Broadway Love Songs
Broadway Love Songs
BwayDude2
Stand-by Joined: 12/9/14
#1Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 9:25pmI've been asked to sing in a cabaret for Valentines Day. I'm a baritone and I needed help thinking of a song to sing. Solo or duet is great! Thanks!
#2Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 9:32pmHow funny! I'm in a love songs cabaret as well! And I'm a baritone. But ours is an un-gendered situation. I'm singing "I Can Hear the Bells" and Annie's part in "Old Fashioned Wedding".
#2Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 9:32pm"This Can't Be Love" from BOYS FROM SYRACUSE is a fun one that can be done as a solo or duet.
Keeping BroadwayWorld Illustrated
Lovinbroadway2
Stand-by Joined: 11/1/14
#3Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 9:59pm
Great love songs...
"Losing My Mind" from Follies
"Not a Day Goes By" from Merrily We Roll ALong
"Time Heals Everything" from Mack & Mable
"Gimme Gimme" from from Thoroughly Modern Millie
"I Can Hear the Bells" from Hairspray
"Unexpected Song" from Song & Dance
BwayDude2
Stand-by Joined: 12/9/14
#4Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 10:00pmRight now I'm really favoriting, "It All Fades Away" from Bridges. It's a BEAUTIFUL song. But can't decide if I want to do more contemporary or more golden age.
Lovinbroadway2
Stand-by Joined: 11/1/14
#5Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 10:15pm
Oops, my whole list was female love songs...
"It All Fades Away" from Bridges
"If Ever I would Leave You" from Camelot
"She Loves Me" from She Loves Me
"It Only Takes A Moment" from Dolly
"If I Didn't Believe in You" from The Last 5 Years
Bwaydide92
Leading Actor Joined: 5/16/12
#6Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 10:18pmIt's a sadder one, but " I'll Cover You (Reprise)" is a great love song for a Baritone. Or there's the first version of the song that is more upbeat and is a duet. You could also do it with a woman as your partner is you wanted.
#7Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 10:29pm
Is a "torch song" also a "love song"?
To me, "Make Believe" and "Why Do I Love You?" are love songs, but "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine" is something else--even when Nola sings it as a slow ballad in Act II. I'm not saying love songs have to done as duets, just that they should say something about the joy of being in love and not just bemoan that the singer is alone.
Based on that definition, some of my favorite love songs are:
"With So Little to Be Sure Of" (Sondheim/ANYONE CAN WHISTLE)
"Till There Was You" (Willson/MUSIC MAN (Hey, it was good enough for the Beatles!))
"If I Loved You" (R&H/CAROUSEL)
"His Is the Only Music that Makes me Dance" (Styne/Merrill/FUNNY GIRL)
"There But for You Go I" (Lerner/Loewe/BRiGADOON)
"I've Never Been in Love Before" (Loesser/GUYS AND DOLLS)
"Ten Minutes Ago" and "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?" (R&H/CINDERELLA)
"What More Can I Say?" and "What Would I Do?" (Finn/FALSETTOLAND)
Perhaps the greatest love song ever written but not for the faint of heart:
"Bess, You Is My Woman" (Gershwins/PORGY & BESS)
#8Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/5/15 at 10:45pm
A great question that could take several days to answer to your satisfaction.
I always find the balcony scene from West Side Story ("Tonight") to be thrilling, especially since the listener knows what is to come. Another duet that soars with the right vocalists is "Make Believe" from Show Boat.
On a more intimate note, Cole Porter's "So in Love" is a favorite when sung with the right intensity.
Within the last few months I have heard interviews with Rebecca Luker and Kelli O'Hara where both, independently, named Jerome Kern as their favorite composer. This surprises me more with Kelli O'Hara, who has to my knowledge never sung a lot of Kern.
So I won't apologize for including two more Kern songs. "The Way You Look Tonight" was written for the Astaire-Rogers film "Swing Time and it won the Oscar for best song. It might have begun to fade a little from public awareness, but a Sinatra recording of the song during his Capitol Records years is one of his most admired and popular.
Kern and Otto Harbach wrote "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" for the Broadway musical Roberta in 1932. Irene Dunn popularized the song when she sang it as a co-star with Astaire and Rogers in the film version of Roberta. Although written over eighty years ago, it has never gone out of style and has been continually covered by many artists.
A few of those who have recorded it include Harry Belafonte, Cannonball Adderley, Peggy Lee with the Benny Goodman orchestra, Nat King Cole, Al Jolson, Barbra Streisand, and Charlie Parker. But the two oddest covers may have been those by the Platters, who had a number one hit with the song in 1958, and by Jerry Garcia, who released a music video in the early 1990s that featured Ashley Judd in the background listening.
#9Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/6/15 at 11:28pm
There's always "On the Street where You Live," although it's high for a baritone. Two from Fiddler on the Roof would be "Do You Love Me" and the song Motl sings to Tzeitl that ends, "God has given you to me." "Sixteen going on 17" from The Sound of Music is very sweet, but it's a bit creepy given that Rolf goes on to become a Nazi. Speaking of Nazis, "If You Could See Her from My Eyes," from Cabaret, is also a creepy love song.
My all-time favorite, which works very well for a baritone, is "Music of the Night," although that's more a seduction song than a love song. I've heard "All I Ask of You" done as a wedding song (if you have a second singer), but I definitely prefer MOTN. If you're looking for a bit of ironic humor, how about "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face"? For Higgins, that's as close as he'll ever come to a love song -- something like Mr. Spock singing to his soulmate. 
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
peerrjb
Featured Actor Joined: 7/7/09
#10Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/7/15 at 1:38am
"Old Devil Moon" (from "Finian's Rainbow") is spectacular in a sultry almost-bossa rhythm, if it's slow and sexy enough.
"Why Did I Choose You?" (from "The Yearling") can actually introduce and weave in-and-out of the above.
If you just wanna have fun on Valentine's Day, sing the best Bacharach/David love song ever: "She Likes Basketball".
And don't worry about the key. Unless you're working with Karaoke tracks, who cares? Good heavens; take the sheet music and change the chords. As an MD/pianist I've dealt with that for years from singers, and we always come out standing tall.
#11Broadway Love Songs
Posted: 1/7/15 at 3:33am
"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face."
That's great. It really is a love song.
