Combining the fatalism of lines like ‘what good would living do me’ with the use of God in the title was risky business back in the mid-’60s. Once that miasmic mix of harpsichords and celestial brass clears, and that opening caveat is laid bare, we’re left with a heartbreakingly tender song of yearning, of devotion and of fidelity. The uncertainty of the first line (‘I may not always love you’) is a classic pop curveball, which works with the swooping transition from intro to verse. Three years later, Wilson and the Boys would surpass the master with a song that lifted the notion of the sophisticated love song clean into the heavens. In 1963, Brian Wilson was so obsessed with Phil Spector’s orchestral vision for the Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’ that he reportedly took to listening to it 100 times a day. When that happens, head to our list of the best breakup songs instead. Of course, there are days when a great love song is the last thing you want to hear. Sometimes the music says as much as the words sometimes the words are more powerful than the most beautiful of poems.

They’re touching, comforting and uplifting all at the same time. The only constant is that the best love songs express sentiments that we’d struggle to put into words in real life.

While you’ll find some great pop ballads on this list, they’re foremost here as a reflection of the glorious breadth of what constitutes a love song, a form claimed by no one genre. And yes, there have been a lot of syrupy, formulaic declarations of affection churned out for the pop charts over the years, but that’s not what we’re about here. From yearning ballads to wrenching declarations of need, from madrigals to metal, the history of music is the history of love songs, and vice versa.

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