“Think Awhile” – Cary Brothers

Breaking-up is hard to do, even when you know it’s right. Cary Brothers seems to have had personal experience with the end of love. Here he so eloquently writes “I'm tired of hearin' everything you say/ It's rolling off your tongue across my face/ It seems the time to leave/ It seems we tried…” Haven’t we all been there? You don’t want to do the relationship anymore and now, staying isn’t any easier than leaving but still, it hurts. But you know that from this you’ll grow, move on, love again.

“Love Hurts” – Nazareth

What about broken-hearted love? Once you’ve been left bereft, alone and in pain, your heart ripped out, stomped on, but you still love them. Only Nazareth’s version of “Love Hurts” really manages to convey the heartrending intensity of a crushed spirit and burning love – and I’m not just saying that because they come from my Scottish hometown of Dunfermline. Dan McCafferty’s emotive vocals somehow seem to embody the acrimoniousness of being left, the deep-rooted fear that you brought this on yourself through some serious but unintentional sin. “Love hurts, love scars/ Love wounds, and marks…” Yeah but you get over it!

“Beautiful Freak” – Eels

This is what we all want isn’t it? Someone who can see through the facade we present to everyone else. Someone who loves the big ball of crazy we all are inside. Who not only loves our crazy, but adores us for our crazy bits but thinks they are as endearing as they are irritating. Someone who can just smile and shake their heads with bewildered love and joy when we cry at commercials, or panic over every little detail a thousand times, pack and re-pack our suitcases before we leave for an overnight trip, or get paranoid for no reason at all except our silly insecurities. “You’re such a beautiful freak/ I wish there were more just like you/ You’re not like all of the others/ And that is why I love you…”

“By Your Side” – Sade

“You think I'd leave your side baby? You know me better than that…” Of course you wouldn’t. Now you’ve found that one in a billion person who thinks your crazy bits are sexy no way you’re leaving, they’re stuck with you! Perfect romantic love, undying to the end of time, that’s the real fantasy. Yet it is one we all cling too, like drowning people to a life raft. Hope that true love really is out there is what keeps us celebrating a silly holiday, when we should be rejoicing in our love lives everyday. Remembering those little acts of romance everyday, that remind the person you love that you do indeed adore them everyday, and that you really are there for them when they need you. Sade, that Queen of cool jazzy soul music says it best in her breathy, sultry voice: “oh, when your cold/ I'll be there to hold you tight to me/ When your on the outside baby and you can't get in/ I will show you, your so much better than you know/ When your lost, when your alone and you can't get back again/ I will find you darling I'll bring you home…”