Episode 045 - Top 10 Favorite Rock-N-Roll Love Songs

This week, in celebration of Valentine's Day, we explore the rock-n-roll songs that pierce the heart and communicate something meaningful about love. There have been so many great rock-n-roll love songs over the years - it feels like that's what rock-n-roll music was created to do - well, expressing feelings about love AND lust. This episode focuses on mostly the former. So please join us for our countdown of love, this week on The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!

00:00 Introduction to the Top 10 Rock-N-Roll Love Songs

02:24 Songs That Didn't Make the Cut

05:55 Top 10 Rock-N-Roll Love Songs

21:56 Honorable Mentions and Conclusion

24:00 Closing Remarks and Playlist Information

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Transcript

Alex Gadd (2): 0:00

Welcome to The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and this week I've got another top 10 list for you. Just in time for Valentine's day. It's a list of my favorite rock-n-roll love songs. It seems that love is one of the primary inspirations for just about all artistic mediums throughout history. From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, to Rembrandt's The Jewish Bride, to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, to Edgar Allan Poe's Annabelle Leigh, Rodin's The Kiss, Robert Indiana's love sculpture. Art has always been inspired by love. And rock-n-roll is no different. There are so many great songs about love. I just couldn't justify ranking them. But I can put together a list of my favorites. So please join me for a list of my 10 favorite rock-n-roll songs about love coming up right now. The first love song I probably ever heard, I'm gonna guess was"You Are My Sunshine" or some other lullaby sung to me by my parents or my grandparents, and the first pop love song I heard was probably something like the Supremes'"Baby Love" or one of the Beatles many songs about love. Rock-N-Roll started off singing about love from what many people consider the first rock-n-rollt songs ever, Rocket 88 by Jackie Brentson and his Delta Cats. Chuck Berry's first single, Maybelline, Fats Domino's, Blueberry Hill, Buddy Holly's, That'll Be the Day, even Elvis's first single, Heartbreak Hotel. Love has always been present in rock-n-roll music. Singing about falling in love, falling out of love, wanting to find love, wanting to get a lost love back, and even love gone bad, it's always been a primary inspiration for writing a song. So, how do I pick the top 10 love songs? I really couldn't. The sheer volume of love songs makes ranking them impossible for me. And it's also a waste of time, because love songs impact different people in different ways and it's really just so subjective. Hell, ranking art is always subjective. I can start by paring away a bunch of songs that seem like they're love songs, but I don't really think they are. Songs like Every Breath You Take by The Police, The Outfield's Your Love, Heart's All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You, More Than Words by Xtreme, or Patsy Cline's Crazy. Even Percy Sledge's classic soul track When a Man Loves a Woman is not really as romantic as I thought it was. All these songs appear to be romantic until you pay attention to the lyrics. The dynamic they describe is either just about lust, in place of love, or even something darker. I considered songs like Zeppelin's All of My Love and Tears in Heaven by Clapton, but those are songs of love and loss in both those cases, loss of a child who passed away far too soon. That's not a romantic vibe. And so, because this is for Valentine's Day, neither of those songs are on my list. After eliminating the songs that I previously mentioned, the next biggest challenge I had was how to avoid picking 10 songs that were all just too sappy. So no I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner. No Crazy by Aerosmith and no I Would Do Anything for Love(But I Won't Do That) by Meatloaf. Sorry. Big Brother and the Holding Company's classic hit, Piece of My Heart, in which Janis Joplin sings her ass off about how she's willing to put up with her love interest treating her like shit, again and again, because she wants to prove that a woman can be tough. I wish she would have just found a guy willing to be nicer to her instead. Alas, she didn't, and this song is not on the list, despite how much I love her performance, which has to be one of the most exciting vocal tracks ever recorded, in my opinion. Brian Adams' Cuts Like a Knife is another song that's really about lamenting a breakup, not actually professing love. I was originally considering it for this list because I really think it's a great song, but it's not a good fit for what I'm going for here. Finally, I looked at a bunch of songs with the title"Valentine's Day." There are quite a few, I was surprised. Springsteen has one; James Taylor, Linkin Park, the band ABC, David Bowie. They all have songs with that title. None of them are really romantic. Now Steve Earle has a song called Valentine's Day, which is actually romantic, but it's so sparse that it really, to me, sounded like a demo, so I didn't include it. There's a great band called The Cocktail Slippers who released a song in 2009 called St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which was written by Steve Van Zandt of the E Street Band, and it's a great song. But I don't really think that's romantic either. In the end, it wasn't hard to decide that there would be no"Valentine's Day"- titled songs on my list. So no fake love songs, no overly sappy love songs, no upset breakup songs, and no songs with Valentine's Day in the title. What's left, you may ask? For another topic, that might be