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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
The View Upstairs
"Love I Hear” from Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. "I pine, I blush, I squeak, I squawk, today I woke to week to walk, what's love I hear, I feel, I fear, I know I am, I'm sure, I mean, I hope, I trust, I pray, I must be in!"
Performer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Sister Act | School of Rock
I'm gonna take it back, old school - "Something Good" from The Sound of Music. I love a love that is staring at your right in the face for a while before you realize it.
Performer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factor | Motown
I have two favorite Broadway love songs...they are "Love Changes Everything" from Aspects of Love, and "So In Love" from Kiss Me Kate! I think that both of these songs are beautiful, both melodically and lyrically, and they perfectly capture so much about what it can feel like to be in love.
Performer
School of Rock | Legally Blonde
My favorite is "Love to Me" from The Light In the Piazza.
Creative
Significant Other
That's easy, it's "Would You Light My Candle?" I was a total Renthead as a kid, I love that song, I could perform it for you right now but I'm not going to, perfectly in tune with all the right words. I love that song.
Performer
Come From Away | Billy Elliot | Annie
Thirty some years ago I played the sea captain who delivers Anna to Siam and comes and picks her up at the end of The King And I. During the intervening 3 hours, I would play gin with the actor playing the ambassador but we would always pause our game to listen to the beautiful love duet "I Have Dreamed". You can't do better than Rogers and Hammerstein.
Performer
Come From Away | Rent | Jesus Christ Superstar | The Scottsboro Boys
Easy. My favorite Broadway love song would have to be “Without You” from RENT.
Performer
Waitress
My favorite Broadway love song is "Gold" from Once. Everything about it is beautiful- the instrumentation, the lyrics, the passion, the Irish sound. The song as a whole is soulful, emotional, and moving. It's the song you wish was written about you.
Performer
The Present
"Some Enchanted Evening” for its soaring romanticism, melody and wonder in that first magical moment, “If I Loved You" for its truthful perfection, and finally - I'm greedy but it’s love and the world is going to need it - "One Hand, One Heart” from the masterpiece that is West Side Story. It is quite simply pure and very beautiful - play it once a week for the next four years, America!
Performer
Sunset Boulevard | Aladdin
My favorite Broadway love song is "A Whole New World" from Aladdin because I think it's what it's all about.
Performer
Natasha | Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812
Honestly, right now it would be “No One Else” from The Great Comet! It's a gorgeous sentiment, and the string orchestrations that maestro Malloy crafted to accompany Natasha send me straight to heaven every night. I also adore “Wait” from Sweeney Todd.
Performer
Come From Away | Into The Woods | Memphis
“My Time of Day” from Guys and Dolls.
While it’s not about love of another person of which he sings, the swooning nostalgia for a time and place in this city gets me every time.
Performer
Beardo
One of my favorites (at least my favorite right now) is "With So Little to Be Sure Of" from Anyone Can Whistle. It's such a simple yet complex look at a relationship while you're in it, but also looking at it from the future, after the relationship is over. Because who doesn't love a little bit of ambivalence in their love songs?
Performer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | On The Town | An American in Paris
One of my favorite Broadway Love songs is "Lucky To Be Me" from On The Town. The show has such a special place in my heart and the melody and lyrics complement each other so beautifully. But since that's a solo, if I had to pick a Broadway love duet, I'd choose "Love Song" from Pippin or "Ten Minutes Ago" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.
Performer
Dear Evan Hansen
My choice of a Broadway love song is actually a compilation! They are from Next To Normal and I couldn't pick just one because Tom Kitt created an entire beautifully executed love balled in all four of these reprises. I love the composition and the story. "Perfect For You," "Hey #1," "Hey #2" and "Hey #3." Tom Kitt wrote some gorgeous music.
Performer
Come From Away
“Stop The World” from Come From Away. Two real people discovering the sudden surprise of love.
Performer
In Transit | Wicked | Anything Goes | Amazing Grace
"My Heart is So Full of You" from Most Happy Fella is one of my absolute favorites. It completely captures that feeling of your heart just bursting with love for someone with it's simple, perfect lyrics and sweeping music.
Performer
Natasha | Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812
“Can You Feel the Love Tonight”! I know this wasn't written for Broadway, but come on. Thanks, Sir Elton John!
Performer
Sunset Boulevard | Mamma Mia! | Wonderland
"One Hand, One Heart" from West Side Story.... oh yeah! This song makes me cry every time I hear it! I love the simple beautiful optimistic lyric with that gorgeous sweeping melody! Always reminds me of the time my husband, Paul Rolnick, and I first admitted we loved each other. In my head, there was this song playing!!! And here we are 26 years later ... and at our 18 wedding anniversary! Happy Anniversary, PR!
Performer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
My favorite Broadway love song is "Love Don't Turn Away" from 110 in the Shade. I love the melody and the idea of telling love that you are ready for it!
Performer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark | Memphis
"Ain't Nothin' but a Kiss" from the musical Memphis. The sparks flew with my dance partner as we danced together during that song. We are married now and I blame the drums and hot choreography for the beginning of our love story.
Performer
Puffs
"People Will Say We're in Love" from Oklahoma! I'm a sucker for the classics.
Performer
Bandstand | Grease | Bonnie and Clyde | Cinderella
My favorite, most romantic Broadway love-song ever is "Some Enchanted Evening." In addition to the gorgeous melody and orchestration, the lyrics are so beautifully pure and romantic. It's about love at first sight, that unexplainable feeling of finding true love from across a crowded room. It makes me cry almost every time I hear it.
Performer
Bandstand
"Hero and Leander" by Adam Guettel (from Myths and Hymns)
Adam Guettel is a genius. Somehow he has found music and lyrics to translate the peaks and crashes of love, into song.
Geoff Packard.
Performer
Wit | Jitney
I think one of my favorite Broadway love songs is "Some Enchanted Evening." I know it's super old school and it's not a full-on "I love you, I love you" but it's that spark that happens when you first feel the feeling. I grew up listening to one of the versions of the soundtrack to South Pacific. The concept of seeing someone across a crowded room and that magic that happens always got me and it still does.
Performer
In Transit
Hmm...that's a tough one but I'd definitely have to go with "You Matter to Me" from Waitress. It's literally one of the most beautiful love songs ever written in my opinion.
Performer
Puffs
"Tonight" from West Side Story. The whole song is the feeling of first falling in love: the heartbeat created by the strings, the way the tempo ebbs and flows almost like someone getting excited and then taking a deep breath over and over. Plus, you can't beat the lyric ‘today the world was just an address/a place for me to live in/no better than all right/now here you are/and what was just a world is a star.
Performer
The Front Page | Is He Dead? | Lovemusik
One of my favorite Broadway love songs is "I Don't Know His Name" from She Loves Me. It's all about meeting someone and them revealing their inside as opposed to just judging them from the outside, because they meet through the letters. That's a really pretty one.
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