The Friday Five: Five Valentine Songs

The Friday Five 1 Minute

We all know what this Sunday is: the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius.

CPIDBOW1

Just kidding (although it is now C&M’s day, that is, if it weren’t also the First Sunday of Lent). That’s right, it’s Valentine’s Day, or as we like to call it, Black Friday for the candy, floral, and greeting card businesses. Mary already has her Valentine’s Day gift: she bought a class from Craftsy.

Today we have five songs with “Valentine” in the title to celebrate the occasion.

  1. My Funny Valentine – Chaka Khan: The standard for Valentine’s Day songs. I liked the way Chaka sang this one better than anyone else.
  2. My Valentine – Paul McCartney: Natalie Portman does the song in American Sign Language along with Sir Paul. I think it adds something.
  3. My Valentine – Martina McBride: Martina is joined by New Age/Adult Contemporary artist Jim Brickman on piano.
  4. Won’t You Be My Valentine – Dore Alpert: In his pre-Tijuana Brass days, Herb Alpert tried to become a teen idol and recorded ten songs under the name Dore Alpert, including this one. He has a nice voice, but I think the world’s a better place with him playing trumpet.
  5. Blue Valentines – Tom Waits: What would the holiday be without a song from Tom Waits? Notice he practically belches out the first word of the song. How Tom Waits of him.

So, there’s your Friday Five. Happy Valentine’s Day this Sunday!

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

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9 thoughts on “The Friday Five: Five Valentine Songs”

  1. Pingback: Valentine’s Day The Week That Was | The Sound of One Hand Typing

  3. I never much cared for the song “My Funny Valentine” until I heard the beautiful instrumental rendition done by the Don Shirley Trio on their “In Concert” recording from 1968. He turned it from a nice little pop melody into an almost classical sounding masterpiece. Sadly so little of his music is found on YouTube.

    Chaka’s version is nice.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    Tossing It Out

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      1. Quite interesting, from the bowed bass to the quartal harmony he gets into. There was a period in the late 1950’s, starting with John Coltrane, where players were experimenting with modal scales, quartal and quintal harmony, interesting chord voicings (e.g. the famous “So What” chord) and other obscure bits of music theory. A lot of younger players have picked up where they left off.

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    2. There are hundreds of versions of “MFV” on YouTube, including Sinatra’s and Ella Fitzgerald’s, but Chaka’s was the most interesting one I heard. I remember her from Rufus. Interesting trivia: Rufus was started by members of The American Breed (“Bend Me, Shape Me”).

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