Love songs

I take public transportation, and my commute into work can take anywhere between 45 minutes to almost 2 hours depending on what kinds of issues the Metro system is having that day. During that time, subject to my mood, I will either do some reading, listen to podcasts, and/or put the iPod on shuffle and see what comes up.

Today I went for random shuffle. Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes came up, immediately followed by The Cure's A Lettter to Elise. I love both those songs. Like, a lot. I have cried listening to them, although not for the same reasons. They are two very different kinds of love songs. The first is all epic, and deals with finding that perfect someone with whom you feel complete, with choice lyrics like "I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive" and is for many of us linked to Lloyd Dobler and that boombox. Whereas the latter is about a relationship that is probably ending, with lyrics like "I let the dream go and the promises broke and the make-believe ran out."

So because my mind often wanders when I'm just sitting on a train listening to music, I started thinking about love songs, and how they're split in the two camps, sweeping/hopeful/romantic, and mournful/heartbroken. And it seemed that many of my favorites fall into the second category. (Not sure what that says about me, but I don't feel like doing any self analysis right now.) Then I started trying to make a mental list of what all my favorite love songs are. Although my musical taste tends to be pretty cheesy overall, and I do enjoy a poppy love song, most of my favorites in this category don't really fall into that guilty pleasure category. I also concluded that a lot of my favorite love songs make really great background music for movie montages. (Again, let's not analyze that.)

Here are some of the songs I thought of right off the bat, besides the two already mentioned. They all stir up all kinds of feelings every time I hear them. There have been a lot of worn-out tapes and bad sing-alongs tied to each one of these.

• Donny Hathaway A Song For You If you don't get feels when you listen to this song, we just don't have much in common.
• Madonna Crazy for You - This songs transports me back to middle school, and that ridiculous crush. Who apparently never did feel the weight of my stare, or, if he did, didn't give a shit. 
• Elvis Costello She One of those sweeping love songs I like to imagine is being sung about me.
• Etta James At Last - A classic for a reason. I don't want no remake, give me the original every time.
• U2 Bad I have a real weakness for dudes that sing their hearts off onstage.
• Indigo Girls Love Will Come To You and Ghost both sung loudly and off key many a time.
• ABBA The Winner Takes It All - No list of my favorite songs doesn't include ABBA. If you've seen THE TRIP or MAMMA MIA, you know this one is a classic.
• Mecano Me Cuesta Tanto Olvidarte Pretty perfect song - trust me, even if you don't understand Spanish. (Also, please click on that link if only to check out the questionable and very 80s fashion and makeup choices.)

So those are a few of the love songs that get me so emotional...wait, did I leave Whitney off the list? Oops, my bad. If I thought about it more than a few minutes during my commute this would be a REALLY long list. So I'm going to stop thinking about it.

What are some of your favorite love songs?