we said today” is still missing to make it perfect.
It’s the lyrics that particularly touched me:
Someday, when I'm lonely
Wishing you weren't so far away
Then I will remember
Things we said today -
Jürgen,
You talked about beautiful songs and/or songs that move you. All of the ones I’ve listed fall in both categories for me.
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Oh what the heck: I was 18 or 19 and it took me one summer to get her out of my mind and out of my heart 😀:
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Great song Jurgen, I didn’t care that much for Diamond Dave but I loved Van Halen when Sammy Hagar was in the band. He was a way better singer and song writer and a great guitar player. I wish those boys could have gotten along better but they sure made some good music for a few years.
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You can’t scare me with Van Halen Jürgen. I grew up on hard rock. I like Van Halen. Eddie could play guitar. I have wilder stuff than that.
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Chris, I wasn’t thinking about Van Halen either. There were some pretty cheesy songs back then. The first time I really fell in love, “Words” by F.R. David was playing on the radio. When I hear the song today, I immediately have those romantic and sentimental feelings again. I wouldn’t say that this song is particularly musically a good one, but for me it is always connected to those feelings from that time. But perhaps with songs it doesn’t really matter whether they are musically sophisticated or just simple. I think what’s important are the feelings you associate with them. Another candidate on my personal list is „Stay“ by Pierre Cosso and Bonnie Bianco. A very simple song, kind of cheesy, but it touched me at the time. That’s what I meant by that: songs that touched me on the one hand, because I was in a special phase of my life, and on the other hand, timeless, beautiful pieces of music. But perhaps this distinction is also meaningless. Music is always somehow connected with feelings and memories and that makes it special. When is music cheesy and when is it just beautiful?
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+1 well said.
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One last one from me.
I had a theory, around 1980, that there was no such thing as a woman who didn’t love this song.
Still haven’t found one.
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Yeah, that’s a good one Chris, one of my favorites too. Eric really put his heart down on paper when he wrote that one. Just simple straight forward lyrics that says everything. I also like the way Lisa sings it in that early concert. It’s hard to believe a 13 year old girl can sing with that much feeling considering the words are not even in her native language.
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That was one of his greatest songs! LOVE it
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Wildflower is a great song. Another example of a song I’ve known forever, and had no idea what it’s name was. Lol. I always liked that song though. There’s a definite part of me that loves songs like that. Great slow dance song.
Oh Girl! is a classic. I realized eventually, that the radio I heard in the ’60s was white radio, and vintage R&B/soul wasn’t on it. I found it in the ’70s though, and bought a bunch of vinyl. One of my favourite genres. In my defense, I grew up with Motown, so that helped camouflage the situation somewhat, since it kind of crossed over.
Alison Krause I’m not familiar with. I’ve heard of her, and really like the song, but never heard the song before. If country music was a big block of Swiss cheese, my knowledge of it would be mostly the holes. I definitely appreciate having the gems pointed out to me though.
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I don’t know a lot about Alison Krauss either, Chris, but she did a nice cover of the Beatles’ song “I Will”.
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David,
Allison has her roots in Bluegrass music and is very good at it especially her early work with her band called Union Station, but she has a very sweet voice and can deliver a song with so much natural emotion, especially a love song.
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I grew up with white radio and music too and with out much exposure to Motown. Our local radio station was all country and the ones nearby that played rock or top 40 played mostly white music too. I guess they played toward their target audience which was mostly white, especially in the 60’s and 70’s. In fact there was only one black kid in town when I was little and he was my brother Rod’s best friend. Even his mother and sister were white. I didn’t know why or how that happened, I was pretty young and dumb. Anyway I wasn’t exposed to much R&B or soul music so now I’m enjoying all the good stuff I missed. Just like your exposure to country, or lack of it. Yeah, there are a lot of great country love songs that are gems, just like I am finding a lot of R&B gems. The two I listed though, Wildflower and Oh Girl I have loved those for a long time. I’ll see if I can find a few more country gems.
