The 25 best love songs of the 1970s, ranked

20 January 2025, 10:16

Love is real... real is love.

In the 1970s, rock n roll exploded and splintered into a million genres and movements, from punk and prog to disco and hip-hop.

But in and out of those genres, there was always still room for the humble love song.

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• The 25 best love songs of the 1960s, ranked
• Listen to the Gold Greatest Love Songs Live Playlist on Global Player

For Valentine's Day, and any other day you're feeling particularly loved up, we've rounded up the 25 top love songs of the decade, and ranked them all the way up to the very greatest.

We've restricted ourselves to one song per artist, to stop this being a pure Barry White/Elton John/Commodores fest and let the others have a go.

So pop the roses in a vase, light those candles and put the volume up for some properly loved up melodies...

1. Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight

   

   Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight [Official Live]

   Eric Clapton is well known for his twiddly guitar playing, but one of his best-known and best-loved song is this tender love ballad, written for Pattie Boyd and inspired by her taking her time getting ready for a party.

   Released in 1978, it features future Shakespears Sister star Marcella Detroit – then known as Marcy Levy – on backing vocals and harmonies.

2. Leo Sayer - When I Need You

   

   Leo Sayer - When I Need You (Official HD Music Video)

   'When I Need You' was written Albert Hammond and Carole Bayer Sager and was actually first released on Hammond's album of the same name in 1976.

   But it was Leo Sayer's version from the following year that topped the chart on both sides of the Atlantic (prompting a legal settlement for nicking a bit of Leonard Cohen's 'Famous Blue Raincoat').

3. Captain & Tenille - Love Will Keep Us Together

   

   Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain & Tennille | The Midnight Special

   Written by Neil Sedaka with Howard Greenfield, the song was recorded first by Sedaka in 1973 and then by Mac and Katie Kissoon the same year, but it was Captain & Tennille who turned it into a global hit a couple of years later.

   It was the lead single from their debut album, and also has the honour of inspiring the title of Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'.

4. Bread - Make It With You

   

   Bread - Make It with You

   Bread's David Gates not only wrote 'Make It With You' but actually played every single instrument on the recording, apart from the drums by the band's Mike Botts.

   So he gets the credit for this love rocker that went to number one in the US and number five in the UK on its release in 1970.

5. Bill Withers - Lovely Day

   

   Bill Withers - Lovely Day (Official Audio)

   1977... the year of punk, disco and... this utterly beguiling soulful love song from Bill Withers.

   If you thought Bill sang "I know" a lot in 'Ain't No Sunshine', that's nothing compared to how many times he sings "lovely day" in 'Lovely Day', and he still had enough breath for that stunning record-breaking 18-second note near the end.

6. Chicago - If You Leave Me Now

   

   Chicago - If you leave me now - 1977 (HQ)

   Released ion 1976, Chicago's 'If You Leave Me Now' was one of the biggest songs of the year, topping the charts in the UK, US and countless other countries around the world.

   It was first featured on the album Chicago X before lending its name to their 1983 compilation album.

   In 2010 it even enjoyed a second life as a charity song for the American Cancer Society.

7. Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On

   

   Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On (Official Music Video)

   Many of the songs on this list are deeply concerned with matters of the heart (and soul), but Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On' (and the whole Let's Get It On album) is all about more earthly pleasures.

   Co-written and co-produced with Ed Townsend, this sexed-up classic turned out to not just be one of Marvin Gaye's very best songs, but one of the greatest ever released on the Tamla/Motown label(s) – high praise indeed.

8. Billy Joel - Just The Way You Are

   

   Billy Joel - Just The Way You Are (from Old Grey Whistle Test)

   Produced by Phil Ramone (no relation), 'Just The Way You Are' was Billy Joel's first UK top 20 single and the first to go top 10 in his native US - this from his fifth studio album The Stranger.

   The inspiration came from a dream and also Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' 'Rag Doll', and the song was written for his fist wife/business manager Elizabeth Weber.

   The story goes that Billy wasn't entirely convinced by the song but was sensibly talked round into including it on the album by Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow, who had been working in the same studio.