too many exclusions. But as I mentioned, when it comes to love, it's not a big deal. There's still a ton of choices. And since the volume of great rock-n-roll love songs is so large, I've instead put together a list of my 10 favorite rock-n-roll love songs for your enjoyment this Valentine's Day and Valentine's Day night. The process has been difficult, but that's what I'm here for. To make the tough calls and put together a list you can all enjoy listening to and reacting to. I want to hear what songs you'd put on your 10 favorite Rock-N-Roll love songs list. Put them in the comments below. Anyway, enough about what isn't on the list. Let's get to my 10 favorites. Starting us off at number 10 is Thank You by Led Zeppelin. Now I included this on a previous list I did for Thanksgiving just a few months ago for the Top 10 Songs of Gratitude episode, and what I said then, unsurprisingly, still applies. Thank You was written so early in the band's career, and yet it's so powerful in its simple elegance. And it's the first song to make two different lists on this podcast, so either I just really love this song, which I do, or it's a great song. In this case, I think it's both. Song nine on our list is Easy Love Part One, a brand new song by Larkin Poe, a band that many of you might not know, but I believe is more than worthy of your attention. I included Larkin Poe as my second favorite 21st century act back in episode 29. The band's made up of two sisters, Rebecca and Megan Lovell. Originally, they were a trio called the Lovell Sisters with their older sister, Jessica. But Jessica dropped out of the band in 2010, and the other two sisters reformed as Larkin Poe, named after their ancestor who had claimed to be a cousin of Edgar Allan Poe, according to a magazine article I read about them back in 2022. Anyway, they play roots rock with a sound that draws on the influences of 70s blues rock, southern rock. They blend a gritty guitar sound with strong harmonies and great songwriting to put out consistently entertaining music. Their latest album is called Bloom. It just came out a couple of weeks ago. And Easy Love Part One is the first single from that record. The song hits me just the right way. The sound is great and the third verse has lyrics that always signal a good love song to me when Rebecca Lovell sings about how she picked up some emotional scars along the way to finding the right guy and falling in love. It's a theme I'll reference again later down the list. For now, check it out. Coming in at number eight is Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes. It came out on Gabriel's 1986 monster hit album So, but it reached new heights and became a classic all time love song thanks to its inclusion in the 1989 movie Say Anything. which was written and directed by former rock journalist Cameron Crowe. The scene where Lloyd Dobler, played by John Cusack, goes to his love interest's front lawn at night and holds up a boombox playing this song, instant iconic moment. The fact that the song is so well written and recorded seals the deal. This song captures the wonder and reverence of what it feels like to really be in love, to feel connected to your partner and to be vulnerable and confessing these feelings. And the music and Gabriel's vocal track both reinforce the lyrics in a really perfect way. The music has a world music feel without being a world music track, which was interesting as it came out just before another classic rock act released another world music influenced hit album. That was Paul Simon's Graceland. So something was definitely in the air in the mid 80s and Peter Gabriel really captured it. And the additional vocals at the end by Senegalese singer Youssou Ndour, sung in the West African language of Wolof, always fascinated me, leaving me to draw a comparison between hearing him sing those words that I couldn't understand with so much passion, and what I thought falling in love would really feel like. It's just a great song. In Your Eyes, at number 8 on our list. In the seventh slot, it's Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones. Released in 1971 on the Sticky Fingers album, this is one of the Stones best pure love songs. It's not about lust, which was a much more common type of love song for Mick and Keith, but this one has an emotional depth that many of their other songs do not. There's a melancholy to this one, a simple song that's able to convey its power without a lot of fanfare."Wild horses couldn't drag me away" says a lot about how a rock star who's regularly on the road might feel about leaving the person they love. And the next line,"Wild horses, we'll ride them someday," resolves that sad feeling by looking forward to get back together after a tour or other obligations. But the sentiment is universal, and it's a powerful way to convey one's love for their partner. It's interesting that this song may or may not have been co written by Gram Parsons of the Byrds and then the Flying Burrito Brothers. Parsons and Keith Richards were very close friends during this time, and his influence can be felt across the classic Stones albums, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street, though the band was already starting to dabble with country influences at least a couple of years earlier. Both Mick and Keith have acknowledged that Parsons was around when they were writing Wild Horses, though he received no songwriting credit. Either way, this is a fantastic love song, one that should be on anyone's rock-n-roll Valentine's Day playlist. At number six is Paul McCartney's first solo hit song, 1970's Maybe I'm Amazed. The song was written as a tribute to Paul's wife, Linda, who by the end of 1969 had become Paul's one ally as his