Fill your heart with love songs inspired by real life Songs in the key of St. V By: Jill Wilson Posted: 5:33 PM CST Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/02/2024 (961 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Love is in the air at Prairie Theatre Exchange tonight, where Winnipeg pianist Paul De Gurse will lead an ensemble performing songs inspired by real-life love stories.

Julia Davis (vocals), Jerilyn Bulaong (vocals), Duncan Cox (guitar and other instruments, vocals) and Patricia Vanuci (cello) will join De Gurse on such hits as These Eyes by the Guess Who, If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot and Still the One by Shania Twain (tickets are $30 at pte.mb.ca).

The PTE program focuses on Canadian songs, but of course, true love knows no borders (for his part, De Gurse has a fondness for two songs by American acts: Cake’s Love You Madly and Ben Folds’ The Luckiest, which he played at the rehearsal dinner for his wedding).

We asked Free Press readers to give us the names of their favourite love songs and some stories to go along with them. The result is a playlist sure to set hearts fluttering, whether it’s the soundtrack to second-date jitters, first dances or warm but mournful memories.

A partial list of reader and staff suggestions is attached, but listen below or at wfp.to/lovesongs to a submitted selection of songs to give your Valentine’s Day a sweet sound.

We hear a symphony

You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs, but our Valentine’s Day playlist proves otherwise.

The Shield by Tim Baker: Our second date, all nerves and last-minute outfit changes, was a Tim Baker concert at the Park Theatre in 2022. Almost a year to the day later, Tim returned to Winnipeg to play a solo show at Centre cultural franco-manitobain, and you can bet we were front and centre.

His music has soundtracked our adventures together — including a drive through the Shield — and when we write each other a birthday or Christmas card, there’s usually a Tim Baker lyric inside. “Once a stranger to me but / Now you’re the song in my mouth.” I love you, Allison!

— Jordan Ross

I have two songs to nominate. The first comes from our wedding reception in June 1983. My wife Susan insisted on Endless Love by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. (Not my favourite — I wanted Keep on Loving You by REO Speedwagon, but she correctly stated the lyrics are not suitable for a wedding.)

We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in 2023, taking a cruise of Ireland and a family vacation in the U.K.

Unfortunately, my wife passed away in the fall of 2023, after a brief battle with an incurable brain disease. At her celebration of life we selected this second song from her favourite artist: Your Song by Elton John.

We even used a phrase from the song and changed one word in her memorial card: “How wonderful life was while you were in the world.”

Feb. 14 is also a very special date in our family because it’s the day our daughter was born.

— Charlie Hunter

Downtown by Majical Cloudz: I don’t have a good story about a particular memory or moment for this. There’s no one memory of love or romance or time or place this song captures. It goes one better and captures the feeling of all of them.

— Scott Montgomery

Not a traditional love song, but a bit of love for Manitoba: Moody Manitoba Morning by Rick Neufeld.

— Lou

Still my favourite after 36 years: the Beatles’ In My Life, which was our first dance at our wedding.

— Bill Miller

I have a favourite album, The Best of Roberta Flack, which has a number of great love songs. It is hard to choose just one! But if pressed my favourite would be The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face.

— Linda Dale Ward

Our favourite love song is You Are So Beautiful by Joe Cocker. Our wedding song in 1972!

— T&D Heffner

Sea of Love by the Honeydrippers: I danced with a boy I had a giant crush on to this song at my Grade 12 graduation. I don’t even know where he is now, decades later, but I think of him fondly whenever I hear this song.

— Name withheld

The Book of Love by the Magnetic Fields: Songwriter Stephin Merritt could probably have 100 songs on this list, but I just finished watching the gutting Netflix series One Day, in which this track from the triple album 69 Love Songs figures prominently, so its simple power is fresh in my mind.

— Jill Wilson, Free Press arts editor

• Oh, How Happy by Percy Sledge

• All for You by Sister Hazel

• Sometimes When We Touch by Dan Hill

• Love Resurrection by Alison Moyet

• More Than This by 10,000 Maniacs

— James Hargrove and Olivia Warrington

• Beside You by Tal Bachman

• This Never Happened Before by Paul McCartney

— Noreen Janzen

Some of our memorable songs include one of our first dance songs at our wedding:

• Truly, Deeply Madly by Savage Garden

• My Heart Will Go On by Céline Dion from the Titanic soundtrack, because we saw the movie on Christmas Day 1997 as a unique date movie.

• Perfect by Ed Sheeran; I love this song because it’s so beautifully written and has a special meaning for any couple who truly loves one another.

— M&D

She Makes My Day by Robert Palmer: Palmer is in full crooner mode on this starry-eyed tune: “I feel so lucky loving her / tell me what else is magic for?” Swoon.

— Name withheld

• Blue Caravan by Vienna Teng

• Troublemaker by Grizfolk

• I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkeys

• The Night We Met by Lord Huron

— Free Press artist Kittie Wong

• Don’t Give Up on Me by Solomon Burke

• Hawaii, Public Image Ltd.

— Free Press arts reporter Alan Small

• Never Forget You by Noisettes

— Free Press arts writer AV Kitching

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