Credit: Far Out / Richard Thompson

Patti Smith’s favourite love songs

Sun 1 June 2025 2:30, UK

“When I think of people being in love,” Patti Smith said in 2016, “I think of it in the highest possible way. We love all kinds of people we’ve never met—actors, actresses, or writers—because they’re so wonderful. We use the term ‘love’ in many nice ways, but truly being in love with somebody is very deep”.

Patti Smith is one of those writers people around the world have fallen in love with without ever really meeting. But millions have met her through her music. Music has always been a powerful tool in the trade of love. We have records of ancient love songs that date back over 4,000 years to Mesopotamian times. We write songs for the people we love, but we also share other people’s songs with them. And it’s not just people we fall for – it’s the songs themselves, too. We all have tracks buried deep in our hearts that remind us of better, wilder, younger, more carefree days. Days when we were kids. Days when we were just getting started on the roads to the rest of our lives.

When you think of Patti Smith, though, it’s not only her love songs that define her. She is the poetic face of punk for a reason, and her songs like ‘People Have the Power’ are about more than personal relationships. She has consistently spoken out about issues surrounding civil rights, social justice, gender politics, LGBTQ+ rights and environmental causes, among other things.

It may not be so punk to say so out loud, but at the root of all progressive ideology is a deep love for humanity, a great love for each other. Throughout her life, Patti Smith has been guided by both her love for her fellow people, her love for the manipulation of language into verse, and her love of music.

In 1969, one of Smith’s heroes, Bob Dylan, who she used to pretend was her boyfriend when she was young, sang that “love is all there is, it makes the world go round. Love and only love, it can’t be denied.” He’s not alone in believing that. Love is the most universal experience we share, and it’s the most universal topic to write about. Every great artist built their career on great love songs, and every great audience formed through people coming together and sending that love back to the artist.

When Smith was asked in 2014 to name some of her favourite songs, Dylan was naturally present in her list. Her selection of his astounding 1965 Bringing It All Back Home cut ‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ should come as no surprise. It’s filled with the same kind of deeply and darkly poetic turns of phrase that Smith herself would go on to become so revered for. It’s full of grit and real life, social justice and reality.

Some of her selections were more surprising, though, and especially when it came to her favourite love songs. Reaching back to 1934 to the wonderfully charming ‘I Love You Truly’ by Al Bowlly (whose other big love song from that year, ‘The Very Thought of You’, is one of the most moving, wonderful and timeless love songs ever released) and then moving on to selections such as the sweeping, doo-wop infused slow dance ‘My Hero’ by The Blue Notes.

Elsewhere in her list were the different stages of love. The thrill and suspense of waiting, longing, hoping and willing before the love begins in earnest are present in both the lyrics and delivery of ‘Un bel dì, vedremo’, from Puccini’s ‘Madama Butterfly’, whilst Martha and the Vandellas sing about the scorching effects of desire in ‘Heatwave’. The flip-side of love songs are heartbreak songs. Devastating tales of love lost, hearts shattered and dreams turned to nightmares. No such songs are more heartbreaking than Skeeter Davis’ ‘The End of the World’.

You don’t hear much of these songs making their mark on or way into Patti Smith’s own work, but with the tender care, heartfelt emotion and transcendent natural abilities that run through the vocals by Bowlly and Harold Melvin, Davis and Martha Reeves, it’s no wonder that the young Patti Smith would hear these songs and then go on to hold love in such a lofty regard.