100 Best Love Songs of All Time

The Beatles

George Harrison's quiet masterpiece — Frank Sinatra called it the greatest love song of the past fifty years, and he wasn't wrong.

Elvis Presley

The most tender thing Elvis ever recorded — a melody borrowed from a French lullaby, elevated by his complete sincerity.

Whitney Houston

Dolly Parton wrote it; Whitney Houston turned it into the greatest farewell of all time — three and a half minutes of vocal perfection.

Frank Sinatra

Jerome Kern's melody and Sinatra's phrasing — the gold standard of the romantic ballad.

Al Green

The warmest invitation in the history of soul music — Green's voice like a lit fireplace.

Adele

Just piano and a voice, and somehow the whole world stopped. Adele's farewell to love that couldn't last.

John Legend

Written for his wife — and immediately adopted by every wedding on earth. The defining love song of its decade.

Ed Sheeran

A promise to love someone through the indignities of age — Ed Sheeran at his most romantically generous.

Beyoncé

The brass sample, the Jay-Z verse, Beyoncé documenting the specific delirium of new love with total authority.

Elton John

Bernie Taupin's most direct lyric and Elton's most purely beautiful melody — a love song that apologises for being a love song.

Marvin Gaye

The most sensual recording in soul history — Gaye's voice dripping with desire.

Stevie Wonder

Written for his newborn daughter — pure joy in harmonica and bass.

Frank Sinatra

The Quincy Jones arrangement and Sinatra's playful confidence — romance as effortless pleasure.

Nat King Cole

Cole's voice is the definition of warm — this song is comfort and longing in equal measure.

Etta James

The wedding standard for sixty years — Etta James arriving at love with the full force of her extraordinary voice.

Roberta Flack

Ewan MacColl wrote it for Peggy Seeger; Flack turned it into one of popular music's most intimate moments.

Van Morrison

Moondance's most tender track — Morrison abandoning his usual poetry for pure, simple devotion.

Bob Dylan

Dylan at his most unguarded — a love song so open it's been covered by virtually everyone.

Eric Clapton

Clapton watching his partner get ready and finding everything he needed to say in the simplest possible words.

U2

The Edge's infinite string drone and Bono's confession of total, unmanageable need.

The Righteous Brothers

The Ghost soundtrack resurrected it; Bobby Hatfield's tenor had never needed rescuing.

Percy Sledge

The most helplessly devoted three minutes in Southern soul history.

Ben E. King

A devotion so simple and so complete that it's been used in every medium that needed to express loyalty.

Otis Redding

Otis at his most vulnerable — raw, aching, and impossible to hear without feeling it.

Sam Cooke

The most joyful expression of romantic bewilderment in popular music.

Luther Vandross

The opening statement of the velvet voice era — romantic soul at its most polished and sincere.

Alicia Keys

A declaration that love matters more than everything else — Keys's voice delivering complete conviction.

John Mayer

Tender, specific, and built around one of the decade's most recognizable guitar tones.

Norah Jones

The most intimate invitation in contemporary pop — Jones's voice making you feel like the only person in the room.

Michael Bublé

The most optimistic love song of the 2000s — Bublé singing about someone he hasn't found yet with total certainty.

James Arthur

The modern wedding ballad — a promise made from the first night to the last.

Bruno Mars

Uncomplicated, sincere, and perfectly executed — love as acceptance.

Katy Perry

Perry's most heartfelt ballad — a comparison between the wrong relationship and the right one.

Taylor Swift

Romeo and Juliet reimagined with a happy ending — Swift's first great pop declaration.

Shania Twain

Country pop's most durable love song — thirty years on and still played at receptions.

Dolly Parton

The original — a farewell so gracious it contains more love than most songs about staying.

Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton

Barry Gibb's gift to country music — two of Nashville's greatest voices in total harmony.

Lionel Richie

Richie and Ross creating the defining romantic duet of the early 1980s.

Mariah Carey

Carey's whistle register and the most tender of her power ballads.

Celine Dion

Jennifer Rush's original was good; Dion's version is a lesson in what a great voice does to a great song.

Air Supply

Soft rock heartbreak as pure, unguarded confession — the power ballad before anyone called it that.

Christopher Cross

The most peacefully romantic song of the soft rock era — freedom and love as the same feeling.

Chicago

Peter Cetera's falsetto and one of adult contemporary's most unapologetically sentimental ballads.

Journey

Steve Perry's voice on the road, writing to the person waiting at home — the touring musician's love letter.

REO Speedwagon

The most triumphant surrender in rock history — Kevin Cronin finally admitting he's in love.

Foreigner

The gospel choir that arrives at the climax turns a hard rock band into something genuinely moving.

Bryan Adams

The Don Juan DeMarco soundtrack gave Adams his most romantic statement.

Rod Stewart

Van Morrison wrote it; Stewart made it a wedding essential — both versions are essential.

Savage Garden

Pop's most earnest love declaration from the 1990s — entirely sincere and completely irresistible.

Robbie Williams

The most-played funeral and wedding song in the UK — Williams finding his emotional register for the first time.

Snow Patrol

The desire to lie down and do nothing with the person you love — the simplest and most universal romantic image.

Coldplay

Chris Martin's apology and devotion in equal measure — the most beautiful thing Coldplay ever recorded.

James Blunt

A love glimpsed and immediately lost — the most melancholy romantic debut of the decade.

