Odes to Friendship: the 10 greatest platonic love songs ever
There is a school of thought that love has been afforded too much attention in music. When that argument is touted, it generally refers to romantic love because the lack of songs about its platonic neighbour only adds to the notion that songwriters are all too prone to get weepy about roses and the platitudes of lusty devotion. Thankfully, the likes of The Beatles were switched on enough to offer up a counterpoint.
Music soundtracks all areas of our lives, whether that’s drunkenly screaming home a classic indie anthem arm in arm at a wedding or a ditty that pops on a playlist and reminds you of your niece. The beauty of modern pop is how it transcends our lives, touching upon all kinds of social connections. In fact, songs can even make the bonds we share all the clearer.
These songs are often the most human of all tracks. Friendship itself is a human concept, one that can, ironically, cause havoc. As Kurt Vonnegut happily wrote: “And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: ‘Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies in order to express enmity.'” This is something to be aware of if you think the list below is shit. It may well be that you’re simply coming from the viewpoint of a different group of buddies.
With that in mind, we’ve picked out a playlist of ten gorgeous tracks that fly the flag for platonic love that surely most people will adore. We’ve got a platonic break-up in there from The Libertines, a reassuring message to a godson from ‘Macca’, and even a show of support to an ex-love. Platonic love can take plenty of forms, but it usually results in a bloody beautiful song.
The 10 best platonic love songs:
10. ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ – The Libertines
Love is a messy beast, even among friends. That’s especially true when one part of the pact is spiralling into a drug dependency that is making the relationship untenable. The Libertines very boldly decided to document that in real-time with an anthem that marked their break-up before the event. But hidden within the scathing final throes of their friendship was the bittersweet recognition of the love that had gone before.
Now, Pete Doherty and Carl Barât are buddies again, and there is an added level of profundity and depth to the track. As with a lot of great songs, it has evolved into something new. Rather than chart a bitter break-up, it seems to illuminate the strength of a bond that has been through the mill and then some. All served up on a shimmer sing-along melody.
9. ‘We’re Going To Be Friends’ – The White Stripes
We spend a fair chunk of our lives being children, and then, as soon as puberty hits, we forget all about it. Or at least that’s how fiction seems to convey it. Very rarely in the world of rock ‘n’ roll do you see a song dive back into childhood. ‘We’re Going To Be Friends’ does so with an earnest beauty that makes it just about unique in all of the world.
Simple and wholesome, this masterpiece from The White Stripes perfectly appraises the childhood bonds that sweetly survive on a sentiment of ‘let’s help each other get through this daunting task of growing up’. Within two minutes, the song portrays a sense of shared adventure, gathering confidence through companionship, a bit of hand-holding your way through hardship and all the other innocent facets that make up our first platonic relationships.
8. ‘Now I Know’ – Gintis
Like many friendships entering their 30s, ‘Now I Know’ is ragged and rough but sweet and re-galvanised. The band from Abergele sing of a rough summer, but they also make it clear that the hardship was softened thanks to firm friends. Fittingly, the song refuses to be perfectly neat. As a result, it captures the true rugged nature of friendship – not always clear blue sunshine, but always sanguine.
There’s last night’s beer on its breath, and the clothes it’s wearing aren’t the cleanest, but that only adds to the fidelity of that feeling where a certain golden morning will grace you with absolute gratitude. With softly plucked strings and a smile, the song offers up the old affirmation that a friend in need is a friend indeed. Whatever that means.
7. ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ – The Velvet Underground, Nico
Amid a crisis of confidence, Lou Reed – the so-called prickliest man in rock – decided to offer Nico, the singer he apparently never wanted, a compliment of the highest order. Without that backstory, this sweet indie anthem could perhaps rank among the greatest love songs ever written, but if anything, it is elevated by the fact that Reed seemingly penned it platonically.
With gentle trilling chords and the simplest rhythm chugging of tapping tambourine, the humble track lands like an airport hug. Nico delivers her own salutation with a grace and uniqueness that fortifies the otherwise floaty disposition of the song. All in all, it is a thing of soothing beauty that shows Reed’s softer side, welcoming the world to share in Nico’s own good fortune.
6. ‘Jóga’ – Björk
Trust Björk to transfigure friendship to a “state of emergency”. With a billowing wail of exultancy over stirring strings and a modulating sequencer, the Icelandic singer offers up an ode to her best friend, Jóga. It’s a strange anthem with a musical arrangement that seems to mimic the waxes, and wanes but happy consistency of solid friendship.