9. Edison Lighthouse - Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)

   

   Edison Lighthouse - Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) (Official Video)

   Written by Tony Macaulay and Barry Mason, 'Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)' was recorded by Tony Burrows and a clutch of session players, but wasn't released under his name.

   Instead Macaulay came up with the pretend band Edison Lighthouse, and when the song became a hit they nabbed a real group Greenfield Hammer to mime along to the recording on Top of The Pops. That band then became Edison Lighthouse as their career continued.

   It was a charttopping hit at the start of the 1970s, and then re-surfaced in the 2020s after gaining popularity on TikTok.

10. Commodores - Three Times A Lady

    

    Commodores - Three Times A Lady [Live]

    Before he was a solo superstar, Lionel Richie was the main man in smooth-as-can-be Commodores, who racked up the hits in the 1970s.

    Among the very best is this dreamy love song, written and sung by Richie of course, that became the band's first number one single.

    Its title was supposedly inspired by Riche's father's toast to his mum at their wedding anniversary: "She's a great lady, she's a great mother, and she's a great friend."

11. Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

    

    Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge over Troubled Water (from The Concert in Central Park)

    While they dabbled in traditional folk, Dylanesque protest and lysergic electricity, Simon & Garfunkel could do wonders with the simple love song.

    It shimmers, it soars, it's powered by the truest of love that only the deepest of friendships can give ("I'm on your side").

    The second single from the album of the same name – the band's last – was sung by Garfunkel at Simon's insistence, though he later regretted that decision.

    "He felt I should have done it, and many times on a stage, though, when I'd be sitting off to the side and Larry Knechtel would be playing the piano and Artie would be singing 'Bridge...', people would stomp and cheer when it was over, and I would think, 'That's my song, man...'," he admitted.

12. Fleetwood Mac - Songbird

    

    Songbird (2004 Remaster)

    Fleetwood Mac were packed with so many incredible songwriters, but Christine McVie was maybe the greatest at writing a tearjerking love song.

    "For you, there'll be no more crying," she sings, so beautifully, in such a way that we actually can't help but sob.

    It was released as a B-side to 'Dreams', but it's best known as one of the many (many) standouts of their classic Rumours album.

13. The Stylistics - I'm Stone in Love With You

    

    The Stylistics - I'm Stone In Love with You - Audio HQ ((Stereo)) ᴴᴰ

    A superlative slice of Philly Soul from The Stylistics, 'I'm Stone in Love With You' is the perfect showcase for Russell Thompkins Jr's stunning falsetto vocals.

    Written by Thom Bell, Linda Creed, and Anthony Bell, its lyrics are all about being just a man (an average man) who would do absolutely anything for his sweetheart.

14. 10cc - I'm Not In Love

    

    10cc - I'm Not In Love

    Wait... I'm not in love? What's this doing on a list of top love songs?

    It's because 10cc's 'I'm Not in Love' is very much an out and out love song, the title of the Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman song being a bit of ironic protesting too much.

    It's absolutely not a silly phase he's going through, of course, and this second single from the band's third album The Original Soundtrack was a UK number one and US number two.

15. David Bowie - "Heroes"

    

    David Bowie - Heroes (Official Video)

    Unlike 'I'm Not in Love', David Bowie's "Heroes" really is an anti-love song.

    Inspired by Tony Visconti's illicit fling, it's about a doomed and destructive love ("You can be mean... nothing will keep is together") that arguably has no place on a list like this.

    Yet its soaring melody and waves of guitar help elicit that feeling of the real power of love that can make everything else disappear... if just for one day.

16. John Lennon - Love

    

    LOVE. (Ultimate Mix, 2020) - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (official music video 4K)

    On the flipside, John Lennon's 'Love' is maybe the most basic, uncomplicated love song ever written.

    "Love is real... real is love" pretty much says it all.

    Lennon's first solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band contains so much naked, raw, horrible, wonderful emotion, that 'Love' stands out a mile for its beautiful simplicity.

17. The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses

    

    The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses (Live)

    The Rolling Stones as a general rule didn't go in for love songs, especially in their early days.

    But amid all the grimy rock 'n' roll tales, there was the odd moment that got the heart afluttering,

    Best of all is this strung-out tale of the enduring nature of love ("Wild horses / Couldn't drag me away") from the Sticky Fingers album, that was actually first released by The Flying Burrito brothers on their Burrito Deluxe album.

