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They say that falling in love is wonderful... and doesn't Broadway know it! 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.
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
Smash | 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.
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
Titanique | Jekyll and Hyde | Aida
"Somewhere" from West Side Story – this song gets me every single time. One of my all-time favorites. The first time I heard it, I literally wept. I thought it was so beautiful, so passionate and I absolutely adored the melody and words of the song. "Someday..... somewhere..." The lyric that really says it all for me is that "there's a place for us." I love how romantic that line is. That no matter what the odds are, or if the world doesn't understand this kind of love, that there is a place... Somewhere.....I hope to record my own version of the song one day.
Performer
Sunset Blvd. | Hamilton | Wicked | In The Heights | Lennon | Aida | Dance of the Vampires
It would have to be "One Hand, One Heart" from WEST SIDE STORY. It fills my heart every time I hear it....
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
Moulin Rouge! | Into the Woods | Pretty Woman | Groundhog Day | Rocky | On The Twentieth Century
My favorite Broadway song, I'm choosing one from Groundhog Day, because it means so much to me, it's so important to me. It's called "Seeing You." It is about seeing someone maybe you've seen every day of your life over and over again but then taking a chance to see them for the first time, reset your brain, look through their eyes. It's beautiful and I can't wait to sing it.
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
The Lion King | Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends | SpongeBob Squarepants | Mary Poppins
My solo in Old Friends is "Could I Leave You?", which is a very anti-love song. Someone's just asked me, oh, I think you should leave me. And then the song is super sarcastic. So I've just turned it on his head. It's not romantic at all. It's like, we used to be in love and it's all gone horribly wrong.
Performer
Once Upon a Mattress | Beautiful | Newsies | Wicked
“It Only Takes a Moment” – Hello Dolly
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!
Performer
Be More Chill | Dear Evan Hansen
"Inside Your Heart" from Bat Boy. The great thing about this song is that it's like the metaphor of I will always live inside your heart, but she's actually talking about letting the Bat Boy drink her blood so she will always live inside of his heart literally! I love that show.
Performer
Les Miserables | The Color Purple
My favorite Broadway love song is "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific because it is just beautiful. It's an incredible song. That song of yearning and of really putting out your whole life in front of someone else...The think I love about it the most is that everyone dreams about that moment. That moment of meeting someone and falling in love immediately.
Performer
Hadestown | Gypsy | The Notebook
Other than something from The Notebook (obviously), I think my favorite Broadway love song is “Falling Into You” from The Bridges of Madison County. The restraint used in the composition is so satisfying, and then you have these two iconic Broadway voices telling the story. I mean, sonically and lyrically it’s just so delicious— it’s a sophisticated duet that perfectly captures that ‘Aha! I’ve found my person’ moment! Chefs' kiss!
Performer
Finding Neverland | Glee | South Pacific | Light in the Piazza | Hairspray
Alright, this might sound weird coming from me, but I think the most romantic song in MT would have to be "As Long as He Needs Me" from Oliver. It is simply splendiferous!! Whenever someone gives me those little butterflies in my stomach, I usually sing this song ... except I just change the he to a she!
Performer
A Beautiful Noise | Les Miserables | Priscilla Queen of the Desert | Hair | 110 in the Shade | Lestat
'Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City'
Performer
Kinky Boots | Newsies | A Catered Affair | La Cage aux Folles | Fiddler on the Roof | Hairspray | Legs Diamond | Torch Song Trilogy
The most romantic love song ever? Simple: "Not a Day Goes By"
Performer
Maybe Happy Ending | We Had a World | Little Shop of Horrors | Dear Evan Hansen
I have to plug Maybe Happy Ending. I have to! I have to say "Why Love." I've seen Maybe Happy Ending 10 times because my Valentine is above the title on it! So if you haven't seen it, you have to see it.
Performer
Moulin! Rouge! | Guys and Dolls | The Little Mermaid | Jersey Boys
For me "I Got Lost in His Arms" from ANNIE GET YOUR GUN does it everytime. She (Annie) resists falling for this guy so hard. I just love the idea of how defenseless she becomes when he wraps his arms around her. Once you fall there is nothing you can do. It makes humans both powerless and powerful!
Performer
The Great Gatsby | Cabaret | Hadestown | Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
This might sound like I’m slightly biased, but I don’t think I am. My current favorite Broadway love song is “All I’ve Ever Known” from Hadestown.
Performer
& Juliet | Almost Famous | Waitress | Jersey Boys | On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
"If I loved You" from Carousel is probably the greatest love song ever written because it deftly walks the line between flirtation and confession of feelings that only a Rogers and Hammerstein song can really do but if I'm picking the kareoke song... it's "On the Wings of Love" every time. That bridge?! Come ON!
Performer
The Assembled Parties | Other Desert Cities | Lombardi | A Doll's House
There are so many, but there's one from The Scarlet Pimpernel, that nobody sings, which is "Don't Be Afraid It's Only Love." And I don't know why more people don't sing it. It's just so beautiful.
Performer
Be More Chill | Godspell | Tick Tick...Boom!
"Love Is My Legs" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels written by David Yazbeck sung by the great Norbert Leo Butz and the great Sherie Rene Scott. I love that song so much. It is a belty, belty song. It is so full of heart but also hilarious. I wish someone would sing that to me on Valentine's Day.
Performer
Schmigadoon | The Notebook | Hamilton | Waitress | Wicked | The Wrong Man
I'd say this song "Forever" from The Notebook. I just loved the guy who sang that. [Laughs] It's a gorgeous song. Ingrid Michaelson did an amazing job and I was in it, yes.
Performer
Jane Eyre | Flying Over Sunset | On the Town | White Christmas | Gypsy | A Chorus Line | Never Gonna Dance | Oklahoma
I'm such an emotional, Pisces creature of the theater, so I'm gonna pick my first Broadway show that I ever fell in love with when I was a kid- West Side Story. Just listening to "Tonight " and what Bernstein did with that, it just pulls every emotion out of my heart for feeling the anticipation of loving and being loved. It's just perfect.
Performer
Smash | First Date | The Addams Family | In the Heights | Spring Awakening
You know what I love? "In Whatever Time We Have" from Children of Eden. I just think that is the most beautiful duet ever. It makes me cry everytime I hear it. So I love that one.
Performer
It Shoulda Been You | Mothers and Sons | Master Class | Gypsy
"My White Knight" from The Music Man. I love the lyric "And I would like him to be more interested in me than he is in himself." It touches me because it's so generous.
Performer
Harmony | It Shoulda Been You | The Phantom of the Opera | Les Miserables | Master Class | Love Never Dies | The Little Mermaid
“What about Love” from The Color Purple. I’ll never forget the first time I saw this song onstage in the original musical and I sobbed my eyes out! Even just hearing it now I cry again!
Performer
Moulin Rouge! | The Notebook
My favorite Broadway love song has to be “Say it Somehow” from The Light in the Piazza. It’s the idea that love can and must surmount any barrier, articulated in such a poetic way and woven into a gorgeous melody that moves me every time.
Performer
You Can't Take It With You | Living on Love
It probably sounds a bit cynical, but "Being Alive" is my favorite. Its the truth of what it can mean to be in a relationship and to love someone.
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