Far Out 40: The songs to soundtrack to a crush
There has never been a more appropriate word than ‘crush’. That’s what it is. Not as deep as love yet something quite as passionate. You meet someone, and they sit heavy in your mind, pressing down on your brain, your chest, wherever their hands may have touched you or wherever you hope they might touch, and the butterflies in your stomach are working overtime, trying and failing to shake it off.
Love has been unpacked over and over. It is the foundation of all art, realistically. Since music began, it has sung of the feeling, as adoration and heartbreak are two of the most powerful and inspirational experiences humans can have. It’s the pinnacle of human connection and one of the sharpest sensations we have in our emotional arsenal. But a crush is something different.
It’s a singular feeling—half excitement, half fear. While love songs often sing of big grand sentiments, ‘All You Need Is Love’, ‘I Will Always Love You’, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, a crush is more tentative. It’s fragile, but that’s what makes it so thrilling. If love songs sing of all-in emotions, songs to soundtrack a crush are the first toe in the rocky waters of the stuff. It’s the giddy knowledge that this could be dangerous, but you’ve already started to wade into it anyway.
Scared, thrilled, yearnful, hyper, intrigued, introspective, sometimes melancholic, sometimes manically overjoyed—a crush is exactly that: one big mush of everything at once centring the thought of one person.
But love and crushes do share one thing; both are experienced uniquely by everyone. While both are universal experiences that no one lives this life without going through, each person thinks they invented the feeling. So, in order to soundtrack a crush, there has to be a spectrum, and I’ve got you covered.
Feeling exhilarated? Hit play on Spectrum, David Bowie, Caroline Polachek. Feeling worried about where it could all go? Get introspective with The Blue Nile, Radiohead, Maximillian. Feeling cinematic in the way only a crush can cause? Borrow from the movie scores and listen to Air, Françoise Hardy, Brenda Lee. From youthful indie rock for new love affairs that make you feel young again to post-punk to comfort your lingering fear of the fun collapsing—every side of the complex emotion is right here.
In the words of Matt Maltese, “I should get a PhD in yearning all the time,” and I’d present this thorough playlist as my thesis. Indulge in the experience, daydream about your crush, and text them this playlist because why not?
Songs to soundtrack a crush:
- Françoise Hardy – ‘Le temps de l’amour’
- Air – ‘Playground Love’
- Ethel Cain – ‘Crush’
- The Bobby Fuller Four – ‘Let Her Dance’
- The Last Shadow Puppets – ‘Miracle Aligner’
- Spectrum – ‘How You Satisfy Me’
- The Little Dippers – ‘Forever’
- Maximilian – ‘Red Wine’
- The Blue Nile – ‘The Downtown Lights’
- Fräulein – ‘Feels Like Flying (Day)’
- The Beach Boys – ‘All I Wanna Do’
- Shelly – ‘Steeeam’
- Arctic Monkeys – ‘Fire and the Thud’
- VAGUE003 – ‘How to Tell the Girl of Your Dreams You Love Her’
- Wolf Alice – ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’
- The Japanese House – ‘Touching Yourself’
- Del Water Gap – ‘Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat’
- Joan Jett – ‘Crimson and Clover’
- Japanese Breakfast – ‘Everybody Wants to Love You’
- Angel Olsen – ‘Shut Up Kiss Me’
- Life Without Buildings – ‘The Leanover’
- New Order – ‘Age of Consent’
- Jeff Buckley – ‘Everybody Here Wants You’
- The Cure – ‘Just like Heaven’
- Westside Cowboy – ‘I’ve Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Realy Love (Until I Met You)’
- Luvcat – ‘Love & Money’
- Fontaines DC – ‘It’s Amazing to Be Young’
- Picture Parlour – ‘Judgement Day’
- Brenda Lee – ‘Sweet Nothin’’
- Leonard Cohen – ‘Memories’
- Shuggie Otis – ‘Sweet Thang’
- Joni Mitchell – ‘Help Me’
- David Bowie – ‘Let Me Sleep Beside You’
- Caroline Polachek – ‘So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’
- Radiohead – ‘Talk Show Host’
- The Modern Lovers – ‘I Wanna Sleep in Your Arms’
- The Crystals – ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’
- The Shangri-Las – ‘Give Him a Great Big Kiss’
- Willie J Healey – ‘Tiger Woods’
- Matt Maltese – ‘Pined For You My Whole Life’
