Nick Cave

For Valentine’s Day I recommend Nick Cave, The Secret Life of the Love Song and The Flesh Made Word. Key words are duende and saudade.

If that is too dark, we can sing Brown Eyed Girl, which is sunlit. I have not yet found a performance of this song great enough to post, but we can hear a pretty good clip of it from Van himself on BBC Radio 2.

I will add new songs here as they come to me. The Sonetero has already begun by placing in the comments thread a brilliant song by Zeca Baleiro, to which we can listen in its entirety.

It would be traditional to cite Bob Marley love songs, but Toots and the Maytals’ Sweet and Dandy is less well known, and more rakish.

Axé.