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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
Parade | The Cher Show
“Before and After You” from Bridges of Madison County. The melody line breaks and fills my entire heart all at once.
Performer
Leap of Faith | Arcadia | Speed-the-Plow | Company | Chitty Chitty Bang Bang | Taboo
Today, for some reason, I keep thinking of WITHOUT YOU from Rent. Not the happiest of choices, yeah, but there's a version that Mary Chapin Carpenter did at Jon Larson's memorial, just her voice and her guitar, that makes me weep for its beauty. It's a rainy day, longing for someone, achy song that hurts so sweetly. And I've always had a soft spot for NEW WORDS by Maury Yeston. It's a parent singing to their child. Very simple and very difficult to define love. And the love in one's family, one's home, wherever you create it, is the deepest love of all. Ask me again tomorrow. I'll have a different answer.
Performer
Dear Evan Hansen | Bare | Matilda
"Unworthy of Your Love" from Assassins is my jam.
Performer
The Best Man | Catch Me If You Can | Rock of Ages | Xanadu | Little Shop of Horrors | Hairspray | Bat Boy | One Life to Live
"What More Can I Say" from FALSETTOLAND. There are so many that I love, off the top of my head I picked that one because it's not conventional...or corny.
Performer
Chicago | Boeing-Boeing | Beauty and the Beast
"My Cup Runneth Over" from I Do, I Do. I think those lyrics really typify how couples in long relationships feel.
Performer
Hadestown | The Hunchback of Notre Dame | Casa Valentina | Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark | The Lion King | Beauty and the Beast
"If I Loved You." I love how they dance around the idea that it's a love song, but they're both denying that they're in love.
Performer
A Little Night Music | Elaine Stritch At Liberty | A Delicate Balance | Show Boat | Company | Love Letters | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Sail Away | Goldilocks | The Sin of Pat Muldoon | Bus Stop | On Your Toes | Pal Joey | Call Me Maddam | Angel in the Wings | Loco
"Make Someone Happy" from the Broadway production "DO RE MI" - words by Comden and Green. Music by Jule Styne. The song beautifully explains the only way to find true happiness..."make some happy - make just one someone happy...and you will be happy, too." I'm not saying it has to be a love affair...just as long as it's how you feel. Hey...it could even be a long-haired dachshund!
Performer
Wicked | Pippin | I'm Not Rappaport | Fosse | Grind | Jesus Christ Superstar
"My Funny Valentine". What else? It's a beautiful song, beautiful lyrics, and it's about the simple truth of love. Valentine's Day, to me, is every day. And it's not just about the love of a Valentine, it's about the love of spirit. If we can, as a people, all over the world, come to love one another, then the world will be a better place.
Performer
The Glass Menagerie | Mrs. Warren's Profession | Doubt | Stepping Out | Macbeth | Angels in America | The Night of the Iguana | Imaginary Friends
"Yours, Yours, Yours" from 1776, because it portrays the romance of great minds who were also madly in love.
Performer
Singer/songwriter: Grammy | Golden Globe and Oscar-winning Legend
"Something Wonderful" from THE KING AND I by Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is the choice of the hour, because if you got me closer to the morning or the evening, it might be something else. But I keep referring to this one in my mind because it is the ultimate song of compassion. Anna sings it about the King of Siam, with all his self-obsessed and insecure ways. Even so, he is shocked out of self-absorbsion and his so oft rehearsed kingly 'performance' into a deeply, humanly compassionate and likely unselfconscious moment. The melody of the song is plenty, but it is the words that make me love everybody, for their humanity in its tiniest details.
Industry
Cinderella | Sister Act | Xanadu
"When She Smiles" from Lysistrata Jones; because when I heard Lewis Flinn sing it for the first time, I fell in love with him all over again.
Creative
Hands on a Hardbody | Bring It On | High Fidelity
1. "Some Other Time" from ON THE TOWN - is the most poignant and never fails to move me to tears (and I've heard and sung it a lot!) The music is so beautiful - aching and sweet and the lyrics are so specific, eloquent and profound :
e.g. "this day was just a token
too many words are still unspoken
oh well.. we'll catch up some other time
haven't had time to wake up
seeing you there without your make-up
oh well... we'll catch up some other time...." etc etc etc. ! !
