So, 14th February - Valentine's Day - synonymous with romance and love songs. But you know us, we would never take the traditional route for a playlist - way too sappy!
Here we are then, with a playlist full of alternative songs about love.... well, sort of! They are, perhaps, coming at love from slightly different angles shall we say; there's unrequited love, former loves, turbulent, messed up love - all in here.
Mood lighting probably not required.
1. Stone Temple Pilots: Interstate Love Song
The Stone Temple Pilots were touring behind debut album Core, when bassist Robert DeLeo came up with a bossa nova groove on a cheap nylon string guitar. Singer Scott Weiland instantly started humming along when he played it to him, and they eventually turned it into what would be the third single from their follow up record, Purple. The lyrics of this one centre around the trouble Weiland was having with his then girlfriend Jannina. He said of it in his autobiography (Not Dead And Not For Sale), "She'd ask how I was doing, and I'd lie, say I was doing fine. I imagined what was going through her mind when I wrote, 'Waiting on a Sunday afternoon for what I read between the lines, your lies, feelin' like a hand in rusted shame, so do you laugh or does it cry? Reply?'" It seems that the lies might have been to hide his ongoing drug addiction, which makes the song more tragic when you understand what lay underneath the words.
Stone Temple Pilots: Interstate Love Song (Official video)
2. Public Image Ltd: This Is Not A Love Song
Being contrary seems to have come somewhat naturally to John Lydon, so it would make sense in some way that This Is Not A Love Song gave PiL their biggest chart success, clocking in at UK number five. It was initially recorded as a non-album track and marked a segue between their initial post-punk output and their move towards a more commercial, dance-based sound. This shift saw them lose some older fans, but gain many new ones - and the lyrics were indeed poking fun at some of these fans, and the music press, who were getting angry at this change of style. "I'm adaptable and I like my new role, I'm getting better and better, And I have a new goal, I'm changing my ways where money applies." A re-recorded version, including an added horn section, appeared on the fourth album, This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get.
PiL: This Is Not A Love Song (Official video)
3. The Breeders: Do You Love Me Now?
Another song about love from a vastly different angle, this one was written for The Breeders second album, Last Splash, about the end of a relationship, but still having feelings for the the other person. In this case it was about Kim Deal's divorce from John Murphy, whom she had married prior to joining Pixies, and divorced in the late 80's. After the original break up of Pixies, The Breeders became Deal's main musical outlet, with her twin sister Kelley. Last Splash made many Top Albums of the 90's lists and also gave the band a Top40 (33) hit in the US and Top10 (5) in the UK.
The Breeders: Do You Love Me Now? (Live in Big Sur - stripped back version)
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Maps
This is a song Yeah Yeah Yeahs front woman Karen O wrote about the relationship with her boyfriend of the time (2003), Angus Andrew of experimental rock band, Liars. Karen's tears in the music video for this song, shot in a high school gymnasium, were real! Andrew was supposed to be there, but three hours into the shoot, he still hadn't showed. Karen was extra emotional as she was about to depart for a tour - "I didn't think he was even going to come and this was the song that was written for him." Karen told Contact Music. Luckily he did show up in the end, although she has been married to film director Barnaby Clay since 2011, so the relief was obviously fairly short-lived. There are rumours (unconfirmed) that Maps stands for My Angus Please Stay.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Maps (Official video)
5. Elliott Smith: Say Yes
Elliott Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised in Texas, but lived most of his adult life in Portland, Oregon. Known mostly for his dark, brooding songs, Say Yes was one of his slightly lighter moments - a straight ahead love song about "someone particular, and I almost never do that. I was really in love with someone." (he told Comes With A Smile fanzine). It was one of three songs from his 1997 Either/Or album that featured in the Good Will Hunting soundtrack. Pitchfork said of the song, "It's a straight-ahead love song, one that dares to hope. Listen closely and you'll hear just how fragile that hope is: Smith whispers most of the song. He wavers. His fingers pluck out a simple question on the acoustic."
Elliott Smith: Say Yes (Live at Yoyo A Go Go, 1997)
6. Mazzy Star: Fade Into You
The lush arrangement, the vocals filled with longing - it sounds like the archetypal love song, and many do indeed use it as the background for a romantic scene. But, Hope Sandoval's lyrics are suitably vague - they could be interpreted in myriad ways - I mean, "A stranger's heart without a home, You put your hands into your head, And then its smiles cover your heart." So, we'll call it a love song and you can decide...
