Cupid gets his main-character moment this weekend. We asked New Yorker staffers to help build a playlist befitting his romantic mission.
For a classic piece of nineties Brit pop, Oasis’s “Slide Away” is basically an absurdly romantic ballad of plain devotion and yearning—which “Wuthering Heights” has established as the emotions of the season. May your Valentine’s Day be all about both!—Noreen Plabutong
I listen to jazz on Newark’s WBGO all year long, but in February, when last week’s snow is frozen high and gray along the sidewalk, nothing makes me feel luckier to be inside, with someone I love, than jazz. I turn on the radio in the bedroom and stir up an Old-Fashioned, the music playing down the hall like conversation at a party I’ve stepped away from. During dinner with my husband the other night, when the Miles Davis Quintet’s “You’re My Everything” came on, I recognized the first seconds of the rendition’s famous false start, intimate and inviting, before Davis introduces the song’s name. As my husband leaned in to scoop salad onto my plate, I spoke the words in time with Davis: “You are my everything.”—Jenny Blackman
The languid sounds of “Lipstick Lover,” from Janelle Monáe’s excellent album “The Age of Pleasure,” practically insist on a seductive shimmy.—Hannah Jocelyn
John Darnielle, of the Mountain Goats, spent a large part of his early songwriting career describing broken couples, even creating a fictional pair, nicknamed the Alpha Couple, whose marital strife he repeatedly mined. But when he closed the book on the duo, on the 2002 album “Tallahassee,” he included “Old College Try,” a hopeful, delusional paean from one broken spouse to another. They were in this together, all the way to the end, no matter how much it hurt.—Luis A. Gómez
When you’ve been unlucky in love, finally finding someone great feels like entering an alternate dimension—wait, this actually exists? In “Liquidize,” Wet Leg is just as bewildered as you, singing “Love struck me down / The fuck am I doing here?” But once you get used to this new reality, its tenderness wins out, and another, gentler question soon arises: “How did I get so lucky to be loving you?”—Jane Bua
Cuddle Magic’s 2020 album, “Bath”—so named because the band’s six members squeezed into a bathroom to record it—is necessarily about togetherness. But what I enjoy most about the lead single, “What If I,” is the intimate balance of romance and desperation conveyed by the duetting Bridget Kearney and Benjamin Lazar Davis—that, and the gorgeous strains of pump organ and bass clarinet nestled underfoot.—Jasper Davidoff
The best part about being in love, I think, is the constant, overwhelming sensation of looking at another person and wondering in awe, How are you mine? Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Sammy Davis, Jr., have all done renditions of “I’ve Got a Crush On You,” but it’s Ella Fitzgerald’s version, with her rich and confident voice, that best captures that heart-pounding feeling of an everlasting crush.—Erin Neil
When my toes are losing feeling in my ski boots, I turn on “My Love,” by Metronomy x Nourished by Time. It spontaneously appeared one day (kind of like an Aperol spritz in the hand après-ski) on my “Slopes” playlist. The bassy, buzzy song enters through the ear but resounds somewhere closer to the knees—a perfect tune for carving out turns on a mountain or cuddling in the lodge.—Ryan Gellis
“In Spite of Ourselves” is one of the only karaoke duets a couple can perform without making me want to hurl. Many love songs idealize; here, John Prine and Iris DeMent sweetly rattle off a list of each other’s endearing imperfections. Let’s embrace realistic romance this holiday season!—Kristen Steenbeeke
Some of the best love songs are cheating songs, and there are few sweeter or sadder than “The Dark End of the Street,” an ode to meeting in the secret shadows. This soul standard has been performed by Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin, Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Cat Power—cue ’em all up. There isn’t a bad version. But the most achingly beautiful recording is the original, from 1967, by James Carr, the son of a Mississippi Baptist preacher.—Ian Crouch
If you’re a subway performer and you play Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” I promise you, I will give you all the cash I have on my person.—Lauren Garcia
P.S. Good stuff on the internet: