Love Songs is a new strand for this blog, in which people share the ten tracks that sum up their love life. Would you like to share your list? Click here for more details.
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This is our list. You can click on the song titles to play them in Spotify.
Track 1: Underwater Love by Smoke City
Herbert and I met in a gay bar on Christmas Eve 1995, but I’d already spotted him before then because I used to go to the club night he ran. He hadn’t noticed me at all, but we’ll gloss over that. When we finally got together, he was playing this on heavy rotation, and it’s now tangled up with everything I remember about being 18 and in love: drowsy, sexy and compulsive.
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Track 2: Sunshine of Your Love by Ella Fitzgerald
We’ve never been very good at romantic records (see Track 3) but this got played a lot in our early days together. When I left for university, Herbert put this on a mix tape for me. I love the way Ella finds the smoky, expansive joy in this track.
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Track 3: Too Much, Too Young (Live) by The Specials
We got married in secret, inviting just a couple of close friends and my cousin. We’d forgotten to really plan what to do with ourselves after the ceremony, so we switched on the record player when we got home and danced in our kitchen. This is the first record we reached for – with a heavy sense of irony, I should add. Has to be the live version.
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Track 4: Sunday Shining by Finley Quaye
Our first holiday together. Cheap Spanish rosado, watching the stars from the roof terrace, adopting a cat for the week and this played over and over again.
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Track 5: Chance for Romance by Hector Rivera
I hate dancing unless I’m really drunk, when I suddenly think it’s a good idea. However, when one is the wife of a hobbyist DJ, one is occasionally required to be the first one on the floor to start the dancing. Herbert used to play this track to signal that it was time to do my duty. It makes me want to dance the tango.
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Track 6: I Was Made to Love Her by Stevie Wonder
H bought me a 45 of this for Valentine’s Day a few years ago. Nuff said.
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Track 7: Fell In Love with a Girl by The White Stripes
For years, I felt engulfed in H’s musical taste because, quite honestly, he had a far better record collection than I did. I only came across most of the tracks on this list because of him. But this one’s mine. And I like to think that I have influenced in his taste in a small way. I think he’s slowly learned to appreciate shouty vocals and ragged guitar.
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Track 8: The Wichita Lineman by Sammy Davis Jr
I am not immune to the charms of the Glen Campbell original, but this is the one we know better. In either version, it’s a forgotten classic – full of unfulfilled yearning. When we renewed our vows on our 10th wedding anniversary, we sang this instead of a hymn.
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Track 9: Jaan Pehechaan Ho by Mohammed Rafi
Bonkers surf Bollywood rock’n’roll is a genre that could just about sum us up. We are possibly the only two people in the Western world that know all the words to this. We have no idea what they mean, but that doesn’t deter us.
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Track 10: Love Loves to Love Love by Lulu
Herbert loves this song. And sometimes I put it on in the car just to sing along. Don’t tell him I like it too. I prefer to remain lofty on such matters.
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You can play the whole list in Spotify here.
Great playlist.. See, I told you Spotify was easy and brilliant.
Great post and a couple of my favourites (although not in the context of romance) on your playlist too: Finley Quaye and Smoke City. And love Wichita Lineman but only ever heard it by Glen. Saw a man up a telegraph – are they still called that? – pole recently and thought of the song. Whitstable Lineman doesn’t conjure up the same sense of yearning somehow…
Lovely List
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_Pehechan_Ho
if you want to know the meaning to Jaan Pehchaan ho
I love that you listen to bollysholly music xx
Excellent, thanks! x