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Valentine's Day is here and love is all around us. At this most romantic time of the year, we can't help but wonder... what is the greatest Broadway love song ever? BroadwayWorld continues our great tradition of finding that consensus- and this year we have more answers than ever! We've gathered responses from over 1500 performers, composers, industry professionals, and entertainment personalities from all over the world.
This year's list is presented by The Notebook, now in previews on Broadway. Based on the best selling novel that inspired the iconic film, this new musical follows Allie and Noah, both from different worlds, as they share a lifetime of love despite the forces that threaten to pull them apart, in a deeply moving portrait of the enduring power of love.
Performer
Harmony
"Every Single Day" is my favorite love song because it’s a profession of commitment in that honest moment couples face after the 'new relationship energy' has worn off— you’re deep in it, the love is there, and the love is strong. You’re deciding whether you’re really gonna do this, be in it for the long game. You realize that while it looks different than how you thought it’d be, you fell in love, and you are loved so deeply.
Composer/Lyricist
Lempicka
“Losing My Mind" from Follies. The ache and the longing are almost too much to bear. So real, so recognizable. Sondheim is the master at so many things, but longing...? No one does it better. Here, his usual linguistic pyrotechnics are kept to a spare simplicity that just...breaks you. The rhyme is "up" and "cup". I want you So, it's like I'm Losing my Mind. The Barbara Cook version from the Follies Concert film has etched a groove in my soul. Honorable Mention: "Not While I'm Around" from Sweeney Todd. Come on- that’s just pure.
Performer
Jagged Little Pill | Honeymoon in Vegas | On a Clear Day... | Mamma Mia!
My favorite Broadway love song, the first thing that comes to mind is “I Chose Right” from Baby. I loved that song, it was one of the first musicals I ever did and I just fell in love with that song. I sang it for a million auditions.
Performer
Cabaret | Macbeth | The Farnsworth Invention | The Coast of Utopia
I decided to narrow it down to pure love songs which I am defining as two people together on stage where one or both are singing about their love. "Love Song" from Pippin, "People Will say We're In Love" from Oklahoma, "Till There Was You" from The Music Man, "Soon It's Gonna Rain" from The Fantasticks, and "Suddenly Seymour" from Little Shop of Horrors. And, if forced to choose, for capturing what I'm calling the "truth" about love, the feeling, with clever lyrics and a great melody I'd have to go with “People Will Say We're In Love” from Oklahoma. But it wasn't easy.
Performer
Girl from the North Country | Finding Neverland | Hand to God | 9 to 5 | The Apple Tree | Thoroughly Modern Millie
My all time favorite love song, BAR NONE, is “Do You Love Me” from Fiddler On The Roof, because it’s real, real love, with all the stress and mess. It cracks me up and crushes my heart every time.
Performer
Fun Home | Les Miserables | She Loves Me | Chess | Rags
One of my favorite love songs is "My One And Only Love" especially as sung/played by Johnny Hartman & John Coltrane. It is a beautiful song with a gorgeous lyric and it has sentimental associations for me—it was the first dance at my wedding!
Industry
How to Be A Multi-Hyphenate in the Theatre Business
"One Day More." Here me out. It's a love song about living and working for the next day. Each character is singing about what they want in their life and it's only a day away. Whether or not it's a romance (Marius and Cosette), or love for money (Thenardiers), or love for purpose (Javert), or love for an adopted-ish daughter (Valjean and Cosette), it's a deeply personal love song. We can experience love in so many different ways and I think this encapsulates the passion that comes with that.
Performer
Jersey Boys | Jesus Christ Superstar
My choice would be "The Origins of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. First of all I absolutely love this score, but this song really personifies the absolute romanticism that I believe in when it comes to love. The idea that we are one half of a whole and the only way to feel whole is to find our other half is both daunting and beautiful. I luckily found my other half, Jenny Lee Stern, so it makes it a little less daunting.
Performer
Arranger | Musical Director | Conductor: Bernadette Peters' Gypsy | Annie Get Your Gun | Oh | Brother! | Broadway Follies | Perfectly Frank | One Night Stand | Georgy | The Happy Time | Breakfast at Tiffany's | Skyscraper | Ben Franklin in Paris.
My favorite, actually, was written by Broadway composers, but I don't think it was ever in a show. Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh wrote a song called "It Amazes Me".
If that's not legal, then my favorite from a show is "I Know Your Heart" from HIGH SPIRITS by Timothy Gray and Hugh Martin. That was actually my first Broadway show, for which I was the rehearsal pianist!
Performer
The Prom | Finding Neverland | Hair
It might not be the most romantic song on earth, but "With So Little To Be Sure Of" from ANYONE CAN WHISTLE always has represented love and relationships and gets me feeling all mushy inside!
