(via Shutterstock)
Ain’t love grand?
It is, it absolutely is, but it’s also confusing and complex and hard and wondrous and alive and dying and full of hope and crushed by loss.
It’s so many things, and while it’s ultimately a good and powerful thing, it needs songs that speak to the full spectrum of its power to uplift and crush, thrill and sadden, energise and enervate.
So, we’ve assembled five singers who speak to all that complexity and while they largely land on the side of love being as good as advertised, they’re also honest about its highs and lows and that, though it may surprise you, is good for the heart too …
“Nicotine” by MIKA
(courtesy official Mika Facebook page)
A song about the power of a highly addictive stimulant? What on earth is romantic about that?
Ah my sweet and lovelorn readers, quite a bit as it turns out with singer-songwriter Mika, born in Lebanon and raised in the UK and France, gushing in “Nicotine”, lifted from his just-released album, Hyperlove, about how thinking of their love has got them as “serene as a nicotine dream”.
It’s wistfully lovely on the surface but alas it looks the two have separated with Mika begging them to come back, reunite and talk, filling the song with more hope than melancholy, more optimistic expectation than resigned loss.
It really captures, amidst a bright and jaunty trademark Mika melody, how contrary love can be but how in the end hope always springs eternal and may yet lead somewhere beautiful (“So sit your body down and then we’ll talk together”).
“SUPERSONIC” by Go-Jo
(courtesy official Go-Jo Facebook page)
Go-Jo, Australia’s fun and colourful and gregariously out-there entrant to the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, has been going full speed ahead to make the most of his 15 minutes, or really three (that’s how long the songs are allowed to be at their maximum), in the global musical spotlight.
The fighting fit and mischievously handsome singer-songwriter-producer from Western Australia originally, is back with a fantastically adrenaline-filled song in “SUPERSONIC” which comes complete with a characteristically exuberant and very funny clip that absolutely match the music, lyrics and drive of this compellingly upbeat song.
What works so well for the song is how Go-Jo captures how seeing someone with whom you feel an instant and irrevocable connection can hit you hard with the lyrics saying “It hit me like a (Boom), all I remember / A supersonic (Boom)” which FEELS like what that kind of lightning romantic buzz does to a person.
He might be leaving on a plane but he won’t quickly a person so memorable, Go-Jo remarks that “I’m leaving on a plane, but half of me is staying / ‘Cause your face is my favourite flavour”.
He’s fallen hard and the song celebrates in a joyously raucous boom of emotions and music that races around with the happy speed and fury of a heart beating to a whole new, gloriously good rhythm.
“Aperture” by Harry Styles
(courtesy official Harry Styles Facebook page)
Fresh off the release schedule, “Aperture”, by British singer-songwriter and fashion icon Harry Styles, is the lead single from the artists’ forthcoming album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, due to land on 6 March this year.
Sent out into the world with an enigmatically visual clip which takes inspiration from the 2001 Spike Jonze film, Weapon of Choice, “Aperture” which has been hailed by Consequence of Sound as a ditching of the singer’s trademark sound in favour of “a throbbing, transcendent electronic backdrop”.
The atmospherically rich track, which feels all-encompassing and ethereal, emotionally and romantically intense all in one, is fully described by the site:
The track is a throbbing piece of dance music with Styles’ signature romantic overtones; his unassuming vocal deliveries in the verses are dripping with intimacy, but the chorus widens the room as Styles sings “We belong together” backed by a powerful choir of harmonies. The balance is set: this time around, Styles is looking at transcendence through lenses both interpersonal (kiss all the time) and universal (disco, occasionally).
The refrain of belonging together is a captivating, alluring one that calls for unity and is the perfect for a day of union and love.
“Summer Nights” by St. Lucia
(courtesy official St. Lucia Facebook page)
“Summer Nights” comes to us courtesy of husband-and-wife duo Jean-Philip Grobler and Patti Beranek, based in Germany talks about falling love, looking back to when the couple presumably fell hard for each other.
It’s all set to what FLOOD Magazine describes as a “disco-infused recollection of warmer days” with the site going on to say:
Built upon a funky bass line and strings generally confined to the discothèque, Grobler and Beranek fondly look back on a bygone era of music as much as they do a more habitable season.
Lifted from Fata Morgana: Dusk, the follow-up to March 2025’s Fata Morgana: Dawn, “Summer Nights” is a deliciously romantic ode to the romanticism of love itself but also its setting which can play just as important a place as the emotion itself.
It’s lush and danceable and the perfect of how wonderful falling and staying in love can be.
“Audrey Hepburn” by Maisie Peters
(courtesy official Maisie Peters Facebook page)
It does a heart good to have someone rapturously allude that you remind them of some utterly and wondrously unforgettable, and if that happens, and good lord, don’t we all deserve it to, then who wouldn’t want the object of comparison to be Audrey Hepburn?
Bringing this beautiful idea to wistfully, swoony romantic life is English singer-songwriter Maisie Peters who track, “Audrey Herpburn”, which comes complete with some of the most evocatively love-filled, cosy, happy lyrics you’ve ever heard in any song:
My heart was a hellhound
Now my heart sits on your lap
My hands were always clenching
‘Til I held yours, and you held them backI wanted to be immortal
Now I’m fine with growing old
Cherries in the summer
Blackberries in the coldOh, take me back to the country, to the hills, and to the spires
I hate the after parties, I want forests, I want fires
Take me back to your parents
I was barefaced in the light you swore
I looked like Audrey Hepburn that night
The song heralds the somewhat imminent arrival on 15 May of the artist’s new album Floresence, and its guitar-driven, country stylings sum up how beautifully all-encompassing and softly and yet powerfully emotional love can be.
The song is a hug and a delight, its thoughtfully nostalgic lyrics sung with emotive joy by Peters who invests so much happy contentment into the track courtesy of lyrics like “I don’t need accolades or everyone to want me / ‘Cause you want me, and that’s as good as it gets” that it makes you fall in love with love all over again.