If you’re reading this, you hopefully have something nice planned for someone special on Valentine’s Day, though maybe you’re single — a hopeless romantic, or a curmudgeonly loner — or maybe you clicked onto this page by accident. (Great job, if that’s the case! That almost never happens on the Internet of 2024.)
Whatever your reason for being here, congratulations! You’re getting a mini-Valentine’s Day gift in the form of a playlist. Actually, two gifts, because instead of the usual romantic standards, we’ve programmed some surprise finds from soundtracks, those wonderful havens of obscurities and gems. Instead of asking Stevie Wonder calling to say I love you for the millionth time, try the below ballad from his 1979 soundtrack to a documentary about plant life. Queue up these songs and your date will praise your exquisite taste. The rest is up to you.
Stevie Wonder, “Send One Your Love”
Taylor Swift may have just won one more Album of the Year Grammy than Stevie Wonder, but that’s only because after picking up his third Album of the Year trophy, Stevie got strange. His follow-up to for Songs in the Key of Life was Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, a head-turning soundtrack to a little-seen stop-motion documentary that mixes instrumentals with tough-to-penetrate soundscapes that lack the punch of classics like “Superstition” or “I Wish.” Nestled in the middle of the double album, however, is “Send One Your Love,” a delicate romantic ballad more in line with what fans were expecting. It splits the difference between deep funk and old-world romantic serenade, with Stevie urging the delivery of “a flower from your heart” in place of a dozen roses.
Teddy Pendergrass, “Dream Girl”
If the hateful disco backlash didn’t damage Chic’s reputation, Soup for One certainly ran that risk. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards curated the soundtrack to this forgotten sex comedy, offering previously released cuts by Sister Sledge and Debbie Harry alongside a few new songs that range from decent (“Rebels Are We”) to quite good (“Why,” a funky number sung by Carly Simon). The real winner, though, is the gorgeous “Dream Girl,” which pairs a lush, string-laden Chic groove with the R&B rasp of Teddy Pendergrass, who recorded the song (and appeared in the film) shortly before the car crash that left him paralyzed for the rest of his career. It’s an underrated highlight for both Pendergrass and Chic, and one that’s sure to inspire a Valentine’s dedication or two.
Baxter Robinson, “Feel the Night”
In 1984, The Karate Kid was kind of like Rocky for teens—both films starred an affable, Italian-American actor, were directed by John G. Avildsen and featured a soundtrack from composer Bill Conti. The light, dramatic Karate Kid score didn’t have the commercial fortune or cultural staying power of the Rocky theme “Gonna Fly Now,” but Conti scored points by co-writing the frothy “Feel the Night,” which soundtracked a date montage between Ralph Macchio’s heroic Daniel and his main squeeze, the affluent Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue). If your idea of a good Valentine’s Day involves mini-golf and a smooch or two in a photo booth, this is the song for you.
Patti Labelle, “If You Asked Me To”
The James Bond film series is well-known for the often brassy and seductive songs that score the opening titles of each film. Licence to Kill, Timothy Dalton’s second and final outing as 007 in 1989, had Gladys Knight singing the title tune, but a secondary cut on the soundtrack album had a much longer tail. Patti LaBelle’s “If You Asked Me To” was a glossy, passionate song (written by 15-time Oscar nominee Diane Warren) far better suited for American pop radio than British secret agentry. Astoundingly, this Top 10 R&B hit didn’t get very far on the Billboard Hot 100 until 1992, when a nearly identical arrangement by a rising Canadian chanteuse named Celine Dion became her third Top 10 single.
Prince, “Joy in Repetition”
Prince had a fascinating relationship with film soundtracks. We all know Purple Rain, and some of us still have copies of Parade (the companion album to his second film Under the Cherry Moon — the one with “Kiss” on it) or that album of songs inspired by Tim Burton’s Batman. His weirdest film project was easily Graffiti Bridge, a surreal Purple Rain sequel he wrote and directed in 1990. (Legend has it that Madonna turned down a starring role after reading the screenplay.) But the accompanying soundtrack actually kind of ruled: a collection of mostly repurposed outtakes — a few of these songs had been kicking around as early as 1981 — with a new pop hit, “Thieves in the Temple,” added for good measure. Some of the best songs defy easy commercialization and go for the love and lust we still enjoy from Prince’s best work. Take “Joy in Repetition,” a torrid guitar blazer recorded for Crystal Ball, a 1986 triple album that was cut to two discs and released as Sign O’ the Times.
