Last night I got asked what my favourite love song was. Now generally those kind of questions enrage me beyond belief, how is anyone supposed to pick their "favourite song of all time" or "the best break-up song ever written"? Ridiculous.
However this got me thinking about what classes as a love song? About 70% of my favourite songs are about heartbreak and unrequited love but I have been hard-pressed to find songs about actually being in love. Does the fact that some songs are about the end of love or the destruction of love stop them from being love songs?
Laura Barton recently wrote an article in the Guardian about "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys being one of the most "shimmeringly perfect love songs" because as Wilson put it, "it's terrifying that you go into love so blindly but in that blindness you can see that you are who you are because of someone else". What made "God Only Knows" so perfect was that it expressed the doubt and the fear of falling in love without disputing the fact that being in love felt amazing. For me that is what a great love song is, one that shows you the pain and the fear and then tells you that it's all worth while. I can believe in songs like that, that don't deny the element of heartbreak in relationships, because we can't deny that it's not there but that doesn't mean it's not worth it.
Here's a few songs that are definitely worth it.
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