18. Carpenters - (They Long to Be) Close to You

    

    The Carpenters - Close To You (1970) Official Video

    Burt Bacharach and Hal David's '(They Long to Be) Close to You' was recorded several times over before Carpenters got their hands on it.

    Richard Chamberlain, Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield all gave it a good go, but Carpenters really took it to the next level, with the song becoming the duo's breakthrough hit.

19. Al Green - Let's Stay Together

    

    Al Green - Let's Stay Together

    The title track of Al Green's Let's Stay Together album, this 1972 hit topped the charts on its release and simply hasn't gone away, becoming established as one of the all-time great love songs.

    It's a slick, smooth and sleek bit of funked up love that never, ever gets old.

20. Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your Love

    

    Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your Love (Official Video)

    Barry Gibb has said that 'How Deep is Your Love' is his favourite Bee Gees song, and while that's a bold claim, it's got to be in the conversation.

    Released at the height of their disco fame in 1977, it featured on the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and perfectly melded the glitterball and Beatles-esque influences that made the Bee Gees what they were.

21. Roberta Flack - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

    

    Roberta Flack - First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 1972

    We could have picked any of a handful of Roberta Flack songs here, but we're going for this classic written way back in the 1950s by Brit Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger.

    It was recorded by a number of artists before Roberta Flack very much made it her own in 1972.

    "I wish more songs I had chosen had moved me the way that one did," Flack later admitted. "I've loved [most] every song I've recorded, but that one was pretty special."

    We can't disagree.

22. Elton John - Your Song

    

    Elton John - Your Song (Top Of The Pops 1971)

    Elton John, already an established session man, had released a few flop singles when he truly exploded onto the scene with the stunning 'Your Song' in 1970.

    Elton and his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin were songwriters-for-hire at the time and Three Dog Night actually released 'Your Song' first as an album track.

    They decided that Elton should be allowed to release it as a single first, and thank heavens they did.

    Top ten on both sides of the Atlantic (and triple Platinum in the UK and US, too), it was the song that made him a star.

23. Barry White - Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe

    

    Barry White - Can't Get Enough Of Your Love Baby (1987) • TopPop

    "I've heard people say that too much of anything is no good for you, Baby. But I don't know about that..."

    Barry White knew that while there can be too much of some good things, love certainly ain't one of them.

    This track about simply not being able to get enough of his girl's love is up there as one of the Master of Love's very greatest songs, and took him to the top of the charts in 1974.

24. Dolly Parton - I Will Always Love You

    

    Dolly Parton - I Will Always Love You (Live)

    Sure, Whitney Houston's version brought the fireworks and deservedly topped the charts for what felt like centuries after it featured on the soundtrack of The Bodyguard in the 1990s, but Dolly Parton's original version is tender and heartbreaking in a way that very much makes it the equal to its more histrionic cover.

    A cover that didn't happen was Elvis Presley, which broke Dolly's heart, but she quite rightly couldn't hand over half the publishing for the song as the nefarious Colonel Tom Parker was demanding.

    A beautiful lament of a song, apparently it wasn't actually written to a romantic partner, but instead business partner and mentor Porter Wagoner as she decided to strike out on her own.

    Supposedly Dolly wrote it on the very same day she came up with 'Jolene', which isn't a bad day's work in anyone's book.

25. Elvis Presley - Always On My Mind

    

    Always On My Mind

    Elvis Presley had a hit and miss time of it in the 1970s, but his crowning moment of the decade was surely this remarkable recording, laid down in the studio just weeks after he split from his wife Priscilla.

    Written by Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher and Mark James, 'Always On My Mind' had already been recorded by Gwen McRae and Brenda Lee earlier in 1972, but Elvis really did make the song his own when he recorded it later that year.

    Amazingly it was initially released in the US as the B-side of 'Separate Ways', but it's obviously 'Always On My Mind' that's stood the test of time, with Elvis's passionate vocal sounding just as heartbreaking today.

    Willie Nelson and the Pet Shop Boys put their own spins on the song in the years that followed, but it's this take by The King that has really stood the test of time.