The Denisonian

Issue date: 2/9/10 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Tristan Eden Make your own Tristan Valentine! Cut along the dotted lines, fill in the blanks and give to your sweethart.

All right, so this is our Valentine's Day issue, more or less, and on the previous page there are Valentine's Day-related articles about things like gift and date ideas, what to do if you're single and the history of the holiday itself. I figured I should do my part, too. I thought about it and decided I am going to discuss that other all-important component of Valentine's Day: love songs.

This kind of turned out to be more daunting than I had first thought it would be. There are so many love songs--practically every song ever--so which should ones should I include here? What should I talk about? I needed to focus. This is Valentine's Day!

So, I narrowed the scope. Any love song no longer cut it. These songs, these Valentine's songs, need to be more than love songs, they need to be romantic and they need to be pop. Of course, romantic and pop doesn't really narrow anything down very much, but it does help. So now:

A Few of The Best Valentine's Day Songs

The Arrogants-"Feels Like Falling In Love." Optimistic and up-beat, "Feels Like Falling In Love" moves fast under its own light-as-air instrumentation, while the extremely cute-sounding Jana Heller sings even cuter-sounding things like, "Place your hand in mine/ Lose your sense of time," "I feel my pulse begin to race/ As I look across your face," and "Tonight you know what I dream of/ Tonight I feel like falling in love."

The Ronettes-"Be My Baby." Perhaps the essential love song. From the very first now-famous drumbeats, you know just what you're getting into. The dense, jangly Wall of Sound production gives the track a sense of subdued grandeur that seems almost at odds with Ronnie Spector's unrelenting and desperate repetition of "be my baby." Sadly, heartbreakingly, she keeps trying, and by the end of the song, it's not hard to picture her in tears.

Leona Lewis-"Fly Here Now." The chorus! This might sound crazy but/ Just fly here right now/ Glide like an airplane and/ Just fly here right now! "Fly Here Now" is also incredibly powerful because it's produced in such a way that makes it impossible for it to sound bad.

The Beatles-"Tell Me What You See." "Tell Me What You See" is incredible: it stands out as a terrific love song in the Beatles' catalogue of terrific love songs. Everything about it--the measured frustration, the mild disbelief, the gentle repetition--is right.

Continued...

Page 1 of 4 next >

Article Tools