2. Any love song sung by Barbara Cook! most especially, the exquisite "In Buddy's Eyes" and "Mister Snow"
3. "Joanna" from SWEENEY TODD
Happy Valentine's Day!
Performer
Shucked | Tootsie | Journey's End | Significant Other
My favorite Broadway love song this year for Valentine's Day is anything that Lora Lee Gayer sang in Holiday Inn because, see ya on Valentine's Day, honey. Any of those songs, "White Christmas," sure.
Performer
International Singing Sensation
"Music of the Night" from THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.
Performer
Scottsboro Boys | A Boy and His Soul | Euphoria
"Forever Yours" from ONCE ON THIS ISLAND is pretty special. When I first heard that song it took me straight into the stratosphere. The lyrics, the harmonies, the orchestration. Then the crushing reality of Papa Ge piping in at the end and reeling these lovers back to earth from their spiritual coming togetherness. Ah but it was a moment...a precious moment.
Industry
A Bronx Tale | Cinderella | Leap of Faith | 9 to 5
“Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful” from Cinderella – though I prefer the second verse, “Do I love you because you’re wonderful, or are you wonderful because I love you." I feel all soft and mushy and then I go ‘Ahhh’ and then I cry.
Performer
On the Twentieth Century | You Can't Take it With You
“Till There Was You” from The Music Man
Performer
Bright Star | Gigi | Bye Bye Birdie | Mamma Mia! | Footloose
My FAVORITE is from The Golden Apple, by Jerome Moross and John LaTouche—"It's the Going Home Together." I have loved this duet since the day I heard it, and if I ever got married again, would have it sung at my wedding!
Performer
The Confession of Lily Dare | Gigi | Sunday in the Park With George | She Loves Me | The Secret Garden | The Phantom of the Opera | Anything Goes
I think Stephen Schwartz's beautiful ballad "With You" from PIPPIN is just about perfect. It's a gorgeous melody, a poetic lyric stated with simplicity and grace. Simply perfection.
Performer
Wonderful Town | Cabaret | Chicago | Grease | Leap of Faith
"I Believe My Heart" from The Woman in White.
Performer
On the Town | The Addams Family | Xanadu | Hairspray
I think it’s called “Make Believe” from Show Boat. Its just pretty.
Producer
The Phantom of the Opera | Cats | Les Miserables | Miss Saigon | Song and Dance | Little Shop of Horrors | Mary Poppins
"Some Enchanted Evening" from SOUTH PACIFIC.
Performer
The Ferryman | Torch Song | Marvin's Room
My favorite Broadway love song is “Bonnie” from Bonnie and Clyde The Musical. Bonnie and Clyde has a sound track that is just brilliant but that song particularly has always stuck with me. It’s a song that is short and very simple, but it’s so grounded and caring. It reminds me of a song that you’re average person would sit down and write for their own love and sing to them to express how much they adore the other one. It’s just incredibly honest.
Performer
Les Miserables | The Book of Mormon | All Shook Up
'One Hand, One Heart' from West Side Story
Performer
The Band's Visit | Fiddler on the Roof | Avenue Q | Rent | The Last Five Years
There are too many to name. I've had the good fortune of singing some great ones like "Next Ten Minutes" from Last Five Years or "Perfect For You" from Next to Normal, and of course, "Miracle of Miracles" from Fiddler on the Roof. Happy V-Day X
Performer
Harmony | Music & Passion | Copacabana
"My Heart Is So Full Of You" by Frank Loesser from the musical THE MOST HAPPY FELLA.
Performer
Dames at Sea | Matilda
I love "Can’t Take My Eyes Off You" by The Four Seasons, which is of course in Jersey Boys. Look, I'm not saying someone has to hire an entire horn section to tell me that they love me, but it would help.
Performer
The Present
"This Nearly Was Mine," South Pacific. That optimistic flush of post-war America, a world of feisty-but-adorable sopranos and dashing Italian baritones, in the midst of impossibly lush tropical locations… Aah.
Performer
The Wizard of Oz | The Woman in White | Dance of the Vampires | The Phantom of the Opera | Barnum | Billy | Flowers for Algernon
I think "If I Loved You" from CAROUSEL is the most perfectly written love song. The matching of the lyric to the melody is sublime.
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