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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
Sweeney Todd | The Music Man | Violet | Anything Goes | Shrek | Little Women | Thoroughly Modern Millie
I'm a big fan of "I Turned the Corner" from Thoroughly Modern Millie. That's a pretty good love song!
Performer
Shucked | Once On This Island
It’s a tossup between "My Man" (Funny Girl) and "I Got Love" (Purlie). I love both of these songs for the simplicity of the lyrics in each, and how real they are! They contrast because with "My Man," there's a undertone of triumph in heartbreak and longing, and with "I Got Love," it's literally all about that fresh new love and what emotions are like when it's first starting!
Performer
Mean Girls | KPOP | Sunday in the Park with George | The King and I
Anything from the Rodgers + Hammerstein canon. Most recently, I reheard "Hello Young Lovers" (The King and I) and it made my heart swell, especially: "Be brave young lovers and follow your star. Be brave and faithful and true," to wish goodness and love and togetherness onto others. To pass along happiness and hope to young ones especially: a message we can cling onto today. Isn't that the magic of R + H love songs? Exquisite timelessness.
Director
New York | New York | Crazy for You | Prince of Broadway | Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical | Big Fish | Young Frankenstein | The Producers
My favorite Broadway love song is "Nice Work If You Can Get It," and it's because of those lyrics. It is my favorite love song because "nice work if you can get it."
Performer
The Lion King
Oh wow, how can I pick just one? There are so many beautiful love songs in the Broadway musicals repertoire. But two are pressing on my heart as I write this. "It All Fades Away" from Bridges of Madison County and "Written in the Stars" from Aida - both songs are beautifully written stories of finding, feeling, and experiencing true love and the difficulties of it being forbidden. They definitely tear at your heart.
Performer
Dear Evan Hansen | Cruel Intentions: The Musical | Spring Awakening | Brooklynite
"The One I Love" from Hello Again because it is perfect.
Performer
Rocktopia
My favorite love song from Broadway was from Rock of Ages: "High Enough" by Night Ranger. Just something about the song made me feel like, "okay it's a love song without all the normal dialogue." I was more like a conversation instead of a "I love you because of this." And it was also a great band.
Performer
Rocktopia
My favorite love song is Gerswhin's "The Man I Love." I learned it when I was about 20 years old, and I was asked to sing it for the late, great Beverly Sills at a dinner party, and I was very nervous. I was told it was her favorite song, and now it's become one my very favorite songs as well.
Performer
Wicked
"The Proposal/The Night Was Alive" from Titanic. I love the humanity in that song, so beautifully depicted in the sweeping melodies and lyrics. I can't listen to it without crying.
Performer
Party Face | Red Roses | Green Gold
Chess- "I Know Him So Well" - Brings me back to my childhood every time!!
Performer
Jersey Boys | Mary Poppins | The Boy from Oz | Oklahoma!
My favorite love song is “The Next Ten Minutes” from The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown. The lyrics are so amazing! I swore I’d never sing that song unless I was singing it with the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with, and in 2015 I sang it with my then fiancée Desirée Davar. I had tears in my eyes. Now we are married and expecting!
Performer
Hey | Look Me Over! | The Play That Goes Wrong | Assassins
"Someone to Watch Over Me," by the Gershwins. Nowadays everyone's obsessed with being "strong," but this simple ballad cuts right to the fear, vulnerability, and longing that we all feel, ultimately, underneath those proclamations of strength.
Performer
Rocktopia | Tarzan | Little Shop of Horrors | Jekyll & Hyde | Les Misérables
My favorite Broadway love song is Rodgers + Hammerstein's classic from Carousel, "If I Loved You." I sang it to my wife. She's still with me for 25 years. Oh my god, I don't know why! But, yes. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a classic and that's what we're doing in Rocktopia: you can't deny a classic.
Performer
The Play That Goes Wrong | Finian's Rainbow
I have many, but for the sake of giving one answer I would say "Il Mondo Era Vuoto" from Light in the Piazza.
