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I don’t keep anything physical from my exes. Even though I remain friends with a good number of them, I have long dispensed of books, love letters, birthday gifts — anything they gave me is now gone, remembered fondly but no longer of use to me. Except! Sometimes I hear a song, and I think, I remember exactly who gave me this song. I remember exactly how lovely it felt when they loved me enough to share that song with me.
So I asked some of my friends whether they had any love songs that they still love today, originally given to them by exes. Much like Kayla’s “most romantic songs” list, I should have suspected that this would cause chaos in my text message threads. I received over 40 song submissions within two hours. Without further ado, a small sampling of those submissions, regifted here to you. Happy almost Valentine’s Day!
“A Walk Through Hell” – Say Anything
“Sometimes” – My Bloody Valentine
“You and Me” – Penny and the Quarters
“Little Do They Know” – Pool Cosby
“True Blue” – Mark Ronson / Angel Olsen
“Let Me Love You” – Mario
“Sk8er Boi” – Avril Lavigne
“Regret” – New Order
“Poetic Justice” – Kendrick Lamar
“Can You Tell” – Ra Ra Riot
“Here in Your Arms” – hellogoodbye
“400 Lux” – Lorde
“Crane Your Neck” – Lady Lamb
There was also (of course, obviously) a strong and lovely contingent of songs that are more like heartbreak songs. That could be a whole playlist of its own, but here are some of those:
- “I Still Remember” – Bloc Party
- “Call It Off” – Tegan and Sara
- “The Walk” – Mayer Hawthorne
- “On Providence” – Ani DiFranco and Prince
- “Comfortable” – John Mayer
- “Shutter Island” – Jessie Reyes
