Vote for the best Love song Ever

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Elliott Hancock
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 08:34 PM

My vote is "The Dutchman". Michael Smith may not have intended it to be a love song, but that's the way I hear it.

I thought Ewan MaColl, (my apologies for the spelling) wrote "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Les B
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 08:29 PM

My current favorite is "Rose of Allendale" -- it says all the right things without once using the word love. (At least in the version I've heard)

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 08:10 PM

Almost any song on Donovan's new album (well, new last year) "Sutras", esp. "Please don't bend" and "Give it all up".

And, three songs my brother, Del Hudson, wrote and I've sung in concert, "Flowers of Summer", "Evenings in Crystal", as well as "Karmic Lover". Beautiful, beautiful songs with unforgettable tunes written from the heart. Available for performance. If anyone is interested, please email me at [e-mail].

katlaughing

Subject: Lyr Add: ANOTHER TIME AND PLACE (Dave Van Ronk)
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 07:42 PM

Dave Van Ronk wrote a beauty ("Another Time & Place") some years back & the beginning always makes me think of when I met my wife.

"When first I met you years ago, in another time & place
The thought came to my mind I'd never seen a kinder face
Nor warmer laugh nor gentler smile or eyes so full of life (light?)
I knew that I would be a fool if I didn't fall in love that night"

it goes on about their sad parting but the 3rd verse is again beautiful in it's undying love.

"Love that blossoms in the night can't stand the test of time
It ebbs & flows, comes & goes, no reason, reach or rhyme
And as each day becomes another day each year another year
I'd trade a year in heaven for a day with you my dear"

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 07:35 PM

My nomination for best Australian love song must go to Henry Lawson's 'Reedy River'. The word pictures are so powerful that I am no longer amazed at how transfixed an audience will become upon hearing this song for the first time.

Regards
John

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From:
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 06:58 PM

My vote is for "Dark Eyed Molly", by Archie Fisher, off "The Man With A Rhyme". Stan Rogers also did a nice cover of it on "Turnaround". A prettier little melancholy love song you couldn't hope to find, and set to a rather odd tune. I was disappointed when I saw Fisher in concert and he didn't sing it. Obviously I won't be getting to hear Stan sing it. That was an opportunity I passed up in the early eighties, thinking I would catch him the next time he was in town.:( (Put this under the "Regrets, I've Had A Few" thread)

Isn't "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Gordon Lightfoot?

"When A Man's In Love" is also a good one. I think I like it more for its tune, because it does seem a little nasty of the man to put the woman on the spot like that without any warning or opportunity to come up with an alternative plan. But it does seem like he is a little exasperated to have been at it for that amount of time and in foul weather without any result. This is odd because it is usually the guy who can't be forced into a commitment.

In a non-folky vein, "A Kiss To Build A Dream On". It was done by lots of folks but I like Louis Armstrong's version best, as indeed I tend to prefer Satchmo's versions of a great many songs. Actually a lot of those old forties and fifties love songs were pretty good.

"Dream A Little Dream Of Me", from the twenties or thirties I think, covered by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in one of their many excellent duets, and later by Mama Cass.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 06:43 PM

Well, I can see no one's afraid to be a little off the wall here so I'll throw in one of mine...Howzabout "Catch the Wind" by the mellow yellow boy hisself.

catspaw

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Bruce O.
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 06:38 PM

Charlie, I've not yet concluded my research on that one. It just might be Solomon's 'good and godly ballet' version of Inanna and Dumuzi's song spun out to rather riduculous length.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 06:28 PM

Song of Solomon (a/k/a "Song of Songs").
--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 06:20 PM

Trad: "He's Gone Away", "Black is the Color of my True Love's Hair", "Greensleeves" (no more than two verses)

In between: "To Celia" (words by Ben Jonson)

Written: "Gretchen am Spinnrade" (Schubert/Goethe), "Wie bist du, meine Koenigin" (Brahms/ some lyricist translating Hafiz), "Bridge over Troubled Water" (Simon), and yes, another vote for "The First Time" (MacColl).

