Monday Melodies: Romance

Part 1

Considering the bulk of popular music is about either getting it on, keeping it going, or mourning its loss, it’s hard for me to pick favourites. In any case, here’s what I consider to be a few standout songs about romance, starting with a few oldies...

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Nina Simone, I Love You, Porgy

In this ballad from the Gershwin 1935 opera, Porgy and Bess, the character Bess is asking Porgy to stop her from going with Crown, her abusive lover. Blues singer Nina Simone made this one her own in the sixties.

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Etta James, At Last

One of the greatest love songs ever penned, as reimagined in 1960 by the legendary Etta James. The Grammy Hall of Fame inducted the song in 1999, which might have encouraged Celine Dion to take a caterwauling crack at it. As a result, Etta reportedly became an untapped alternative energy source, doing 2000 rpm in her grave.

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Tom Jones, (It Looks Like) I’ll Never Fall in Love Again

My dad used to play this on cuneiform disc and flint when was a kid back in the Upper Neolithic. An anthemic ballad from Welsh crooner Tom Jones, who had the biggest trachea in the tune biz. (Here he is belting out the same song forty years later, and an incredible fifty three years later.)

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Eels, I’m Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn’t Break Your Heart

A doleful 2005 ballad about compassion well past it’s best-before date, from a protagonist who’s lost the luxury of denial.

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Pretenders, Thin Line Between Love and Hate

And of course, love can go even more wrong for men…

I see you're in the hospital
Bandaged from foot to head
In a state of shock
Just that much from being dead
You couldn't believe the girl
Would do something like this,
You didn't think the girl had the nerve
But here you are
I guess action speaks louder than words

Don’t cross Chrissie Hynde!

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Robert Forster, Tender Years

Pretty much the opposite of the above tune. The former Go Betweens singer conceived this 2023 ballad during his wife’s recovery from ovarian cancer. A charming record of a long-term love.

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Peter Gabriel, Book of Love

In this 2014 orchestral performance, Peter Gabriel gives magnificent new life to a clever and touching tune first performed by The Magnetic Fields. (The first comment below the video on YouTube: “I am terminally ill with probably a year or so left. I've been with my partner for 23 years, we have 2 great boys together and 7 other kids all great too. We plan to marry this October and this song will be played then. It is a great song and as I've been listening to Peter Gabriel virtually all my life that's a bonus. Take care all.”)

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Guy Chadwick, Fall in Love With Me

The former frontman of The House of Love reworks Iggy Pop’s aching love letter to some anonymous young West Berlin beauty.

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Bryan Ferry, My Only Love

The former lead singer of Roxy Music reworks a track from the band’s stellar 1980 synth-soul album Flesh and Blood.

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Eva Cassidy, Fields of Gold

An impressive rendering of a great Sting composition that braids together memory, time and togetherness.

BONUS SONG

Waterboys, November Tale

Wizard wordsmith Mike Scott weaves a powerful story about finding common ground with a past lover in spite of a big gap in time - and an even wider chasm of belief - between them.