Performer
Rock of Ages
I love 'When I First Saw You' from Dreamgirls. It is just a love letter through song... "When I first saw you, I said 'Oh my, that's my dream, that's my dream". What is more beautiful than seeing someone and knowing that is the someone who you have dreamt about your whole life? It's such a short song but it's so full of love. I'm a sucker for love, what can I say?
Producer
An American in Paris | Holler if Ya Hear Me | A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder | Romeo and Juliet
"Song on the Sand" from La Cage Aux Folles. It means a lot to me because it's from my first Tony Award winning musical in 1983. It's a love will conquer all kinda attitude.
Performer
Beardo
One of my favorites (at least my favorite right now) is "With So Little to Be Sure Of" from Anyone Can Whistle. It's such a simple yet complex look at a relationship while you're in it, but also looking at it from the future, after the relationship is over. Because who doesn't love a little bit of ambivalence in their love songs?
Industry
General Manager - Cats | Sunset Boulevard | Mamma Mia! | Thoroughly Modern Millie | Flower Drum Song | Legally Blonde | Gypsy | Salome | Billy Elliot: The Musical | 9 to 5
"I Have Dreamed" from The King and I.
Performer
Beautiful: the Carole King Musical | Unbroken Circle | Closer Than Ever | Avenue Q.
My favorite Broadway love song (right now, these things are always changing) is "Being Alive" from Company. Like so many Sondheim songs, the beautiful melody is deceptive, and the lyrics reveal ambivalence and conflictedness. The singer realizes that love is going to hurt, it's going to be inconvenient, it's going to downright suck sometimes, but that it's all worth it because truly loving is truly living. It's a realistic love song for grownups, not a candy-coated, idealistic one, and I dig that. It's also my favorite right now because Jessie Mueller sang a gorgeous rendition of it at my wedding this past October, and hearing the song reminds me of that magical evening.
Performer
Hands on a Hardbody | Billy Elliot
A favorite love song written for Broadway... "My Funny Valentine" from Babes in Arms. The simplicity of finding the one thing only you could love. It has also been recorded on over 1300 albums by over 600 artists. But, the first song that came to my mind was, "God Only Knows" from Good Vibrations. A song that Paul McCartney has called one of the greatest love songs ever written. I got to sing that song in the show. I also met my wife, Amanda Kloots-Larsen, during that show and sang it to her on the altar.
Director
Waitress | The Curious Incident of the Dog in Nightime | Queen of the Night | American Idiot
Gershwin’s "Embraceable You." The songs lyrics speak of two people in love but the chord structure is minor and feels wistful, even sad. I love those two dichotomies together... because that’s so often, love.
Performer
A View From the Bridge | How to be a Good Italian Daughter
"Love to Me" from LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA.
Performer
The Lyons | Gypsy
Valentine's Day is my wedding anniversary with Steve Bakunas. Eight years this year. One of my favorites is "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful" from Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, now open on Broadway and soon be a huge success. Its gorgeous music brings us hope and joy! I love this song in particular because it is honest and romantic!
Performer
The Heart of Rock and Roll | If/Then | Caroline | Or Change
My favorite Broadway love song is "Always Starting Over" from If/Then. I’ve always been struck by the idea that the most powerful thing about love or loving someone is that at some point it’s going to end, either because one person passes on or because the relationship ends. But we love anyway, and that, to me, is quite powerful. Always Starting Over acknowledges the pain of loss while celebrating the time had together and the challenge and hope in carrying on and moving forward.
Performer
Groundhog Day | Aladdin | Honeymoon in Vegas | Anything Goes | Mamma Mia!
The most romantic Broadway love song ever is "Something Good" from THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Performer
Trip of Love | On the Town | Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella
I think my favorite Broadway love song would have to be "Some Other Time" from On the Town. I think it captures beautifully the uncertainty of love and the idea that if you truly love someone you have to let them go live their best life.
Performer
Mary Poppins | War Paint | Gigi
"Say it Somehow" from The Light in the Piazza.
Performer
Tuck Everlasting | South Pacific
"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face” by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner. The rise and fall of the melody and Higgins’ realization in the lyric of just how deep he has fallen in love gets me every time. A perfect song.
Performer
The Perplexed | My Name is Asher Lev | You're a Good Man | Charlie Brown
Ok. Full disclosure. Not since I made lists of baby names for my kids have I had as many sleepless nights as I have had trying to choose my favorite Broadway love song, but "Time After Time" - the gorgeous Jule Styne song - is a constant in my head, especially as sung by my beloved friend, Judy Kuhn. I don't know if I would have believed you if you told me that, years after I first heard her sing it, she would end up singing me down the aisle at my own wedding, but she did!
Creative
Moulin Rouge! | Here Lies Love | Murder Ballad
My favorite Broadway love song is “Do You Love Me?” from Fiddler on the Roof. It reminds me of my grandparents and the nature of their relationship, and every time it just makes me cry.
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