That's the ultimate Valentine's Day song
My Funny Valentine by Rogers & Hart. Not specifically written with the day in mind, but to be sung to a character called Valentine in the 1937 musical Babes In Arms (source of another great love song Where Or When). The particular charm of My Funny Valentine is its admission of the loved one's failings - "Is your figure less than Greek?/Is your mouth a little weak?/When you open it to speak/ Are you smart?" In this, it is reminiscent of Bill from Jerome Kern's Showboat which is equally happy to downplay a lover's charms ("He hasn't got a thing that I can brag about").
Waiting for love
Lover Man (Where Can You Be?) by Jimmy Davis and Roger Ramirez is forever associated with Billie Holliday who was the first singer to perform it regularly. Full of almost hopeless yearning - "I long to try/Something I've never had" - it is matched by two other songs for aspiring lovers, both from the hands of George and Ira Gershwin. Both Someone To Watch Over Me and The Man I Love carry the promise of imminent passion, but while the former is optimistic ("I know that he'll turn out to be/Someone to . . ."), the latter's lyrics are slightly more hesitant, the only certainty being "I'll do my best to make him stay".
That precious first meeting
There's always The Trolley Song ("Stop, stop, stop went my heartstrings") from Meet Me At St Louis, which also contains a wonderful hymn to unrequited love, The Boy Next Door. Then there is I've Never Been In Love Before from Guys And Dolls and a great pair by Rogers and Hart: My Heart Stood Still and I Didn't Know What Time It Was ("Warm as the month of May it was/And how gay it was too").
Incitements to love
Birds do it, bees do it, so why not follow the Cole Porter's plea and Let's Fall In Love. Another Porter song informs the object of your affection he/she would be so Easy To Love ("So worth the yearning for/So swell to keep every home fire burning for"). Alternatively, from Showboat - a musical without a single dud song - you could "make believe our lips are blending/In a phantom kiss, or two or three".
The confusion of love
A negligee'd Rita Hayworth arises from her bed in Pal Joey and sings Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered, perfectly encapsulating the turmoil of love's early stages - "I'm wild again/Beguiled again/A wimpering, simpering child again". The full Rogers and Hart lyrics are slightly more risque than those in the film; lines such as "I'll worship the trousers that cling to him" were excised from Hayworth's version. Also good for expressing bafflement is Cole Porter's What Is This Thing Called Love? and the Gillespie/Coots tune You Go To My Head ("And you linger like a haunting refrain/ Like the bubbles in a glass of champagne").
Happy love
"I'm going to love you/Like nobody's loved you/Come rain or come shine", proposed Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. Alternatively, you could try Gershwin's "Embrace me, you sweet embraceable you" or Irving Berlin's I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm. Encourage the beloved by humming Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields's I'm In The Mood For Love ("Simply because you're near me") or the Washington/Carmichael standard The Nearness Of You - "It's not the pale moon that excites me/That thrills and delights me/Oh no, it's just the nearness of you."
The lonely lover
One For My Baby (And One More For The Road), another great Arlen/Mercer song, captures the mood here. Or try listening to Frank Sinatra's description of the woes experienced in The Wee, Small Hours ("You lie awake and think about the girl/And never, ever think of counting sheep"). Insist "They're writing songs of love/But not for me," (Gershwin) or hum Swan's When You're Lover Has Gone.
No good at love?
In which case, you will want to follow the example of Goldie Hawn in Woodie Allen's Everyone Says I Love You and sing "I'm thru' with love/I'll never fall again/I'll bid adieu to love/Don't ever call again." Just as effective a summary of this mood is Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne's I Fall In Love Too Easily ("I fall in love too terribly hard/For love to ever last").
Helpless in the face of love
According to Comes Love, "Comes a Fire, then you know just what to do/Blow a tyre, you can buy another shoe/Comes love, nothing can be done". Remember Judy Garland in Broadway Melody Of 1938 letting Clark Gable know You Made Me Love You? Even more poignant is the Wolf/ Herron/Sinatra tear-strewn number I'm A Fool To Want You - "I know it's wrong, it must be wrong/ But right or wrong, I can't get along/Without you".
Doubt and despair
"You've changed/ That sparkle in your eyes has gone/Your smile is just a careless yawn", imagined Carey and Fisher. Irving Berlin implored Say It Isn't So ("People say that you/Found somebody new/And it won't be long before you leave me/Say it isn't true"). In Roberta Jerome Kern suggested Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and everyone, sooner or later, has woken to up feeling Good Morning Heartache (Wish I could forget you/But you're here to stay/It seems I met you/When my love first went away").
Lost love
Sometimes, as Gordon Jenkins wrote in Goodbye, it's "No use to wonder why/Let's say goodbye with a sigh/Let love die". Coleman and McCarthy bravely decided I'm Gonna Laugh You Out Of My Life and Hoagy Carmichael insisted I Get Along Without You Very Well. Irving Berlin was unable to put on such a brave face in How About Me? - "It's over, all over/And soon, somebody else will make a fuss about you/But how about me?" Low self-esteem marks Rogers and Hart's self-explanatory He Was Too Good For Me, although there is an innocent charm about such lyrics as "I was a queen to him/Who's gonna make me gay now?" Finally, Julie London famously opted for cool revenge in Arthur Hamilton's Cry Me A River.
Time for a torch song
Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin wrote The Man That Got Away for A Star Is Born in 1954; every line here is heavy with passion - "Ever since this world began/ There is nothing sadder than/A one-man woman, looking for the man that got away". Billy Rose's More Than You Know is gentler but just as obsessive in tone ("Whether you're right/Whether you're wrong/Man of my heart/I'll string along"). The greatest torch song of all, however, is indisputably My Man. Originally called Mon Homme, it was written by Maurice Yvain and first performed by Mistinguett before crossing the Atlantic for the Ziegfield Follies of 1922. This is unquestioning, unwavering, uncritical love - "It cost me a lot/ But there's one thing that I got/It's my man" or "Two or three girls has he/That he likes as well as me/ But I love him."
Happy ever after
While the best love songs are often the most lachrymose, it doesn't always have to end in tears. Even Rogers and Hart occasionally managed a cheerful number, not least There's A Small Hotel in which every happy couple settles into a bridal suite ("One that's bright and neat/Complete for us to share together"). And looking forward to a lifetime together are Kern and Hammerstein's Folks Who Live On The Hill. In addition to a charming tune, this has wonderfully clever lyrics - "Our veranda/Will command a/View." As another song asks: who could ask for anything more?