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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
Aladdin | In Transit | Allegiance | Godspell | Pacific Overtures
My current favorite Broadway love song is “We Are Home,” a song written for me and Justin Guarini for In Transit. Love singing it to my sweet show-hubby Justin 8 times a week!
Performer
Hello Dolly! | Thoroughly Modern Millie | Big Fish | Giant | Finian's Rainbow
My favorite Broadway love song is "My Heart is so Full of You" from The Most Happy Fella.
Performer
Take Me Out | Modern Family | On the Town | The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
The most romantic song ever written is "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp", but we are talking BROADWAY so... My favorite song ever written also happens to be the song that I think is the most romantic broadway song ever written: "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" by Rodgers and Hart from PAL JOEY. Ella Fitzgerald's version of it puts me over the moon. I will never get tired of it.
Performer
Anything Goes | Wicked | Chicago | Cabaret
My favorite Broadway love song is "If I Loved You" from CAROUSEL
Performer
Shucked | Once On This Island
It’s a tossup between "My Man" (Funny Girl) and "I Got Love" (Purlie). I love both of these songs for the simplicity of the lyrics in each, and how real they are! They contrast because with "My Man," there's a undertone of triumph in heartbreak and longing, and with "I Got Love," it's literally all about that fresh new love and what emotions are like when it's first starting!
Performer
Mean Girls | KPOP | Sunday in the Park with George | The King and I
Anything from the Rodgers + Hammerstein canon. Most recently, I reheard "Hello Young Lovers" (The King and I) and it made my heart swell, especially: "Be brave young lovers and follow your star. Be brave and faithful and true," to wish goodness and love and togetherness onto others. To pass along happiness and hope to young ones especially: a message we can cling onto today. Isn't that the magic of R + H love songs? Exquisite timelessness.
Performer
Spamalot | Grand Horizons | Torch Song | Buyer and Cellar | How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
My favorite Broadway love song is Judy Kuhn singing "A Heart Full of Love" from Les Miserables. I listened to it today and started crying and almost fell off the elliptical.
Performer
Sweeney Todd | Sunday in the Park with George | Sylvia | Kinky Boots | Rent | Legally Blonde | Wicked
"Losing My Mind" from FOLLIES. It's a little uncertain, as love so often is!
Performer
Come From Away | Chaplin | If/Then
How about "The Next Ten Minutes" from Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years? "There are so many dreams I need to see with you. There are so many years I need to be with you. I will never be complete, I will never be alive, I will never change the world until I do." Ah, it makes my knees tremble.
Performer
Flying Over Sunset | Call Me Madam | Bright Star | Wicked
"On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady. Many women have sung it but I need to sing it!
Performer
Newsies | Tuck Everlasting
My favorite Broadway love song is "So Many People" from Saturday Night. Despite being gay himself, Stephen Sondheim rarely depicts the gay experience in his work. Yet in his first musical, I find these lyrics striking. "And if they tell us it's a thing we'll outgrow, they're jealous as they can be / That with so many people in the world you love me." I'm not sure if it's subliminal or just unintentional, but I remember hearing this song for the first time as a teenager and feeling a little less alone.
Performer
Kimberly Akimbo | Head Over Heels
I’ve always loved the pair of love songs in Thoroughly Modern Millie, "I Turned the Corner" & "Gimme Gimme." First of all, you cannot go wrong with Gavin Creel & Sutton Foster, the acting and those voices! There is such an emotional journey for both characters that happens and the music swelling, it just takes the listener right into the world and makes you root for these two characters to end up together.
Performer
The Odd Couple | The Vagina Monologues | She Loves Me | The Ritz
My favorite love song is “The Folks Who Live on the Hill.” When my husband and I first moved into our house in Berkeley, I remember we would look out at the hills and listen to Peggy Lee singing in the background. My husband would always ask me to sing along to him.
Performer
Frozen | Lysistrata Jones | Xanadu
This year, my favorite Broadway love song is “Suddenly Seymour.” The idea of two broken people showing each other that they are wonderful and worthy of life is my idea of true love. Plus, epic belting!
Creative
Dear Evan Hansen | A Christmas Story | Dogfight
“Soon It’s Gonna Rain” from The Fantasticks is it for me. Two young people stealing away and singing a love song, together alone for the first time. Gorgeously poetic yet simple lyrics paired with such lush but restrained music. What an easy song to get lost in. I remember playing it for my wife on an early date of ours…you can decide if that’s terribly romantic or terribly nerdy…or both?