Thank you, Bruce! And I apologize to the Germans for not knowing how to make an umlaut o.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From:
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 06:07 PM

Best is not one I will try to name.
When I was a girl I would sit at the piano and play while my father would sing "The Rose of Tralee". Now, there's a love song.

"Twas not her beauty, alone, that won me.
Oh, no, twas the truth in her eyes ever shining,
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

I am at the public library posting this, since my computer is down for about a week. My time is up at this terminal, but when I am back online at home I will be back at the Mudcat. See you then.

Alice in Montana

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Rosebrook
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 06:06 PM

"Imagine", by John Lennon

Not your typical two-people-in-love sort of love song, but still, if you think of the words it's truly a song that depicts love.

Rose

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Bob Schwarer
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 05:29 PM

"Maggie" probably not the correct title, but you know what I am referring to.

Look up the story behind the song.

Bob S.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Mulligan
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 05:19 PM

Lmao.....

Bruce.....that was awesome.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Teresa
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 05:06 PM

Um ... Bill and Bruce, I thought I was quirky ... I love this Mudcat! Let's see, if I really had to choose one, it would be Borderlands by Danny Carnihan. Bittersweet, but I just can't stay away from it. Teresa

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Bruce O.
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 04:23 PM

I suspect that many people have forgotten it by now, but I am partial to a lovely duet sung by Inanna and Dumuzi in Sumer about 5000 years ago. A few of Inanna's lines go:

My honey-man, my honey-man sweetens me always.
My lord, the honey-man of the gods,
He is the one my womb loves best.
His hand is honey, his foot is honey,
He sweetens me always.
My eager impetuous caresser of the navel,
My caresser of the soft thighs,
He is the one my womb loves best.

In the spoken prologue:

Inanna:
....
Who will plow my vulva?

Dumuzi:
Great Lady, the king will plow your vulva.
I, Dumuzi the King, will plow your vulva.

Inanna:
The plow my vulva, man of my heart!
Plow my vulva.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Peter Fisher
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 04:18 PM

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face -- Peggy Seeger.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Bill
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 12:42 PM

"Best" is really too subjective - but it will be nice to get a variety of opinions regarding love songs. How about some off the wall old jug band, early blues "love songs" like Rich gal she drinks good pineapple juice Poor gal she does about the same, My gal drinks old shoe polish but she gets drunk just the same,

I will be there in the morning if I live, I will be there in the morning if I don't get killed, If I never see you again be sure to remember me.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Sam Hudson
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 12:29 PM

'Best' is t oo tricky for me. My two favourites, though, would be 'Beeswing' in the modern category, and 'Bridget O'Malley' in the trad.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 12:22 PM

Gotta be "Lizzie Lindsay". When I sing that to my wife Heather, for a few minutes I can picture myself as a noble Scottish Laird. The fact that I'm scared of horses, and would probably cut my finger off with a claymore never enters into it.

Sometimes there is a problem when a public figure (like John Denver) writes a love song at such a young age, to his partner. When the divorce comes, the song becomes kind of an orphan. Maybe we should wait til we're 70 to write 'em.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: MMario
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 12:15 PM

Boy, what a loaded question! I think in the long run, the "best love song ever" is the one that means the most to you. And depending on the circumstances - it may not even mention love....

MMario

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Jeremy J Woodland
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 11:27 AM

I'd have to vote for "ON THE ROAD TO FAIRFAX COUNTY," as sung by Joan Baez.

Subject: RE: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Bill
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 11:22 AM

"Spanish Is A Loving Tongue" tells a great story, with a theme that goes beyond the usual love song. Narrated as a lament of lost love, for reasons having nothing to do with either partner. In some versioms there is the taboo of inter-racial relationships involved. It also has a nice melody.

Subject: Vote for the best Love song Ever
From: Ariel
Date: 07 Mar 99 - 08:41 AM

Hello Mudcatters!

Tell me what you think is the best Love song ever written. (This is just an informal poll.) You can also tell me why. Myself, I would have to say it's "Annie's Song" by John Denver. What do you think?