TOP TEN LOVE SONGS FROM THE HOPEFUL ROMANTIC

This is a list of my personal top love songs carefully chosen over decades. The songs that celebrate love and how good it can make you feel. No, these aren’t the songs to listen to when you just got dumped, but these are the songs to play when you’ve decided to give it another go, or when you’ve met somebody new. These are hopeful songs from the hopeful romantic.

I never tire of these songs, each time I hear them they make me smile. These songs are the soundtrack to my life. I didn’t know what was behind the writing of these songs, so I scoured the Internet to tell you a little bit about each of them. Maybe, you will agree with my list, but if not I hope it will inspire you to make up one of your own.

1. Today by Jefferson Airplane from the first album, Surrealistic Pillow

To me this song will always represent my first love. When I was in high school, my very bad boyfriend made me sit on a couch because he wanted to play a song for me. It was the most powerful song I had ever heard and it still is. Today was featured in the movie, A Walk On The Moon. It is the background music in a love scene between Diane Lane and Vigo Mortenson, a scene is so hot it sizzled.

2. Layla by Eric Clapton with Derek and The Dominoes,

The inspiration for the song Layla was taken from an old Persian poem called "Layla and Majnun". It is a story of a man driven mad by his love for a woman who was unattainable to him. ('Layla and Majnun' is loosely translated into 'Layla and the Madman').

Eric Clapton was hopelessly in love with Patti Harrison, wife of the Beatles' George Harrison. He had tried several times to convince her to leave her marriage to be with him, to no avail. Layla was Clapton's last ditch effort to persuade Patti and convince her of his love. Even this proved unsuccessful, however. In despair, Clapton went on a heroin binge that lasted a few years.

After Clapton went through rehab for his addiction, Patti and he began a relationship (her marriage to George Harrison had ended) which culminated in their marriage in 1979.

3. Come On Get Higher by Matt Nathanson

This is how Matt explains his song. "Did you ever eat a bowl of ice cream that was just the best ice cream you've ever eaten? And it's so good it makes your teeth hurt and you can't stop eating it and you just want to pull that ice cream's hair and slap its ass and really bruise it up and make it hurt a little bit. That's what this song is about. I think I just wrote an R. Kelly song."

Who wouldn't want to get higher with him!

4. Ice Cream by Sarah McLachlan

Speaking of ice cream, who couldn’t love a song whose lyrics are,

Your love is better than ice cream.
Better than anything else that I've tried.
This is a song that celebrates how great love makes you feel. This is from her album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, wow what a great title, and what a great metaphor for love.

5. Love Story by Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift told The Morning Call the story of this song, "I wrote it about a guy that I was talking to. He wasn't the popular choice, but I believed in it. I thought, 'This love is different, but it's real.' And I knew I needed to put that line in somewhere. I think that this song is really more about a love that's not convenient and not as comfortable as something else, but it's something you have to fight for. I added the ending [a proposal] ‘cause I want that ending. I want someone to say, 'I love you and that's all I really know.' That's the girly girl in me." It’s hard to believe that she was only sixteen when she wrote this.

If you'll be my Romeo, I'll be your Juliet

6. If I Ever Lose My Faith in You by Sting

Sting explains, “Well quite deliberately in that the song is, two distinct parts. The first part is about the things I've lost faith in. It's quite easy to be, um, precise about the things you've lost, at least I've lost, faith in. Politics. Media. Uh...Science. Technology. Things that, y'know, everybody feels this at the moment. Yet, I along with most other people, have a great deal of hope and y'know, a feeling of things can, things will and can get better. But so what do we place our faith in? What do we still have faith in? And I can't define that as easily as I can define what I don't believe in anymore. Uh, and yet it still exists. So, I haven't defined it. I've just said, "If I ever lose my faith in you." And you, or you (laughs), could be, uh, my producer (laughs again). It could, it could be, uh, faith in, in God. It could be a faith in myself or a faith in, um, romantic love.”

7. True Companion by Mark Cohn

Ready for a love story that will melt your heart? When Cohn was touring in 1991, he would introduce "True Companion" with some version of this story:

"Here's a tune that I wrote in the back seat of a cab going to meet my girlfriend. I'd been living with her for about seven years and all she asked me the last three was, 'How come we're not yet?'" (female audience members murmur knowingly) "I didn't really have the answer and I wrote this before I knew that I was ready to be a married man. Songs kind of tell you where you're at sometimes. I sang this tune to her in the restaurant, and I was excited because I thought it was a great lyric, and she was excited because she thought it was a proposal." (laughter) "Men are scum!" (more laughter) "OK, I'm scum. But it worked out in the end. We did get married and we have a baby boy now, six months old." (lots of applause)

This song is very popular at weddings, in fact some friends of ours got married in our front garden, and we played this song as they walked to the preacher.

       8. Once in A Lifetime Love by Keith Urban

This is a song about a man starting a special relationship with a woman. Urban says in the lyrics that she doesn't need to be afraid to love him because she knows how much he loves her. He also says it's tough, but he'll never give up because what they share is a "once in a lifetime love." I’m pretty sure this one is dedicated to Nicole.

9. Come to Me by The Goo Goo Dolls

To me this a realistic look at life, love and second chances.

 Lead singer Johnny Rzeznik wrote Come To Me, ‘obviously it is inspired by the fact that I am getting married in July and the sentiment is very simple and something thing that everybody can relate to. I was really influenced by the people I was writing with. I decided that for my 10th album I really needed to learn more and see how much I could be challenged and grow as a writer. I wrote a lot of the record in New York. Every time you walk out the door in Manhattan the amount of stimulus coming at you is just so incredible that I find myself being so inspired. And then I go back into the studio and ideas just start to flow.

10. All I Need is a Miracle by Mike and the Mechanics

I used to work on a cruise ship and this song was always playing on the jukebox in the crew bar. At that point in my life I had given up on love. But then a miracle did happen, in walked my future husband. Ray was a Scottish croupier from Glasgow and I was a simple Southern belle. So this song will always have a special place in my heart.

The composer Mike Rutherford explains in an interview prior to the song's release as a single, Rutherford commented, "The thing that makes 'Miracle' different, to me, is that it's a happy song - or it's primarily a happy song. It's 'up'. And I don't do that very often. ...It may not be optimistic, but it's a positive attitude to life." Of course, I disagree because I got my miracle.


About the author:
Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!"She would be happy to Skype with any book club reading Cruise Quarters. Contact her at ray92262@yahoo.com.or read more blog posts at carabertoia.blogspot.com

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