Performer
School of Rock | Sistas
My song would be "My Funny Valentine" from Babes In Arms. This is a classic song that changes genres from Broadway to Jazz. It is written beautifully, poignant, and makes for a great "Love" song.
Industry
Rocktopia
My favorite love song is "I feel you, Johanna" from Sweeney Todd. It touches me in such a deep way. It goes right to - I've been married for 35 years to the same beautiful woman, I feel her presence. It just kind of puts it right there: "I feel you."
Performer
An American in Paris | Pal Joey
“Maybe This Time” (Cabaret). This song always affected me, even as a child watching the Bob Fosse film. It has such longing and passion that reveal itself more and more, and it’s interesting to see the actress singing it shift back and forth as a broken character that is desperate for rescue.
Performer
The Lion King
My favorite love song is "What About Love" from The Color Purple. It is the perfect example of how two unlikely hearts find love, throwing all caution to the wind amidst a ton of doubt and many obstacles. Sort of like the most beautiful orchid can grow in the rockiest soil, because love is love is...you know the rest.
Performer
Man of La Mancha | Dear World | A Little Night Music
I think this year I would have to say “It Only Takes A Moment” from Hello, Dolly! With this year's revival, I was reminded of how incredible Jerry Herman’s simple melodies are - no one can write like him.
Performer
Red Roses | Green Gold
Since the show wasn't ever officially on Broadway (I don't think) it might not count, but my favorite love song is "Heart an' Hand" from Floyd Collins. It's not about fresh new love, or that rocket-explosion exciting thing. It's a grounded, quiet love and commitment, a vow to be there with and for each other during the most excruciating or terrifying of times. Romance is so much fun, and, this song speaks to me of true, deep, abiding love.
Industry
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical
“If I Loved You” from Carousel. Just an awesome classic Broadway ballad - heartrendingly sweet and complex.
Performer
The Lion King
There are so many amazing Broadway love songs but I'm going with an oldie but goodie. "Tonight" from West Side Story. Classic and timeless.
Performer
Rocktopia
My favorite Broadway love song is "For Good" from Wicked, because it's talking about the love, and the strength, and the power you have in a relationship with someone. And it doesn't necessarily have to be about a boyfriend or girlfriend or husband, wife. It can be about a friend or companion and I think that's really important and special, and just beautiful.
Industry
Lend Me a Tenor | Crazy for You | Moon Over Buffalo
My favorite Broadway love song is "Never Neverland" from Peter Pan, and the reason is: it always touches me. Every time I hear it, there's something in that Jule Styne melody that just tears out my heart. I had the chance of working with Jule Styne. We were in a show together and I know how much heart and love he put into every melody he wrote and I heard this song before I ever met him, and it just tears my heart out every time I hear it. And if that isn't love, I don't know what is.
Performer
Mean Girls
My roommates have caught me on several occasions blasting "If I Were A Bell" from Guys and Dolls. It's so embarrassingly honest - it captures that silly way we fumble about for the right words to describe how love makes us feel. And that lush score just makes my heart go all splooshy.
Performer
Hey | Look Me Over! | The Prom | The Drowsy Chaperone | The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
My favorite Broadway love song would be "Losing My Mind" from Follies. I guess because it so beautifully describes the torturous nature of love. The intense emotion, and the borderline obsession that comes with love. I think it's just an incredibly economical lyric, and a beautiful tune, and a wonderful thing to perform. So that's - whenever I hear that song, I just feel, "oh yeah, love, right. It's not the paradise that we think of it as being. Sometimes." Not to be cynical. But that probably is my favorite Broadway love song.
Performer
Little Women | Thoroughly Modern Millie | Les Miserables
My favorite love song is "Love Walked In" by George Gershwin.
Creative
Aladdin | Newsies | Beauty and the Beast | A Bronx Tale: The Musical | The Little Mermaid
I think my favorite Broadway love song, off the top of my head 'cause there's so many, is "One Hand, One Heart." I just know that when I saw West Side Story and I felt that moment, it was just heartbreaking. Beautiful and heartbreaking. The intimacy, the simplicity of it. But there's a lot.
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