The avant-pop track almost makes a case for how friends allow us to be ourselves. Clearly, from the shape of this dramatic ode, Jóga is of a similar quirky disposition to her singing buddy. That sentiment is a cute one to be privy to as a listener. That sense of underscoring sweetness also helps to undercut some of the song’s hifalutin edges, rounding them into a resounding cushion for support when facing the jagged edges of the world.
5. ‘Willow’ – Joan Armatrading
Sometimes, romantic love can transpire towards platonic love. That’s no bad thing. We can often find ourselves gladdened that things didn’t work out the way we once thought we wanted them to. Anthems like Joan Armatrading‘s stunning ‘Willow’ make that clear. With unrivalled devotion, a spurned partner speaks of such love that she’s even willing to help the man she once desired find another romantic match.
This is a tale of devotion told with supreme skill by Armatrading, whose performative brilliance delivers one of the finest vocal displays of the era. Her strained call of “I’m strong” adds poetic depth to the song, the notes swaying like an anchor in stormy seas. There’s a sincerity to the stirring anthem that gives it a wealth of experiential wisdom. The selflessness of the platonic love on display in ‘Willow’ is a beautiful force to behold.
4. ‘Old Friends’ – Simon & Garfunkel
The Simon & Garfunkel album Bookends is an ode to the enduring power of friendship. Complete with snippets of conversation recorded in an old folks’ home, the folk duo presented the world with an endearing masterpiece that had a distinct point of difference from the many hand-holding songs that were dominating the charts, tapping into deeper sentiments.
Oddly enough, ‘Old Friends’ might not be one of the strongest efforts on the record melodically, but anything appraising platonic bonds would be left lacking without it. Purposefully plucked notes score a story of old pals meeting on a park bench. Weathered by bygone years, their simple presence is something to take heart in as Paul Simon offers up beautiful poetry, such as: “The sounds of the city sifting through trees, settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends”.
3. ‘Lean on Me’ – Bill Withers
Bill Withers was a working man until Graham Nash heard him in a studio wearily making his way through another false promise. He recognised his greatness and instantly pushed for the record to receive proper production and promotion. The rest is history. But it also left Withers in a strange predicament. All the previous songs he had written came naturally to him over months. Now, he was sat in front of a Wurlitzer he had just bought, trying to think of what to write.
“I like the way that phrase, ‘Lean On Me’, sounds with this song,” he said to himself as he worked away on a melody. “So you go back and say, ‘How do I arrive at this as a conclusion to a statement? What would I say that would cause me to say Lean On Me?'” he told Songfacts. “At that point, it’s between you and your actual feelings, you and your morals and what you’re really like. You probably do more thinking about it after it’s done.” That typifies the sincerity behind this song: a message of support to a loved one.
2. ‘Khala My Friend’ – Amanaz
In the midst of Zambian independence, a cultural revolution was born, and a small group of miners and former colonial freedom fighters formed a band called Amanaz. This band of brothers would record a song called ‘Khala My Friend’. It is a honeyed masterpiece. Sadly, however, it is also a record that mirrors the bittersweet reality of the scene itself. The glowing brilliance of emergent Zamrock would come to an abrupt end. Zambia would be ravaged by HIV in the 1980s, and nearly all the bands would die.
This anthem looks at the tragic state of affairs without any cynicism. The melody jangles away in the background. Instruments harmonise and then pull apart like the best poetry, where every word is somehow inevitable yet deeply confounding. And over this sweet sweeping serenity comes a voice that sounds so lived in, so caring and considerate, that it feels like an old friend itself, singing “the world is full of misery” and yet with the next line delivers the words “my friend” and “I’m gonna miss you” with such truth and unabated soul-bearing, that it not only reminds the listener of what friendship, platonic or otherwise, can be, but it celebrates companionship with a splendour that rises above the malaise of the previous line towards euphoria.
1. ‘Hey Jude’ – The Beatles
This historic song originated in May 1968, during a time when John Lennon was settling his separation from his first wife, Cynthia. “I started with the idea ‘Hey Jules’, which was Julian [Lennon’s first son], don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better,” Paul McCartney said in an interview with Barry Miles in 1997. ‘Hey Jude’ was his shot at offering a ray of sunshine to a young friend who he knew was in need.
As the inspiration behind the song suggests, ‘Hey Jude’ began as a message of reassurance to Julian Lennon during the time of his parent’s divorce. Thereafter, the song taps into a more universal message of staying strong during times of hardship and trying to transfigure the situation through defiance. In part, this is emblematic of how The Beatles remain a platonic friend to the world at large. Sadly, Julian has since been “driven up the wall” by the catchiness of ‘Hey Jude’.
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