Top 50 Love Songs of All Time

The singer from Eureka, Calif. made her chart debut with this song. Although it didn’t reach No. 1 on the Hot 100, it topped the Adult Contemporary and Adult Pop Songs charts and was the No. 1 song of the year on the annual recaps of those two lists.

When this song reached the top of the Hot 100, the Supremes became the first Motown act to have two No. 1s. Just a few months earlier, they were known around Berry Gordy’s company as “the no-hit Supremes,” but that changed when their previous single, “Where Did Our Love Go,” achieved pole position.

It’s not a surprise that Swift wrote this song based on a real guy she was dating. Her family disapproved, inspiring her to base the song on the most famous “Love Story” of all, “Romeo and Juliet,” but this time with a happy ending.

Wonder admitted that this song was heavily inspired by two previous Motown hits – “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “My World Is Empty Without You,” both by the Supremes. It was his ninth No. 1 and the first single to top five different Billboard charts.

After singing with Chess Records’ the Gems and Rotary Connection, Riperton joined Stevie Wonder’s backing vocalists, Wonderlove, in 1973. A year later she signed with Epic, with Wonder producing her first album. The initial single failed to chart but the follow-up was “Lovin’ You.”

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil wrote this song on a rented piano at the Chateau Marmont on the Sunset Strip, inspired by the Four Tops’ “Baby I Need Your Loving.” Their dummy lyrics were “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’” but producer Phil Spector liked them so much he kept them. The trio completed the song by writing the bridge at Spector’s home.

Alpert sang this Burt Bacharach/Hal David song to his wife on the beach in Malibu on a CBS special. The next day, the network was inundated with calls from viewers asking where they could buy the song. One day later, A&M released a single and it became the label’s first No. 1.

The 12th entry on the Hot 100 for this female vocal group from Oakland, Calif., it proved to be their biggest hit, with four weeks in the runner-up spot. The song was recorded for the soundtrack to “Set It Off,” starring Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett.

The video for this song was too steamy for MTV, which refused to air it. Within hours of the network’s decision, Warner/Reprise Video announced that “Justify My Love” would be the first commercially released video single. ABC’s “Nightline” then aired the entire video, uncensored.

Jackson’s first single for Virgin was based on a sample from a James Brown No. 1 R&B hit from 1974, “Papa Don’t Take No Mess.” On first listen, Jackson wasn’t thrilled with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’ track; the producers asked her to take it with her on her two-week Christmas vacation and when she returned she told them it was “the bomb.”

Asked to contribute a song to the “Back to the Future” soundtrack, Lewis said he had the perfect tune: “In the Nick of Time.” Negotiations went on so long, Lewis gave the song to another film, “Brewster’s Millions.” The “Future” folks were upset but Lewis said he had a second perfect song, “Back in Time.” For another scene, Lewis came up with “The Power of Love,” which became the movie’s breakout hit.

After producer Walter Afanasieff delivered the new Savage Garden album to Columbia, he was given a message to take back to the band: “It’s an artistic masterpiece. But we want another ‘Truly Madly Deeply.’” (the duo’s first No. 1). A furious Darren Hayes went away for 10 minutes with bandmate Daniel Jones and came back with a completed song, “I Knew I Loved You” (the duo’s second No. 1).

Newly signed to Capitol, Turner’s first single for the EMI-owned label was a cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” which peaked at a disappointing No. 26 on the Hot 100. The follow-up was an original, though U.K. pop quartet Bucks Fizz recorded it first. Their version went unreleased and Turner had her first No. 1 in the U.S.

David Cassidy and his stepmother Shirley Jones were the only cast members of the TV series who appeared on the group’s recordings, and Jones says, “I did very little…I literally was the backing vocals for David. I never thought I’d have a gold record…it hangs on my wall and I’m very proud of it.”

George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam wrote “How Will I Know” for Houston. Asked to submit another song, they sent “Waiting for a Star to Fall,” and when the answer was no, they recorded it themselves as Boy Meets Girl. Encouraged to try again, it only took them two days to write “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” This time, Clive Davis said yes.

Four months after he was No. 1 on the Hot 100 with “Laughter in the Rain,” Neil Sedaka was back on top, as a songwriter, thanks to Captain and Tennille’s cover of a song A&M’s Kip Cohen heard on the “Sedaka’s Back” album.

Phil Spector was inspired to write the song by a photograph of his father’s tombstone at Beth David Cemetery in New York. The inscription read: “To Know Him Was to Love Him.”

Songwriter Warren Allen Brooks says his No. 1 hit was a “spiritual song,” even if people think he was writing about love between a man and a woman. “It’s really about me and God having a personal relationship.”

What could be more romantic than finding love in a “hopeless place”? Rihanna scored the biggest hit of her career (and the top ‘love’ song of the 21st century) with only her fourth Hot 100 entry to feature “love” in the title, following “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want” (2005), “Hate That I Love You” (2007) and her featured role on Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie” (2010).