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One guy who could right a love song was Kris Kristofferson. He didn’t mince words, he could take words directly from his heart and put them in a song. Not that he was a great singer, he wasn’t even a good singer but if a great singer recorded one of his songs it was usually magic. If you are not familiar with Kris look up his biography or watch a documentary on YouTube. He was a Rhodes scholar and a helicopter pilot in the military. He belonged to a well to do family but gave up his inheritance to be a janitor at a record company in Nashville so he could pitch his songs to artists and executives. Here’s one of his best songs singing with Rita Coolidge who was his partner in song and love at the time, I don’t remember if they were ever married but I hope they got a room later.
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One of my favourite love songs would be this one. Takes me right back to my high school days, reminds me of some girls I had a crush on back then. I thought it was such a moving and romantic song in my young teenage heart. Great topic Tim. 👍
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I love this song too, Jung, but as an advocate of the “girl group” sound I feel I should point out that this is a cover of a 1963 song by the Crystals.
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Hi David
Yeah this song appeared on the very first Beach Boys album I got, and remember it showed being written by someone else. There is a funny story that the record label released the Beach Boys cover without the Beach Boys permission and the Beach Boys were quite irritated at the time, but it turned into a hit for them. The Crystals had some great originals. Da Doo Run Run was another one of theirs covered by Shaun Cassidy I recall. For me the Beach Boys version, is the gold standard, Al Jardine’s vocals really nailed it.
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Yeah, the Beach Boys had a real knack for remaking any existing song in their own image without compromising quality.
I forgot how many 60’s songs Shaun Cassidy introduced me to. Checking the Wikipedia entry I see Da Doo Ron Ron, Morning Girl, Hey There Lonely Girl, Take Good Care of My Baby, Be My Baby, and Do You Believe in Magic. And of course he did Surfin’ USA on the Hardy Boys TV show.
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David and Jung, I think some of the record exec’s were guilty of giving these songs to popular white artists to sell them to white audiences. Pat Boone recorded a watered down version of Tutti Frutti and Donny Osmond had a big hit with a cover of Rockin’ Robin. Johnny Rivers made a name for himself covering Chuck Berry songs. I’m actually glad they did because like David said, it really introduced me to a lot of these great songs. Heck even the Beatles had some great covers of songs like Twist and Shout and Mr. Postman and others. In most cases now I prefer the originals but I still love Johnny Rivers and of course the Beatles covers.
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Hey, Tim. Actually it was the Jackson 5 that covered Rockin’ Robin. But yeah, that sort of thing had been going on at least since Sh-Boom in 1954.
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Thanks David, You are right, I should have googled that. I also thought the Jackson’s did One Bad Apple but turns out that was the Osmonds. But yeah, they all recorded those types of cover songs.
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I once read somewhere (and just confirmed on Wikipedia) that One Bad Apple was written for Michael Jackson, and Ben was written for Donny Osmond. The Jackson 5 considered One Bad Apple but passed in favor of ABC (the song, not the TV network). And Donny couldn’t record Ben because the Osmonds were in the middle of a tour. In each case, the songwriter ended up offering his product to the other group.
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I watched a few interviews with Donny today on YouTube and he was talking about that. He was talking about he and Michael bonding when they were young because they had so much in common. They remained good friends their whole life and always called each other for advice. He said Elvis would call his Mother and talk about religion. Pretty interesting stuff.
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Yeah I like that song Jung but I never heard the Beach Boys version, it’s really cool. They could play any of these old songs and make them sound like a Beach Boys song. I learned a while ago that it is an old song by the Crystals but the first time I heard it was on a KISS album called Love Gun. I thought they did a good job with it. I just listened to their version for the first time in 40 years or so and I still think it sounds good. Another one of those great old teenage love songs is Last Kiss originally done by J. Frank Wilson but one of the best covers of this song (IMO) was done by Pearl Jam. A teenage love song that ends in tragedy was a good format for a hit record.