Polaris, “Everywhere”
Single folks need love on Valentine’s Day, and TV should also get respect for what it contributes to soundtracks. One of the best TV albums is by Polaris (an off-shoot of alt-rock heroes Miracle Legion), which recorded a cadre of songs for the offbeat Nickelodeon comedy The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Anyone who’s ever queued up the show’s theme song “Hey Sandy” on YouTube knows the instant nostalgia that comes with every guitar jangle, but all of Music from The Adventures of Pete & Pete is like that — sometimes painfully so. Take “Everywhere,” a beautifully wounded song about being unable to get a lost lover out of your head, duly dedicated to the lonely hearts out there today. (That Polaris singer/songwriter Mark Mulcahy lost his wife in 2008 makes this song a little extra weighty.)
Sade, “Please Send Me Someone to Love”
Philadelphia earned Oscars in 1994 for its star Tom Hanks (who portrayed of a lawyer suing for wrongful termination while dying of AIDS) and Bruce Springsteen, whose “Streets of Philadelphia” also netted four Grammys including Song of the Year. The accompanying album is a platonic ideal of soundtracks, offering solid originals that never found an album home of their own (Neil Young’s “Philadelphia,” Peter Gabriel’s “Lovetown”) and quirky covers (Indigo Girls doing Crazy Horse, Spin Doctors taking on Creedence Clearwater Revival). The best of the latter category is a laid-back but yearning take on Percy Mayfield’s “Please Send Me Someone to Love” done by recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee Sade.
Michael Penn & Aimee Mann, “Two of Us”
The right soundtrack concept can lift an album up beyond its status as a companion piece to the film. The Jim Carrey/Farrelly brothers dark comedy Me, Myself & Irene went for that that trick in 2000 by making half the album covers of Steely Dan songs; a year later, the treacly I Am Sam (featuring Sean Penn as an intellectually disabled single dad) upped the ante with a companion album full of Beatles covers. There’s risk in having humanity’s most acclaimed group interpreted by everyone from Sarah McLachlan and Eddie Vedder to Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright — measuring up will not be easy — but everyone mostly walks away unscathed. One of the album’s best cuts is “Two of Us,” a song that’s best sung with a partner. Lennon and McCartney were at the end of their road together when they recorded it; Aimee Mann and Michael Penn (Sean’s older brother) were four years into their marriage. (You can also find a great version by Crowded House frontman Neil Finn and his eldest son Liam, from the album’s overseas edition.)
Sing Street, “Up”
Irish director John Carney knows how to pick the right music for his movies. His 2007 breakthrough Once netted Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová a Best Song Oscar for “Falling Slowly,” and 2013’s Begin Again earned another Academy Award nomination for “Lost Stars,” a heart-tugging tune co-written by New Radicals mastermind Gregg Alexander. Bizarrely, the tunes for Sing Street, an ‘80s coming-of-age drama about a teenage band, earned no awards, though principal songwriter Gary Clark (of Scottish pop group Danny Wilson) certainly deserved the acclaim. One of the film’s best songs, “Up,” is the titular band’s first song to sound more than a pastiche of whoever was on the radio at the time — and it perfectly, timelessly captures the rush of falling head over heels for the first (or 50th) time.
Bruce Springsteen, “I’ll Stand by You”
No stranger to deeply felt love songs or movie soundtracks, the Boss’ most underrated contribution to the latter category may be a musical cameo over the end credits of Blinded by the Light, a dramedy based on the memoir of Sarfraz Manzoor, a Pakistani journalist who fell in love with Springsteen’s music living in England in the ‘80s. “I’ll Stand by You” is a simple, sincere number of dedication that is particularly striking because of its odd backstory: Bruce didn’t write the song for this film, but was inspired after reading the Harry Potter books with his children to submit the song for inclusion in the first film based on that series. It was unsurprisingly rejected — but there’s your proof that even a rock legend can be a misfit sometimes. May Valentine’s Day bring you a little love and a lot of kindness — the kind of stuff that makes work like Springsteen’s so engaging.
