VARIANTS OF LOVE

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PLAYLIST
Hear a 37-song collection – Variants on Love – on YouTube and Spotify

READ NOTES ABOUT SOME OF THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS
Charli xcx, Olivia Dean, Lido Pimienta, James Taylor, Rose Cousins, The La’s,
Ryan Adams, Laura Nyro, Billie Eilish, Fugees, Roberta Flack, Tragically Hip, Rihanna, The Cure and more

SONG TRACKLIST
Songs and artists listed

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LOVE AND ITS VARIANTS

Love is complicated. There’s a lot to sing about

Love is work. It’s also joyful and complicated. It demands our attention. At other times, it just is. Love is so many things at once that we can be overwhelmed by it. Or its lack.

Feminist writer bell hooks observes, “When we see love as a combination of trust, commitment, care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility, we can work on developing these qualities or, if they are already a part of who we are, we can learn to extend them to ourselves.”

Her matter-of-fact approach deflates the starry-eyed magic and chemistry society would like us to believe that love is. The gift is in knowing that magic and chemistry are born from the elements hooks names blended with imagination and willingness.

Love is a verb. So wrote author Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. “Love – the feeling is the fruit of love, the verb,” he offers. Yes.

What do love songs have to do with it?

Love and its variants – desire, sex, heartbreak, obsession and more – are the most common topics in popular music. A 2018 study examined Top 40 hits over a 50 year span – 1960 to 2010 – and found that about 67 per cent of lyrics from the Top-40 were about relationships and love, while 30 per cent dealt with sex. All other topics account for three per cent.

What do love songs have to do with it? Quite a lot apparently. Knowing why is simple – love is universal and deeply emotional. It’s a more or less can’t-live-with-it-can’t-live-without-it proposition. And, as mentioned earlier, it’s complicated – so there’s a lot to sing about.

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37 songs for Valentine’s Day (and other times)

The Variants of Love playlist spans 78 years from 1947’s Nature Boy to Olivia Dean’s Man I Love issued last year. Nature Boy, a big hit for Nat King Cole in 1948, has a fascinating back story that starts with its author and early hippie eden ahbez. It’s signature line says, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn / Is just to love and be loved in return.”

Here are a some notes about a few of the other songs:

• This year’s Grammy winner for Best New Artist is Britain’s Olivia Dean who offers 40 seconds of advice on the playlist’s opening song, The Art of Loving

• tiny things by trio Tiny Habits is a sweet riff on domestic bliss. The young group includes Vancouver-born Maya Rae whose been singing since she was 12

• On Love is a Verb, singer John Mayer takes a page from Stephen Covey who wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

• The late Elliot Smith presents a stellar and true to the original version of the Beatles’ song Because

• PEI’s Catherine MacLellan shares her wisdom on Waiting On My Love from her 2019 album Coyote

• Toronto-based Lido Pimienta sings about self love on the gorgeous Te Queria a song that’s part of a larger, often painful, introspection on her 2020 album Miss Colombia, where she explores themes of womanhood, racism, and the complex relationship with her home country

•  There She Goes by the La’s is a 1988 jangle pop song with guitar riffs shimmering, a melodic structure and yearning harmony vocals

• The Beatles’ We Can Work It Out: A smart and ahead of its time song. Who else sang in this vein during the mid-6os? Not many. Brian Wilson, Laura Nyro, John Sebastian, Pete Seeger. A few more?

• U.S. singer Curtis Lovell sings the affecting love song Woman written by lyricist and composer Zoë Viola Scruggs. On Spotify she has 88 followers and her artist statement says: “Zoë is my best friend. I make this with her. We’ve only just begun. She has so much to say. We created this for you.” More please!

• Halifax-based Rose Cousins has been making music for more than 20 years. I saw her for the first time at Vancouver’s St James Square a few months ago and she was nothing short of brilliant. Two of her songs from this year’s Juno-nominated album Conditions of Love Vol. 1 are presented here – I Believe in Love (and it’s very hard) plus That’s How Long (I’ve waited for your love)

• Paramore has been around for 20 years with singer Hayley Williams on lead vocals. She’s released several solo discs including 2025’s Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party which was on a number of year end best-of lists.

Kurated is tuned in.

14 February 2026

Love and Its Variants Track List