relationship with the rest of the Beatles deteriorated. The lyrics convey a profound sense of love and gratitude, and Paul's impassioned vocal delivery, especially on the live version of the song that has become the primary version for most people who heard the song on the radio in the 70s, 80s, 90s, or since, reinforces that feeling. He recorded the song and his entire first solo album, solo, playing all the instruments. Some early critics called the resulting music unfinished, and I assume that that's at least partly because it wasn't produced by George Martin, and so it doesn't have as lush an overall feel. It has a lot more space within the music. I don't know, but this song is an amazing testament to the love a couple can share. Interestingly, there's another song on that first solo McCartney album called Valentine's Day, but it's an instrumental and it doesn't feel like Valentine's Day to me. Give that one a listen, I think you'll agree. I'll stick with Maybe I'm Amazed. Song five is Layla by Derek and the Dominoes. This is the first of two consecutive songs of desperate love, but it's still a hell of a love song. Written by Eric Clapton as a way of acknowledging and dealing with his intense feelings for his best friend's wife, he used the name of a woman from an old Persian love story, the story of Layla and Majnun, and using that framework, he was able to write about his feelings without confessing them openly. The story and the song are about a young man who falls so completely in love with a woman who's married to another man that he goes crazy. Clearly Clapton was feeling that way about his love for Patty Boyd and his life at that time was generally unsettled. He had left the band that he had really become famous for, Cream, in late 1968 and started a new band with Steve Winwood in early 69 called Blind Faith, and after they recorded an album and completed a world tour, they broke up later in 1969. He then joined an existing band called Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and just played as their guitar player, as a sideman. kind of out of the spotlight as much as one of the greatest guitarists in rock history could ever be, which is what he wanted at the time, supposedly. But his creative drive was too great and after a few months, he took the band that backed Delaney and Bonnie and started a new band with a sneaky twist on his name, calling himself Derek, not Eric, and the Dominoes. Then they ran into Duane Allman when their producer, Tom Dowd, took the Dominoes to see the Allman Brothers in concert. Eric and Duane hit it off immediately, and Duane started adding pieces to all of the songs the Dominoes were planning to record. His slide playing is all over that double album, and Layla remains Clapton's signature song after all these years and all the songs he's produced with all the different bands he's played with. Unrequited love celebrated at the highest level. Layla. Number four is The Beach Boys' God Only Knows, considered by Paul McCartney and many others to be the greatest song ever written. That's a lot, but they said it, not me. This track and the album it came from changed everything for The Beach Boys. Before the album Pet Sounds, the band was known for upbeat, catchy tunes about surfing and being a young person in Southern California. They had great harmonies, straightforward music, very successful. The Beach Boys Then Pet sounds up the ante considerably, adding an emotional depth to the band's songs that hadn't existed before. The band's primary songwriter and composer, Brian Wilson, had been so impressed by the Beatles album Rubber Soul, which had come out at the end of 1965, and he wanted to emulate that, do something similar, an album that was more than just a collection of singles, but a cohesive collection of songs, as both bands had already done the singles route many times. And the result was Pet Sounds. Among the great Beach Boys songs on that record, which included the classics Wouldn't It Be Nice, Sloop John B, and Caroline No, God Only Knows was a bit of a risk. It was more complex and it kind of had a Baroque classical feel in the composition. And he used the word God in the title, which up to that time was a complete non starter in pop music. No one had ever released a song with God in the title. And that meant that the Beach Boys never released this one, God Only Knows, as a single. It was released as the B side to the song, Wouldn't It Be Nice, instead. But the sentiment of true devotion was inescapable. Brian's brother Carl sang the lead vocal, with Bruce Johnston and Brian singing the harmonies, and the recording was done by 20 session musicians. Carl Wilson was the only member of the band to play on it. He played a 12 string guitar. It isn't higher on this list for one reason only. There's been a lot of debate as to whether the song suggests that if the singer loses the love of his partner, he would commit suicide. And that perceived sentiment is something that I picked up on when I first heard it. I was never comfortable with it or able to unhear it, even after I read that Brian Wilson and his co writer on the song, Tony Asher, never thought of that or intended that during the writing of the song. Regardless, the song is a monumental achievement in popular music and is a must for any list about great love songs from the rock-n-roll era. The third song on our list is Tougher Than The Rest by Bruce Springsteen. From his 1987 album Tunnel of Love, this song captures the essence of real love as well as any song I'm aware of. While it's not one of his big hit songs, it's almost better that way. It's waiting there to be discovered by music fans that won't ever be tired of having heard it too often. If anything, they'll wish they