1971: It Must be Love - Labi Siffre

A love letter to love songs

It Had to be You. When a Man Loves a Woman. My Girl. My Guy. Be My Baby. Baby, I’m Yours. Maybe I’m Amazed. Can’t Help Falling in Love. My Funny Valentine. Woman’s Gotta Have It. Love Me Tender. The Very Thought of You. Crazy He Calls Me. At Last. Save the Last Dance for Me. If Not For You. God Only Knows. My Baby Just Cares for Me. I Walk the Line. I’m Your Puppet. I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire. She Chose Me. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. The Wonder of You. My Happiness.

It Must Be Love.

Every artist from every genre and in every era is bound and united by the magical power of love. Bob Dylan said it best when he sang that “love is all there is, it makes the world go round”. Elvis got to the heart of the matter most simply when he said “I want you, I need you, I, I, I love you”. Willie Nelson knew and understood the salvation it can offer when he wrote the words “for love’s the greatest healer to be found”. Tony Joe White knew a good thing when he had it, and let us know it, too, with I’ve Got a Thing About You, Baby but Millie Jackson knew that things weren’t always so straightforward as all that, as evidenced in her If Loving You is Wrong, I Don’t Want to be Right. Whilst John Prine, Carole King and Randy Newman showed deftly that not all love has to be romantic, with the heartbreaking Hello in There or the affirming You’ve Got a Friend and You’ve Got a Friend in Me. Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs. What's wrong with that?

And it’s not just Irving Berlin and Paul McCartney or Dolly Parton and Leonard Cohen who have been investigating matters of the heart in their lyrics over the years. Songs about love have been unearthed from ancient civilisations, all across the world, dating right the way back to Mesopotamian times. The oldest such lyric was the poem-song written about both the emotional and erotic feelings the author had towards the then king of Sumer and Akkad, Šu-Suen.

In the 4,000 years since then, more ink and ideas and breath and money and time have been spent by lovers and artists trying to express the breadth of their feelings. On the flipside, just as much time has been spent writing songs about love lost and love unrequited; love never given or given and then suddenly taken away. Love given to the wrong person and love given at the wrong time. Lovers that left and love that faded.

But once those feelings grow fainter, each lyrical painter always returns to brighter shades and pinkish hues, cupid metaphors and I Love You’s.

For those of us who are lucky in love, each and every one of these songs belong to us as much as they do to the artists who wrote and performed them, and to those who in turn, love us back. They hold a place in our hearts, right next to our loved ones, and soundtrack our connections, partnerships and relationships. They are not just Elvis’ love songs or Whitney Houston’s love songs or Aretha Franklin’s love songs, but our love songs.

Each relationship is special and unique, and each has its own two person language, and, its own two person soundtrack. In my relationship, it’s songs like I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You by Bob Dylan or Lover by Taylor Swift and You and I by Wilco but in yours it might be Adore You or Thinking Out Loud or You Are the Sunshine of My Life or The Look of Love. Maybe for you, and someone else out there reading this right now, it’s Just Haven’t Met You Yet. Maybe it’s We’ll Meet Again or The Door is Still Open to My Heart. It could even be Why Do I Have to Choose?

Whatever songs sing in your heart, though, just remember that today on Valentine’s Day, and on every other day of the year as well, All You Need is Love and Love is All There Is.