Valentine's: Best Ever Love Songs (updated for Feb 2025)
Published on 13 February 2025
Romance is in the air.
Love is all around, everywhere you look!
It’s time to draw the blinds, pour a few glasses of your favourite bubbles and enjoy a romantic evening with your beloved.
In order to capitalise on special evening, a soft background soundtrack of AC/DC and Metallica isn’t gonna do it: you need somewhere to quickly grab the greatest, most romantic love songs ever written, spanning the 1950s till now, to sonically spice up your night. Where could you get such a list?
Your Key to Great Romance
Take our list right here! It has been compiled by consensus (a bunch of us messaging and Zooming ideas, basically) and features some astoundingly obvious numbers – because you can’t argue with greatness - and including a few slightly left-of-centre choices. All of these tunes are guaranteed to take your special evening to new levels. Line up these tunes and enjoy!
The Best Ever Love Songs at a Glance
Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers
Can’t Help Falling in Love – Elvis Presley
I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston
Up Where We Belong - Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) - Meatloaf
Into My Arms – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
First Day of My Life – Bright Eyes
My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion
Love is All Around - Wet Wet Wet
You’re Still the One - Shania Twain
Jessie’s Girl - Rick Springfield
Rainy Night in Soho - The Pogues
Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers
Whether or not you are of the generation who first heard this song in relation to Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore making a mess of a perfectly good pottery session, you’ll know this as one of the most enduringly romantic songs ever written. With a vocal performance that’s never been matched (so many reality TV hopefuls over-sing this tune), and a production that emphasises the quietly growing grandeur of the sentiment, it’s a sure-fire hit.
Can’t Help Falling in Love – Elvis Presley
Elvis’ tremulous voice would make anyone go weak at the knees, and this is his most romantic song by a mile. Unabashed in its sentiment, unequalled in its delivery, Can’t Help Falling in Love will still be listened to in a hundred years’ time, and it’ll be as timeless then as it is now. How about those backing vocals?
I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston
This Dolly Parton-penned ode to a sadly defeated love affair is a potent combination of heartbreaking lyrics and a showstopping vocal from Whitney Houston. It was a mega-smash when used in the movie The Bodyguard, but it stands quite apart from any movie as a gloriously realised hymn to unrequited love. Houston’s tragic life story only adds to the emotion you feel when her supersonic voice reaches the chorus.
My Girl – The Temptations
Less dramatic than our previous choice but no less affecting, this heart-warming salute to that inimitable feeling of love for another human is a touching and catchy tune indeed! Loads of people have covered this, but nothing beats the easy charm and warmth of the Temptations’ 1964 original. Guaranteed to make you smile and click your fingers, this song has the equivalent effect of its lyrics, bringing sunshine to a cloudy day.
Eternal Flame – The Bangles
A timeless radio classic from another era, the Bangles’ literal torch song is a masterful piece of writing. Written by bandleader Susanna Hoffs along with songwriting ‘hit men’ Billy Steinberg & Tom Kelly, Eternal Flame was a number one single everywhere in 1988. Don’t make the mistake of playing the Atomic Kitten cover version though, okay?
Up Where We Belong - Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
It’s classic duet time here, with two beautifully blended voices: the rough soul of Joe Cocker and the smooth loveliness of Jennifer Warnes. It’s perfect, and actually won a Golden Globe, Grammy and Academy Award! Why the film awards? It was the big song from 1982’s romantic An Officer and a Gentleman, starring Richard Gere in possibly the most iconic white military uniform ever, until Top Gun. Swoon!
I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) - Meatloaf
The album version of this song is 12 minutes long, it has motorcycle noises in it and the video has Meatloaf dressed up as an extra from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there’s no denying the epic passion and longing expounded within this gargantuan song. It’s stirring, thrilling stuff, done in the way only Meatloaf and writer Jim Steinman can. At times, it’s like an ‘Alton Towers Bruce Springsteen’ song, and we mean that entirely positively! It even has a fantastic duet towards the end with a singer named Mrs Loud. Brilliant.
Regarding the song’s (long) title: what won’t the protagonist do? Well, you’ll just have to listen to it and find out...
Into My Arms – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
It would take quite a leap of the imagination to picture the mad, violent, dysfunctional, sinister frontman from The Birthday Party becoming the mature writer and singer of achingly beautiful, confessional love songs like this, but that’s what happened! Whilst there are still definitely signs of the rascal within Cave, he has long been known as one of the best current writers of romantic ballads. This one, which features sparse instrumentation and a very low-key performance, hits so many emotional buttons, it’s unreal. A handful of simple piano chords and wonderfully frank & honest lyrics are all Nick Cave needs to mould a modern classic.
“I don’t believe in the existence of angels, but looking at you, I wonder if that’s true”, is a lyric worth its weight in gold.
