Romantic Music

Romantic music for Valentine's Day and Wedding Ceremonies
Romantic music for Valentine's Day and Wedding Ceremonies

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

Fascination, Nat King Cole

I Will Love You, Fisher

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

For You, John Denver

I Will Be Here , Steven Curtis Chapman

Longer Than, Dan Fogelberg

Time in a Bottle, Jim Croce

Truly Madly Deeply, Savage Garden

Your Song, Elton John

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:

Everything I do, Bryan Adams

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.