had heard it sooner or more. I had a hard time choosing between Tougher Than the Rest and the title track Tunnel of Love Both are great love songs. This whole album was Bruce's falling into and out of love album after writing about love from a distance over the first 12 years and seven albums of his career. As I mentioned with the Larkin Poe song, Easy Love Part One, this song also has that same element of a great rock-n-roll love song where the singer is confessing that they've been bruised by love in the past, but they're still putting themselves out there looking for a real love one that can last. In this song, the singer is explaining to his girlfriend that he knows what's involved in being in love in a way that's more than just the fun, easy part, more than just words. Here's Bruce singing the song in L. A. in 2016 with his wife Patty singing harmonies. This record came out when I was a freshman in college at a time when I felt like no girls liked me or understood me, and this song really made me feel like I wasn't alone, even though I barely knew what love was then. Of course, I knew what love was for me at 18 years old, but I had no idea how complex the ideas that Bruce was writing about were. Still, feeling like I wasn't alone, like someone understood what I was feeling, like someone understood me, was so important for me at that time. Play this one and the song Tunnel of Love where he uses the amusement park ride as a naked metaphor for taking the chance to fall in love. They're two great love songs, one album. Thanks, Boss. Coming in at number two on the list is Dire Straits' amazing song Romeo and Juliet from their 1980 Making Movies record. This is one of the great story songs of all time, using the template of the Shakespeare play as the setup for this song about a romance that faces impossible odds. It's a sad song, and the music matches the sentiment with a wistful kind of melancholy that doesn't sound very romantic, but I still think it is. The finger picking on singer songwriter Mark Knopfler's National Resonator is a perfect match for the story he's telling. It starts out with a Romeo character singing about himself in the third person, lamenting his lost love Juliet, who's left him behind as she becomes successful, thinking of him as just another fling, while he thinks of her as his one true love. The lyrics are so well written and capture so many emotions that anyone who's ever been in love and lost it can relate to. In the end, after he tries to remind her that the timing for their relationship was just wrong the first time around, and that he's still there waiting for her and wanting her, he's resigned to singing her a love song, hoping she'll hear it and give him another try because, as Knopfler writes,"I can't do everything, but I do anything for you. I can't do anything except be in love with you." That's true love right there. Wrapped up in a beautiful, sad song. Before we get to the number one song on our list, I wanted to note some of the other great songs I considered that just missed my top 10. Songs like When You Were Mine by Prince, Crazy On You by Heart, another Meatloaf song, not I Would Do Anything for Love, which is way too sappy, but You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth from his Bat Out of Hell record, an amazing love song. You Make Lovin' Fun by Fleetwood Mac, The Kinks, You Really Got Me, Ever Fallen in Love by the Buzzcocks, Guns N Roses' Sweet Child of Mine, Heaven by Bryan Adams, another overly sappy song. All good songs about love and all deserving a mention here. And now the number one song on our list of my top favorite rock-n-roll love songs is Something by The Beatles. Yes, my favorite love song is from the band that had the best songwriting duo in rock music history, and yet it wasn't written by either Lennon or McCartney. George Harrison captured exactly what I think love feels like on this very understated song from the White Album Interestingly, this song was inspired by the same woman as Layla was, Patty Boyd. George met Patty on the set of the Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night, in 1964, married her a few years later, and in 1969 released the love song that says so much in such a simple way. George sings the words so tenderly, conveying the emotions behind the lyrics. It's clear that he was really feeling the affection that he's singing about. The band plays the track beautifully along with the strings that producer George Martin put on the song, which sit back in the mix but add a layer of, I don't know, sophistication to the song. It's an elegant song. No less than Frank Sinatra praised this song as the best love song of the pop era. And I'd have to agree with Ol' Blue Eyes. This song is timeless and perfect, a feel good way to wrap up our list of my favorite rock-n-roll love songs. Which are your favorites? There's plenty of room for other opinions here at The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast, so please let me know what you think in the comments. And that's it for this week's episode. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back next Tuesday, and if you like what you heard today, we'd appreciate it if you would subscribe or follow and like to make sure you get notified about each new episode. And tell your friends. Also a reminder that we release a playlist for every episode of the show. So look for The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast Playlist on Spotify every week, this week, featuring the songs I mentioned here today. So check that out. And as I mentioned before, we want to know what you think. So please leave us a comment. We'll try to respond to every one of them. The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets.