Nothing compares to being in love. In the previous blog I shared my Top Ten Favorite Love Songs—plus honorable mentions and favorites from The Great American Songbook. I also mentioned that in songwriting classes we are urged to find new and different ways to write love songs. We are told to never use the words sun, moon, or stars and to never use the phrase “heart and soul.” 

Many of my favorite songs do use those words. It takes quite a command of language and imagination to find new ways to express one of the strongest and universal emotions . . . being in love and describing the recipient of that affection.

Nothing else compares to being in love! The feeling is so overpowering and thrilling, we want to call on the universe and to use the most expansive images. How do you describe that feeling of being in love?

Admittedly, writing a song about emotions is one of the hardest kinds of song to write. It is easier to tell a story or paint pictures. It is often hard to find concrete images or meaningful metaphors for feelings.

Clever songwriters can create iconic, enigmatic, catchy, or colorful lyrics to describe love. Sometimes they conceive vivid or unusual images. 

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Some Favorite Lines About Love and Lovers

Here are some of the more unusual or original phrases I found in love songs. See if you can guess what song these are from. The answers are at the bottom of this blog.

1. Tomorrow’s date means springtime’s just a day away
Cupid, we don’t need ya now, be on your way

2. You are the apple of my eye,
Forever you’ll stay in my heart

3. I love you in a place
Where there’s no space or time

4. You’re a genie in disguise
Full of wonder and surprise

5. Old Mister Webster could never define
What’s being said between your heart and mine

6. Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet you’re my favorite work of art

7. Look at me, I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree

8. And that laugh that wrinkles your nose
It touches my foolish heart

9. In the roarin’ traffic’s boom
In the silence of my lonely room
I think of you day and night

10. You’re still the one who can scratch my itch
You’re still the one that I wouldn’t switch

11. Without your love I’m nothing but a beggar
Without your love a dog without a bone

12. I’m so dizzy, my head is spinning
Like a whirlpool, it never ends

13. It’s centrifugal motion
It’s perpetual bliss
It’s that pivotal moment

14. Why do stars fall down from the sky
Every time you walk by?

15. You’re a rose
You’re Inferno’s Dante
You’re the nose
On the great Durante

Answers

1. “More Today Than Yesterday”
Recorded by Spiral Starecase. Written by Pat Upton.

2. “You are the Sunshine of my Life” 
Recorded and written by Stevie Wonder.

3. “A Song for You”
Recorded and written by Leon Russell.

4. “Betcha By Golly Wow”
Recorded by The Stylistics and written by Thom Bell and Linda Creed.

5. “When You Say Nothing at All”
Recorded by Keith Whitley. Written by Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz.

6. “My Funny Valentine”
Written by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rogers.

7. “Misty”
Written by Erroll Garner and Johnny Burke.

8. “The Way You Look Tonight”
Written by Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern.

9. “Night and Day”
Written by Cole Porter.

10. “You’re Still the One” 
Recorded by Orleans. Written by John Hall and Johanna Hall.

11. “Angel” 
Recorded by Aerosmith. Written by Desmond Child and Steven Tyler.

12. “Dizzy” 
Recorded by Tommy Roe. Written by Freddy Weller and Tommy Roe.

13. “This Kiss” 
Recorded by Faith Hill. Written by Annie Leslie Roboff, Beth Nielsen Chapman, and Robin B. Lerner.

14. “Close to You”
Recorded by The Carpenters. Written by Burt Bacharach, Burt F. Bacharach, and Hal David.

15. “You’re the Top” 
Written by Cole Porter.

I think the prize for creativity would go to Cole Porter for his song “You’re the Top.” The entire song uses unusual images not normally associated with describing the one you love. In saying that person is the “top” he lists numerous places, people, and things that are the best or “top.” From the Louvre Museum, Mickey Mouse, turkey dinner, Derby winner, Waldorf salad, to the great Durante and many more—his verses are clever and catchy!

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Can you think of other love songs with unusual or creative phrases?