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Hi Tim
Those teenage love songs can be really raw and so good. Last Kiss by Pearl Jam is sad indeed at the end. So KISS also did a version of Then I Kissed Her. Curious, will have to look it up.
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Jung,
Here’s the Kiss version of Then She Kissed Me. I was a big Kiss fan when they first came out, I think mostly because of their shock factor but I liked the music too. I had there first 3 or 4 albums but then they started to seem silly to me. Looking back at their earliest stuff it’s easy to see their musical inspirations came from the great classic rock of 50’s and 60’s so I guess they were pretty cool.
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Hi Tim
Thanks for posting it. It is a really different version Kiss did, it sounds good, I like it. It is interesting the lyrics are changed and perspective is different, for example the Kiss version goes in a 2nd person perspective, “Felt so happy she almost cried and then she kissed me” versus the Beach Boys version is in the first person perspective that goes “I felt so happy I almost cried, and then I kissed her”. It’s like that throughout. The Beach Boys version feels a little more personal and intimate to me. I’m not sure which version is closer to the Crystals version, but it’s interesting the 1st vs 2nd person perspective gives the song a different feel.
I got into their music a little later in the 80s, after their stage make up days I guess. I liked some of their new music videos they did in the 80s like “Heaven’s On Fire”. Their late 70s “I Was Made For Lovin You” was great too.
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The Crystals’ version says, “I felt so happy I almost cried, and then he kissed me.” So it’s kinda right down the middle between the two later versions.
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This recording (which is the best-known version of the song, but actually not the first) came out around the time that I had my first crush, and I still think of it as “our song”, even though there was never an “us”. I suppose it’s technically a post-breakup song, but at the time I thought of it as a wistful ode.
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Thanks David, I remember that song by Manilow but did he write it? Seems I remember hearing it by someone else first. Funny how songs always trigger memories and one song always brings back the memory of our first love, or what we thought was love. The first girl I really fell for was during the fall of 1977 after I graduated high school and was living on my own. I don’t remember an exact song but the album (8 track) of Rumours by Fleetwood Mac played in my car stereo almost continuously. The whole album is on YouTube so I listened to it today to find a great love song. Turns out most of the songs on that album were break up songs, guess it was a premonition but the album sure sounded good today, I listened to it twice.
Ok there was at least one love song.
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Hey, Tim.
I didn’t know the history of that Manilow song until I looked it up right before my post. It was written in 1975 by Christian Arnold, David Martin, and Geoff Morrow. The first release was by David Martin, and then it was covered by the Carpenters before Manilow got a hold of it.
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Thanks David, it must have been the Carpenters version I heard, maybe on a TV appearance or something. I do remember Manilow’s version being a hit. I found a MonaLisa Twins love song to post, actually MonaLisa and Band with Papa Rudi on drums and Michaela with a shaker. Beautiful little cover of The Troggs.
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Good one Tim, Mona Lisa and Bands version is so sweet and delightful, a real gem. Their magic always shines.
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Here is a beautiful cover of my favorite Paul song. Chills
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Wow, thanks Johnnypee, I know the song but never heard it by Allison Krause. She is something special. That slide guitar has a haunting sound to it. A great arrangement and amazing vocals.
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Love these 2 love songs. They capture the timelessness of love. Eternity.
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Jung,
Beautiful song and performance. I wished I would have paid more attention to some of these artists when I was younger. Roberta Flack, Gladys Knight and Natalie Cole always brought their “A” game. Great talents. Thank God for YouTube we can still enjoy these great artists.
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And this one, so moving whenever I hear it. Time stands still.
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Jung.
I haven’t heard that one in a long time. One of the best songs ever. The vocals on the record are amazing but listening to him do it live is outstanding. Doesn’t seem to be many around like that anymore.
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