[I know it might not be very 2024 of me to say, but love is in the air, and not just because it’s Valentine’s week. If you’re feeling it too, or maybe if you need a little help getting into the V-Day spirit, this week I’ll quickly highlight the AmericanStudies stories behind a handful of our great past love songs, leading to a special post on current ones that have hit my heart. Add your Valentine’s tunes in comments, please!]
It’s no
coincidence that the first song I highlighted in this week’s series, “At Last,”
made its debut as part of a feature film, as the relationship between
love songs and movies is a longstanding and multilayered one (far beyond
just great soundtracks
for romantic comedies, although that’s part of the story to be sure). Mostly
those are existing songs that the films adapt to their own purposes, but
sometimes an original love song is written for a film—and an even rarer sometimes
that song is both beautiful on its own and a pitch-perfect accompaniment to the
movie in question. Checking off every one of those boxes for me is “Storybook Love,” a song
written by singer-songwriter
Willy DeVille and arranged by Dire Straits’ lead singer and guitarist Mark Knopfler for the closing credits
of The Princess Bride (the beloved 1987
Rob Reiner film for which Knopfler wrote the whole soundtrack). My favorite thing
about “Storybook Love” is that it is a love song about love songs, and more
exactly about how those songs (and films as well) present an idealized vision
of romantic love and partnerships—but how, as I can very well attest, reality
does occasionally and amazingly live up to those ideals.
Last love
song tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other love songs you’d AmericanStudy?
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