Some Love Songs

A Quick Note: I had two stories ready to send this week before something happened. One was on how I walked the length of Manhattan. The other was on September 11th. Since scheduling them last weekend, I've largely stayed off the internet to avoid snowballing awfulness on the social web. (For me, this largely means lurking on Reddit and Bluesky, which is chock full of dangerously awful conversations at the moment, if not always.) Both posts will see the light of day eventually. For now, I offer something a tad lighter.

It is my opinion that the best love songs were written in the '90s.

As a child of the '90s, this is not unexpected from someone like myself. Yet as someone who dedicated the last 30+ years of my life to the study of popular music, I can say that, from Tin Pan Alley hits, Bing Crosby swoons, and Phil Spector-produced mainstays to Sabrina Carpenter giving her own spin on Smell the Glove (and everything in between), the '90s produced my favorite love songs, full stop.

This came from a conversation I had with my wife over dinner the other night, who asked about the best love song ever written. This sparked my immediate response of the three songs below. There are plenty of incredible songs, and there's a pretty great subset within that of incredible love songs. I need not bother waxing on the merit of love songs or how they came to be; I'd rather instead focus on the fact that such songs exist, and these are the best, albeit for different reasons.

Tripping Daisy — "Sonic Bloom"

Tripping Daisy is less known for buzzbin hit "I Got a Girl" and more known as the band that preceded The Polyphonic Spree. Both bands are heavily underrated and, at the time of their arrival, almost universally hated by casual listeners (at the time known as "people watching MTV"). Tim DeLaughter and team were fantastic songwriters who, like their contemporaries The Flaming Lips, existed as southern weirdoes amidst grunge mania and the alt rock boom. In 1998 and on their second-to-last record before breaking up, the band penned what I consider 27 years later to be one of the greatest songs about love — a song that, even in the darkest and most uncertain times, had me aspire towards something supremely good.

The Breeders — "Do You Love Me Now?"

I first heard this song shortly after it came out at a young age, but I really heard it for the first time while driving a horrible Kia Sportage on I-95 in Ft. Lauderdale as a sophomore in college, as the person I was pursuing at the time popped it onto their iPod and connected to my FM transmitter. (It was a different age.) They were trying to tell me something I didn't hear until I finally did. Kim Deal wrote a lot of great songs and a fair amount of songs about love lost and love found, but this song, its mess, and its longing truly hammers the point in the most beautiful way.

See also: "Andmoreagain"

Red House Painters — "Katy Song"

Mark Kozelek is a horrible man who, when purely examining him as a musician, wrote two of the best songs about love lost. The first, "Katy Song," (like the other songs on this list) a great song and a great song about love lost after a prolonged relationship. The lyrics convey the loss after the break and the writer's lack of recovery from said loss. Fifteen years later, while recording as Sun Kil Moon, Kozelek recorded "Heron Blue" about the subject's death and mirrored the same emotions from earlier, albeit with a deeper sadness from her loss.

Five Things I'm Checking Out

1) This bag I bought from Waterfield Designs. I beat the hell out of it over the last six months and it's the most durable thing I've ever owned. I kind of want another one.

2) My first fountain pen, the AL series from LAMY. I was oddly terrified of using a fountain pen and now I only want to use them.

3) Tom Scharpling's episode of WTF with Marc Maron. I've been a Best Show fan (and occasional caller) for over 20 years and this feels like the year of Kid Jersey.

4) This article in Wired on how the gutting of Trust and Safety teams have amplified and worsened the current situation (to put it mildly).

5) The Paper, which is excellent and my new favorite show.

What I'm Listening To

Things are uncertain, tense, and scary at the moment. For times like these, I always return to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It is comforting and familiar, which is exactly what I need right now. (I will never forget how the cousin of Kevin Barnes — yes, of Of Montreal fame — convinced me for three whole days that he wrote "War on War.")

Stay safe and be present for those you love and love you.

-Scott