‘I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day’ – is there, in all honesty, any other opening lyric that gives you such a spring in your step as this?
Well, it turns out, yes – and plenty of them. Whether it’s The Las’ happy-go-lucky harmonies of ‘There she goes’, or Bob Marley’s smile-inducing remix of ‘Is this love?’, there is a seemingly endless string of chart-toppers expressing how love really does ‘lift us up where we belong’.
Yet, alongside that cheery array of feel-good anthems comes an equally lengthy list of solemn heartbreak hits. Just when you think it can’t get more agonising than Elvis Presley’s regret-filled ballad ‘Always on my mind’, Sinead O’Connor comes along with the painfully raw and vulnerable ‘Nothing compares to you’. And we’re running out of tissues.
So, dim the lights and get the candles burning, or curl up on the sofa and sob into your ice cream, as you make your way through our pick of the 101 best love songs of all time.
