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Did you ever turn on the oldies station and feel like those classic songs were describing your current love life perfectly? That’s probably because as you were growing up, no matter what generation you grew up in, these songs taught you how to love. From early rock and roll to Motown to classic girl groups, these songs teach us so much about what love is, how much it hurts when it goes wrong, and how we can get it right.
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
The Tracks of My Tears
Smokey Robinson had a way of making a sad song sound glad. But just like the gloom behind the Miracles’ shining vocals, behind the façade of the character in this song lies a sad, broken-hearted man. Anyone who’s ever been dumped by someone they really loved and tried to pretend to be fine when they saw their ex in public knows the ritual he’s going through. We laugh, we smile, we go on ridiculous rebound dates with the first eligible people we run across. Outside, we’re masquerading, but inside our hopes are fading. It’s a theme Robinson would take to No. 1 years later with “Tears of a Clown.”
Save the Last Dance for Me
Love is not about possession, and nobody understood that more than this song’s co-creator, Doc Pomus. A victim of polio who used crutches to get around, he still enjoyed going out with his wife, a Broadway performer and dancer, and it wasn’t a problem if she wanted to dance with other men—as long as she’d never “give her heart to anyone” and made sure to save her true love for him at the end of the night. This song teaches us about the tender love that happens at home that’s only enhanced by freedom outside the home. And as performed by Ben E. King and the Drifters, it actually makes for great slow dancing.
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