25 Of The Best, Non-Cheesy Love Songs That Give Us The Feels

Is there anything more romantic than featuring the love of your life as a protagonist in your new music video? Frankly no, and that's the unanimously held opinion of Bleachers fans everywhere too.

In Bleachers' new single, 'Tiny Moves', not only does the band's lead singer, Jack Antonoff's new wife Margaret Qualley, feature in the video, but the lyrics are also representative of their young and burgeoning love too. 'The tiniest moves you make, the whole damn world shakes,' Antonoff sings.

First released in 1972, Bill Withers' 'Lean On Me' explains the importance of learning to lean on those who love you and who you love in return. 'Lean on me, when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on...,' he sings.

Whether it's platonic or romantic love, there's something to be said for be a rock for those in your life.

If you're looking for a toe-tapping love song that's crying out to be danced to, Stephanie Mills' 'Never Knew Love Like This Before' is worthy of blasting out.

In it, she sings: 'I never knew love like this before, now I'm lonely never more, since you came into my life.'

A truly classic love song in every sense of the term, Natalie Cole's 'This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)' is not only worthy of a sing-along but also a dance too. As she so delicately sings: 'You've brought a lot of sunshine into my life, you've filled me with happiness I never knew.'

While many understand Bruce Springsteen's 1984 single to be a tale of impossible and unattainable love, it's interpreted by others as a profession of a deep and undying adoration for somebody; a love so searing, Springsteen's 'on fire'.

That intro... makes us inhale and exhale calmly, followed swiftly by a smile instantly breaking out when the beat starts. The lyrics speak to the consuming stages of love where all you want to do is be with a person all the time.

Written and performed by the group's Christine McVie, she sings: 'Something's happening, happening to me. My friends say I'm acting peculiarly. Come on, baby, we better make a start, you better make it soon before you break my heart.'

A classic soul song to warm the cockles of your heart. With lyrics like 'If you love a soul more than fame and gold and that soul feels the same about you, it's a natural fact, there's no turning back... You and me, nobody baby but you and me' it's the perfect song for forever loves. Without a doubt, one of the greatest love songs of all time.

Now hold on, this 1967 song is actually not just another contrived love song, says writer Lian Brooks.

'Even though it's a classic, it's refreshingly self-conscious in its effort not to be just another love song: "I can see it in your eyes, you still despise the same old lines you heard the night before". I love it because of that and because Frank and Nancy Sinatra are just the best.

A classic. An anthem. An icon. But also, this is a love song as ELLE's former beauty editor George Driver tells us: 'I love the lyric, "I'm stuck on your heart". Obviously, I have a lot of love for Tina anyway, but this song slowed down actually makes a great ballad like when Patrick serenades David in Schitt's Creek.'

If you like your Indie rock, 'I Wanna Be Yours' is about as close to a profession of undying love as it gets in this genre. With lyrics like 'I wanna be your vacuum cleaner, breathing in your dust,' it's a playful, and yet somehow still soulful, choice.

Ok, now this may not be a happy ending love song but this is the ultimate tale of unrequited love, says ELLE fashion writer Daisy Murray.

'Etta James sings of watching her true love marry another women and far from charting a Hollywood ending, James doesn't interrupt the nuptials... all she does is cry.'

*Cries*

'Some sweet day, you will be mine, you will be mine' - a song for a love that hasn't quite got itself together. This song is about pining after someone special. It's the sort of song you'd play out of a boombox, standing underneath someone's bedroom in a Dawson's Creek style declaration of intention.

This Johnny Mercer song featured in one of the most romantic films to date and had Breakfast at Tiffanys’ star Audrey Hepburn singing it with a guitar on the window sill of her New York City apartment.

But when Frank Ocean dropped this version on Valentine’s Day in 2018 all our hearts stopped.

'For me the song connects mainly to myself in NYC, I remember the first time I heard it I was walking down Lafayette street at night,’ says presenter and director Fenn O'Meally ‘It's so delicate and powerful at the same time, this one song just brought up so many feelings. It still does, every time I listen to it.’

This is a sort of melancholy love song. Perhaps about a love that hasn't quite seen its course, but is nonetheless in jeopardy. 'Think I want you still, but it may be pills at work...I'm amazed at you, the things you say that you don't do' - a song full of complicated feelings.

An LGBTQ+ lament for a petering relationship, about a love that can't be fully captured and a butterfly that won't be pinned down. Sweet and slightly sorrowful at the same time.

The hauntingly, beautiful 2001 ballad will make anyone with a broken heart weep and feel a little bit less alone in the world.

'The lyrics are really quite lovely – it’s the type of song you can put on when you’re on the train and imagine that you’re in a film,' says fashion editor, Julia Harvey.

'Plus you've got to love a song with a strong violin.'

A slow burn, but a wistful modern classic. With lyrics like 'Nothing's gonna hurt you baby, as long as you're with me you'll be just fine. Nothing's gonna hurt you baby, nothing's gonna take you from my side' - it's a statement of bold intent, almost as good as a wedding vow to be honest.

A break-up song? Perhaps. Or at least a plea to reinvigorate the dying embers of a relationship. With lyrics like: 'I'll drown my beliefs, To have your babies, I'll dress like your niece, And wash your swollen feet, Just don't leave, Don't leave, I'm not living, I'm just killing time, Your tiny hands, Your crazy kitten smile, Just don't leave, Don't leave', it certainly brings a tear to the eye.

The 1967 hit single, recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, became a huge hit in the 1970s when Diana Ross sung it and it went to number one in the US charts and since then, it's become widely accepted as one of the greatest love songs of all time.

It’s all about how far we'd go for those that we love and it's a favourite of singer Joy Crookes.

The 1975 song is about falling head over heels in love and was more recently brought back into the social conscious by FKA Twigs, who recently posted an Instagram video of her pole dancing to it.

Whitney Harrison, a casting director, says of the song: ‘1970s soul music is my favourite music genre – it’s what I grew up to while hearing my mum getting ready to go out. Now, I always listen to this song when I'm getting changed and putting my make-up on for a night out.’