First Day of My Life – Bright Eyes
Romantic songs, as we’ve seen with Nick Cave, don’t have to be grandiose, sweeping affairs (though a little of that is very welcome): they can be almost DIY in nature and still hit the spot. So it is with Connor Oberst’s song here, released under his Bright Eyes alias. It’s a simple strummer, again with frank and modern expressions of love, like this: “I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you”. A popular wedding song, this tune conveys oceans of depth in a very unpretentious way.
Wicked Game - Chris Isaak
This sultry piece of heat is not so much a love song as it’s opposite, but there’s no denying how sensual it sounds. This is a perfect song for later on in the evening, when the candles are lit and the wine is refilled. The steady, insistent rhythm and gossamer guitar lines are as flirtatious as it gets, with Isaak’s low croon providing the perfect colour and drama to the tune.
My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion
Nothing pulls on the heartstrings more than a well-timed key change. Irish man-band (can’t really call them boys, can you?) Westlife knew this and used it in every single song they did, but even they didn’t nail it as effectively as Celine Dion.
Dion, who is an absolutely supersonic singer, brought immense emotion and romance vibes to this theme tune to Titanic, a romance movie about an epic love story interrupted by ‘transport problems’. This Oscar-winning tune is sure to express your longing and everlasting love for your other half, and without the need to freeze in the Atlantic to prove it either.
Always - Bon Jovi
John Bon and the boys act like tough rockers but they’re a bunch of sweeties really. This power ballad shows them at their most vulnerable, with lines such as ‘this Romeo is bleeding, but you can’t see his blood’, appealing to the star-crossed lover in us all.
Plus, the chorus is as strong as anything this world-dominating band has put out, a salute to the solidarity of love.
Love is All Around - Wet Wet Wet
Whether you feel that this song is a guilty pleasure or a legitimate classic, there’s no way you’ll fail to respond to it.
Another one from a movie (1994’s Four Weddings and a Funeral, which was huge at the time and is largely forgotten now), Glaswegian soft-rockers Wet Wet Wet took an old Troggs tune and added some slick, syrupy romance to the vibe. The result is a tune that routinely makes all Marti Pellow fans go instantly weak at the knees. One to slow dance to, with a twinkle in your eye and love in your heart.
You’re Still the One - Shania Twain
An ode to enduring love, Shania Twain’s megahit praises the simple and yet immense power of simply staying together through it all. Sometimes in life a song comes around that is just so simple and direct, and yet so eloquently performed that it’s perfect. This is definitely one of those songs.
Hungry Eyes - Eric Carmen
This is one of those songs that will forever put your mind into the Catskill mountains of the 1960s, with Patrick Swayze leaping around and clicking his fingers. This Dirty Dancing soundtrack pick brings such a delirious rush of emotions, it’s perfect for the feeling of first love, and indeed of seeing your long-time partner with fresh eyes every day. To hear the chorus once is to have it lodge itself in your mind for weeks!
Songs for Lost Lovers & Heart Broken Romantics
Not all Valentine’s Day songs are about addressing those who love is requited. The pain and ache of love is strong for those who yearn but live without it, and these last songs are for such broken-hearted romantics…
Jessie’s Girl - Rick Springfield
Growing up and falling for another guy’s girl may be a tired cliche, but man, it’s effective in songwriting! Australian Rick Springfield released this none-more-80s anthem in 1980 itself, giving it an early start on a sound that became synonymous with the teen drama movies of the decade.
After all, music hits us most in our teenage years, and so does our first love. These are some of the most powerful moments in our young lives, so the tunes have to match! Springfield understood the heartache of seeing your dream girl with another fellah, and of being the ‘plus one’ in a teenage social circle. Here’s a classic line, felt by many throughout the ages:
“And I'm looking in the mirror all the time/ Wonderin' what she don't see in me/ I've been funny, I've been cool with the lines/ Ain't that the way love's supposed to be?”
Potent emotions, for sure, and as timeless as it gets.
Rainy Night in Soho - The Pogues
Shane MacGowan was always an old soul and a poet, a bit like Tom Waits. This lovelorn song from The Pogues is a great example. It’s like he saw life through a rain-covered window, looking out at a possible life that he could’ve had but didn’t. The ache in the lyrics is plain, of a life shared and lost. Some actually think this was Shane’s ode to alcohol - and reading the lyrics, I can see why - but I prefer the sad romantic angle personally, and the final stanza is a real kicker:
“Now, the song is nearly over/ We may never find out what it means/ Still there's a light I hold before me/ You're the measure of my dreams/ The measure of my dreams”
Enjoy your Romantic Evening
We hope these songs help you to get into that special Valentine’s mood! There’s always time for love, and you and your partner deserve it! Don’t let us know how you get on but do let us know if you liked our specially curated list of songs! Have a most romantic Valentine’s day, and beyond!
