Romantic Music
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With Valentine’s Day just around the corner and spring weddings drawing near, it’s time to start thinking about romantic music to complete the occasion. With the help of friends, I’ve compiled a list of romantic songs, and I hope you enjoy listening to them. What makes a song romantic? Romantic music mirrors four aspects of romance in life – intimacy, time, conversation, and passion. But just as we all experience intimacy in different ways, we all have our personal preferences in romantic music. Intimacy
Every romantic song has some level of intimacy. Intimate songs tend to be personal and not showy or performance oriented. They frequently have sweeping strings or soulful guitar or piano in the background. Also, most romantic songs fall between the pulse of 60 -100 beats per minute which also happens to be the average heartbeat of a human being. Coincidence? I think not. This gentle pulse is often done with soft percussion, or naturally emphasized in the music. Over this pulse is usually a warm and tender voice or instrumental lead.
Time
Romance flourishes when you give another person your full attention and time. The following songs are all about the element of time and they do this by drawing out words and spacing phrases:
Can’t Help Falling in Love With You, Elvis
Come Away with Me, Norah Jones
Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers
Wonderful Tonight, Eric Clapton
Conversation
This is an easy one, because words of love and devotion can be translated directly into music as in the following examples:
Always On My Mind, Willie Nelson
Devoted to You, Everly Brothers
I Will Be Here , Steven Curtis Chapman
Truly Madly Deeply, Savage Garden
Passion
Passionate songs have energy, intensity, perhaps a faster pulse than the typical heart rate, and often the element of the unexpected. Some of the most passionate songs are classical, particularly from the aptly named “Romantic Period” of music. Following is a wide range of passionate songs:
Hello Young Lovers, Stevie Wonder
Libestod from Tristan Und Isolde (Richard Wagner), Birgit Nilsson
Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet, Henry Mancini and his orchestra
Meditation from Thais (Massenet), Yo-Yo Ma
Someone to Watch Over Me, Herb Alpert
For fun I looked for a song from above that, in my opinion best blends all four categories. The result was a tie between “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers and “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” by Elvis. "Unchained Melody" frequently uses the word “time” which enhances its slow development, then crescendos with passion towards the end. “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” brilliantly combines all the elements of intimacy, along with slow romantic words.