Dido

A cup of tea and staying in bed — Dido expressing love through the smallest, most real details.

Nelly & Kelly Rowland

R&B love song with a complication — and Rowland's voice making the complication feel larger than it should.

Usher

The most accurately observed description of being hopelessly in love in early 2000s R&B.

Destiny's Child

Beyoncé, Kelly, and Michelle on devotion — romantic surrender from three women who own it entirely.

Mary J. Blige

The most commercially successful love song of Blige's career — a declaration of necessary love.

Boyz II Men

Fourteen weeks at No. 1 because it says the most important thing in the most beautiful way.

Sade

Sade's voice at its most intimate — forbidden love made sensuous and inevitable.

Minnie Riperton

A whispered declaration in the highest register — Riperton's whistle note as an expression of pure joy.

Bill Withers

Not romantic love but the love between people who hold each other up — the most generous song in soul.

Bill Withers

Grover Washington Jr.'s soprano sax and Withers's easy warmth — jazz-soul at its most inviting.

Barry White

The deepest voice in pop expressing the most comprehensive devotion — warm as a blanket.

Stevie Wonder

The most straightforward declaration in Wonder's catalogue — simple, direct, unstoppable.

Diana Ross

The duet version with Richie — two voices building a love song that refuses to end.

Toni Braxton

David Foster's orchestration and Braxton's bottomless contralto — the decade's greatest breakup ballad.

Whitney Houston

The other great Bodyguard ballad — Houston asking not to lose love with everything she has.

Celine Dion

The Titanic theme became the decade's defining love-and-loss anthem — and its melody is genuinely beautiful.

Sarah McLachlan

New love as summer sweetness — McLachlan finding romance in the most sensory details.

Mazzy Star

Hope Sandoval's dream-folk devotion — a desire to dissolve into someone else.

Jeff Buckley

Buckley's most devastating love song — the one that got away, described in aching detail.

Damien Rice

The Closer soundtrack's anchor — obsessive love sung with complete surrender.

James Bay

Acoustic folk-rock as romantic resignation — Bay's ragged voice making the pain feel earned.

Sam Smith

A one-night stand turned into a desperate plea — Smith's voice making shameless vulnerability into art.

Hozier

Love as religion and religion as love — Hozier's baritone arriving as one of the decade's great voices.

Leon Bridges

Soul music from another era delivered with total authenticity — vintage devotion.

H.E.R.

Daniel Caesar and H.E.R. — the most intimate R&B duet of the decade.

Giveon

A bass-baritone of extraordinary gravity, mourning love lost with immense dignity.

SZA

SZA turning a complicated situation into the most melodically generous song of her debut.

Frank Ocean

An A/C unit standing in for a lover — Frank Ocean finding love in the most oblique metaphors.

Khalid

Young love anxiety turned into a Disclosure-produced groove — perfectly observed.

The Weeknd

Heartbreak as spectacle — Abel documenting romantic sacrifice with his most devastating vocal.

Drake

Drake's romantic ideal stated over a Kanye sample — nostalgic, specific, totally believable.

Justin Bieber

Ed Sheeran's best co-write — the backhanded love song as a pop masterpiece.

Shawn Mendes

Teen heartbreak with physical metaphor — Mendes arriving as pop's next romantic lead.

Harry Styles

Sensual summer love as effortless pop — Styles making joy sound like the easiest thing in the world.

Olivia Rodrigo

The gracious heartbreak song — wanting your ex to be happy with someone, but not too happy.

Taylor Swift

Swift's most optimistic love song — a waltz-time celebration of domestic happiness.

Lana Del Rey

The Great Gatsby theme asking the only question that matters: will you still love me when I'm no longer young?

Birdy

Bon Iver's original was raw; Birdy's cover turned it into something heartbreakingly pure.

Passenger

The most widely shared observation about love in the 2010s — you only miss it when it's gone.

Kodaline

The most emotionally direct Irish ballad since the Cranberries — devastating in its simplicity.

Aurora

Norwegian folk-pop as love's most mystical expression — Aurora's voice from another world.

Sufjan Stevens

Grief as love — Stevens mourning his mother in a song that redefines both concepts.

Phoebe Bridgers

One-sided love documented with piercing precision — Bridgers knowing and loving anyway.

Novo Amor

Ethereal folk love — the most beautiful thing you've probably never heard.

Billie Eilish

The 13-year-old bedroom recording that launched a career — love as pure vulnerability.

Adele

Dylan's song given its most emotionally resonant interpretation by the most emotionally resonant voice of her generation.

George Michael

George Michael's most nakedly heartbroken moment — the ballad beneath the glamour.

What is the greatest love song of all time?

"Something" by The Beatles (1969) and "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis Presley (1961) are most consistently ranked as the greatest love songs in history.

What is the most played love song at weddings?

"At Last" by Etta James and "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis Presley are the most commonly played first dance songs at weddings globally.

What is the most romantic song ever written?

Opinions vary widely, but "The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra, "Something" by The Beatles, and "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green appear most frequently on critics' lists of the most romantic songs ever written.

What are the best 2020s love songs?

The most celebrated love songs of the 2020s include "Heartbreak Anniversary" by Giveon, "Leave the Door Open" by Silk Sonic, "All of Me" by John Legend (still charting), and various Taylor Swift tracks from Midnights.