February 19, 2008
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Anti-Valentine's songs
by Jordyn Kimelheim, a junior at Central Bucks East High School
As great as love is, sometimes you get sick of it. You’re single and miserable, or in a relationship and miserable, or whatever.
So what better way to reflect on your romantic troubles than a playlist of Anti-Valentine’s Day songs?
They’re not breakup songs. Smokey Robinson missing his girlfriend is still a love song, just a depressing one.
These are honest-to-god-against-the-institution-of-love songs, and there’s no better cure for your broken heart.
- "(This is Not a) Love Song" by Public Image Limited:
Self explanatory, really. Former Sex Pistol John Lyndon (aka Johnny Rotten) is not singing a love song.
- "I’m the Man who Murdered Love" by XTC:
Andy Partridge finally puts poor Cupid out of his misery and gets a cheery pop song out of it.
- "Valentine’s Day" by ABC:
Supposedly this is from the '80s, but the glamorous lyrics ("If you gave me a pound for the moments I missed/ And I got dancing lessons for all the lips I shoulda kissed/I'd be a millionaire/I'd be a Fred Astaire") make it just as likely to be taken from a really depressing '40s movie musical.
- "How F•••ing Romantic" by the Magnetic Fields:
More a manifesto than a song. It’s so sparse the only instruments are finger snaps, but Stephen Merritt’s denunciation of romantic gestures is absolutely scathing.
- "Miserable Lie" by The Smiths:
Morrissey has decided that all relationships are really just about sex, and now he’s feeling cynical. But it’s a little hard to take him seriously when he goes into the falsetto at the end.
- "Why do Fools Fall in Love?" By Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers:
True story. When Frankie Lymon was in middle school, he wrote an essay about how all the people in his tenement got involved in horrible relationships. He lifted the essay’s title to name this doo-wop classic.
- "Love is a Losing Game" by Amy Winehouse:
Love is just like compulsively gambling. And losing! That’s cheerful, isn’t it?
- "Anthrax" by Gang of Four:
If love can possibly be described in a less flattering manner than the previous track, we’ve found it: "Love'll get you like a case of anthrax/And that's something I don't want to catch."
- "Love Song" by the Au Pairs:
Angry girl punk that cynically characterizes love as nothing more than a business deal.
- "Love und Romance" by the Slits:
More angry girl punk (punk girls are good at being angry). The song’s genius is all in its hilariously sarcastic delivery.
