Non-annoying love songs and the alternative list

Here are the songs that do make me feel something. The number is which day of February I posted them on. They aren’t really in any particular order, except I started with the ones where love was more of a bummer and moved up to the ones where it might still be hard, but you have some hope.

1. Joey, Concrete Blonde
2. The World Spins Madly On, The Weepies
3. Only a Fool, Byron Lee and Mighty Sparrow
4. Best I Ever Had, Vertical Horizon
5. More than This, Roxy Music
6. Hey Jealousy, Gin Blossoms
7. Overjoyed, Stevie Wonder
8. Everything's Magic, Angels and Airwaves
9. Mayor of Simpleton, XTC
10. The Promise, When in Rome
11. Bizarre Love Triangle, New Order
12. Tired of You, The Exies
13. Collide, Howie Day
14. All I Want, Toad the Wet Sprocket

As you can see, it is heavily geared towards the past, which goes back to my being out of it, but this listening to new things has not done a lot to convince me that I am wrong. If I were to add another song, it would probably be “Summertime” by My Chemical Romance. (More on that a different day.)

I have a coworker with whom I often discuss music, and I let her see my list, and she provided me with her own alternatives. The lists were quite different, with not a lot of overlap. (Notes are from Lisa.):

1. True- Spandu Ballet (Oh god, that Bithday Cake Scene in 16 Candles)
2. Little Birdhouse in your soul- They Might Be Giants
3. El Scorcho- Weezer
4. Eaten by the Monster of Love- Sparks
5. Everlong - Foo Fighters
6. Saturday Night- The Misfits
7. I got you Babe- As sung by The Dictators
8. I Will Always Love You- Dolly Parton, and I am emphatic --NOT Whitney Houston
9. Maps- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
10. You Make my Dreams Come True- Hall and Oates
11. Unchained Melody- Righteous Brothers
12. Glory of Love- Peter Cetera (Karate Kid 2 oh jeez)
13. Whole Wide World- Wreckless Eric
14. And For Personal Reasons, “A Quick One While He’s Away” By The Who

Spandau Ballet’s “True” and The Righteous Brothers “Unchained Melody” were both ones that I considered, but decided against. Also, I am not really against “And I Will Always Love You”, but it would have to be the Whitney Houston version for me, not the Dolly Parton version. “Whole Wide World” I prefer by Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhall. Also, it doesn’t matter who sings it; I hate “I Got You Babe”.

There were also two songs that I considered to be real finds. The first was Spark’s “Eaten by the Monster of Love”. It’s pretty cool, and I had never heard of it before. (I’ve never seen Valley Girl.)

Even more, I was just captivated by “Saturday Night” by the Misfits. Talk about great guitar and vocals. And, there was a real feeling of emotion, though you don’t want to take the lyrics too literally. I was singing it non-stop, and I would like to try it for karaoke, though whether anyone will have them is questionable, and really Lisa should be there. (Not that I would dedicate it to her; that would just be creepy.)

So yes, after immersing myself in love songs for two weeks I did need to kind of limit myself to punk for a month to recover, but I gladly do this for you. And now you have, right here, 28 songs that are more interesting than “Baby”.