Mazzy Star: Fade Into You (Official video)
7. Jeff Buckley: Lover You Should've Come Over
One of the all-time, hands down, greatest musical moments there is (you can have a different opinion, but you'd be wrong), is another happy love song.... It was written by Buckley about the break-up of the relationship with his former muse Rebecca Moore. In the song, the protagonist grows despondent as he has not outgrown his old perspectives. Jacob Nierenberg wrote in Consequence Of Sound, that the song was a reminder "that Buckley was making some of the most unique and unabashedly beautiful music of the 90s." It starts with a haunting harmonium passage before descending into an epic soulful ballad, showing off Buckley's incredible vocal range, as he swoops and soars across two full octaves.
Jeff Buckley: Love You Should've Come Over (Live in Chicago)
8. Sugar: If I Can't Change Your Mind
Bob Mould had spent most of the 1980's in one of America's most important post-punk bands, Husker Dü - but then in the 90's he swapped that for the slightly more melodic, though no less intense, power indie pop of his new band Sugar. In 1992, with David Barbe on bass and Malcolm Travis on drums, they laid down debut record, Copper Blue, which instantly became one of the classic albums of the decade. NME sais that the album "was the last word in love songs, and the full stop after a heartbreak." If I Can't Change Your Mind is a pretty torrid song about someone walking out on their partner, despite its poppy nature - "I see you're leaving soon, I guess you've had your fill, But if I can't change your mind, Then no one will". It was the third single and hit the UK Top30.
Sugar: If I Can't Change Your Mind (Official video)
9. Buzzcocks: Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have)
It's November 1977 and Buzzcocks are on a headlining tour of the UK. They were in the Blenheim Guest House in Edinburgh ahead of a gig at the Cavendish Ballroom (also known as Clouds), sitting in its TV room drinking beer and half-watching Guys And Dolls. Pete Shelley said that he heard Vivian Blaine's character tell Marlon Brando, "Wait till you've fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have." He remembers thinking, "falling in love with someone you shouldn't have? Hmmm, that's good," and the next day he had written the rest of the lyrics, with the music following soon after. Mark Deming noted in AllMusic that "Pete Shelley's basic formula in the Buzzcocks was to marry the speed and emotional urgency of punk with the hooky melodies and boy/girl thematics of classic pop/rock. When he applied this thinking to that most classic of pop themes, unrequited teenage love, he crafted one of his most indelible songs, 'Ever Fallen in Love?'"
Buzzcocks: Ever Fallen In Love (Live at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester)
10. The Smiths: There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
While this was eventually released as a single in 1992 (to promote a compilation album), five years after they had split - it was originally recorded for The Smiths third album The Queen Is Dead. There was no budget for a string ensemble, so Johnny Marr put together that element on an E-mu Emulator (credited as the Hated Salford Ensemble). It was recorded at the same time as Bigmouth Strikes Again, and both songs share the same key and similar chords. Marr hoped he was being clever, taking the chord progression from Marvin Gaye's Hitch Hike, but figuring everyone would assume he had lifted it from the Velvet Undergound's There She Goes Again, which stole the chords from the same place! It seems that the narrative of the song might be taken from Rebel Without A Cause (James Dean was one of Morrissey's idols), with its dark story of someone leaving a tortured home and being a passenger on a journey with a potential romantic partner. What other love song pleads - "And if a double decker bus, crashes into us, to die beside yourself, is such a heavenly way to die."?
The Smiths: There Is A Light (Audio only)
11. Joy Division: Love Will Tear Us Apart
Well, it had to end with this, didn't it? There is so much tragedy wrapped up in this, one of the most iconic songs of all time - but it is still a love song, of sorts. Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis had married Deborah Woodruff back in 1975, but by the time the band were breaking into public awareness, the marriage was in a bit of trouble. Curtis was trying to hold down a day job, play in a band, deal with his recent diagnosis of epilepsy - and to cap it all off, he met Belgian journalist Annik Honoré at a gig in late 1979 and they started a relationship of sorts. She would later deny that it was anything more than "a completely pure and platonic relationship, very childish, very chaste" relationship, with nothing sexual - but it was enough to further disrupt his marriage. All of this was poured into the lyrics of the song, which was already in the live set by the end of the year, and then recorded in January 1980. The main riff was borrowed, with permission, from an obscure song The Cake Shop Device, by obscure local band The Manchester Mekon. Curtis was trying to channel Frank Sinatra's singing style on the song, after Factory Records boss Tony Wilson had given him one of his records. Love Will Tear Us Apart was inscribed on his memorial stone by Deborah - he died (he hung himself) just three weeks after they shot the promo video for the song.
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