Industry
Cabaret | Company | Follies | A Little Night Music | Sweeney Tood | Evita | The Phantom of the Opera and LoveMusik among many | many more!
With apologies to probably a thousand songs that I almost equally love, still I would choose "Some Enchanted Evening". From the first bar in the song, I'm lost.
Performer
If/Then | Rent | You're a Good Man Charlie Brown
It's probably obvious, but it's true: "I'll Cover You" from RENT.
Performer
& Juliet | South Pacific | Chicago
I really enjoy two songs from Kismet: “And This is My Beloved” & “Stranger in Paradise”. And of course I do have to support the one and only “Some Enchanted Evening.”
Performer
The Cher Show | Finding Neverland | Wicked
My favorite Broadway love song would have to be the entire bench scene in Carousel. "If I Loved You" is such a classic romantic tune, but encased within the full orchestrated "bench scene" it is a beautiful depiction of the moment two lost souls fall in love.
Performer
Sunset Boulevard | Prince of Broadway
"Too Much In Love To Care" from Sunset Boulevard. It depicts the crisis of falling in love with the right person at the wrong time and how they defy all odds to pursue this love regardless. Truly passionate and romantic yet troubled, flawed and utterly human.
Performer
Leopoldstadt | Caroline Or Change | Frozen | Les Miserables | Ghost | Hair | Wicked | Hairspray
My first job out of school was Rent, and "I'll Cover You" will forever be one of my favorite love songs, And the reprise?! Forget it!
Performer
Leopoldstadt | Falsettos | An American in Paris | Baby It's You
"What Would I Do" from Falsettos. Because it's flawlessly heartbreaking. I DARE YOU TO DISAGREE.
Performer
The Prom | Bullets Over Broadway | Promises | Promises | Present Laughter | The Ritz | Gypsy | The Producers | Little Me | Dream | How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying | Fame Become Me
It would have to be "My Friends" from SWEENEY TODD.
A strange choice, I grant you, but I think it honestly shows ALL kinds of love lyrically-speaking, and, musically, the sense of longing in the actual accompaniment joined with the familiarity/comfort of the song's orchestration (in the original production - and that's not meant as a dig to the current revival's brilliantly realized and fitting orchestrations); truly utilizing the strings and the brass as - up to that point - the audience's "friends", for me, adds up to being the definition of romantic.
Or, if this diatribe is a bit much, just say I said "People Will Say We're In Love", and put whatever reason you'd like.
Creative
The Connector | Parade | Honeymoon in Vegas | The Bridges of Madison County | The Last Five Years | Songs for a New World
"Baby Got Back." It's an oldie but a goodie. "My anaconda don't want none unless it's got buns hun." That's love to me.
Performer
Bad Cinderella | 1776 | Hello | Dolly! | Tuck Everlasting | Finding Neverland | Scandalous | Sister Act | The Addams Family
My favorite Broadway love song has to be "All the Wasted Time" from Parade. It has a special place in my heart. I think it's one of the great duets- unusual and striring and complicated and all the things that love can be.
Performer
The Music Man | The Ferryman | Oklahoma! | Young Frankenstein
I am partial to “Til There Was You” from Music Man. Standing offstage watching Sutton sing it every night was such a treat. And I swear, some nights, I thought I heard her say, “til there was Hugh”.
Performer
Sign of the Times | Paradise Square | Beautiful | Jesus Christ Superstar
"If I Loved You" from Carousel. It's so sweet and sad. Those are my favorite love songs... the ones that are a little bit heart-breaky.
Performer
SpongeBob Squarepants | Mary Poppins
It's so hard to just pick one song! So here are two... "Unusual Way" from NINE for the beautiful lyrics and "Unexpected Song" from SONG AND DANCE for the beautiful melody.
Performer
Mean Girls | Peter Pan Live | Bring It On | Kinky Boots
My favorite Broadway love song is “Always Better” from The Bridges of Madison County. I was lucky enough to be involved in a developmental reading of the show and was continuously moved by the song. Always brought to tears. After all, love is love is love is love and it is the greatest thing on Earth!
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