Somehow logical: The person who is sung about in love songs usually also exists in real life. Unless it’s James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful. Here the Brit himself admitted that it was not a real encounter in the subway. But even if they do, it’s not always as clear at first glance who the songs were written for as it is with John Legend’s “All Of Me”. The fact that the song, released in 2013, was a declaration of love to his fiancée Chrissy Teigen, who is now his wife, was clear at the latest when the model appeared in the accompanying video. But there are also love songs whose message is not immediately apparent at first glance. For example this one.
Billy Joel – “Uptown Girl”
“Uptown Girl,” the song that Billy Joel released in 1983, he wrote for his wife Christie Brinkley. After all, the model plays the Uptown Girl in the accompanying music video, who has her car repaired at the Downtown Man’s workshop! But it’s not quite that simple: Joel once wrote the lines for another model. Her name is Elle McPherson and Joel and they were dating at the time. However, the on-off relationship ended when the then 19-year-old moved to Europe – and met Joel Brinkley.
He may have been lying, sings RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis in the song “I Could Have Lied” which he wrote for Irish singer Sinead O’Connor. Supposedly she was his girlfriend and just shot him down when he wrote the lines. The song is about lying, cheating and the end of a relationship. According to O’Connor, however, it never existed. Kiedis probably didn’t mean that he thought up the relationship with his words “I could have song”.
Plain White T’s – “Hey There Delilah”
It could have been a beautiful love story: the singer of the band Plain White T’s met the US long-distance runner Delilah DiCrescenzo through a mutual friend. To impress, he told her he had written a song about her. If the song won a Grammy, she reportedly said she’d go on a date with it. Nothing came of the price and neither did Delilah. The song still got under the skin of thousands.
One thing’s for sure: the woman legendary guitarist Eric Clapton sings about in the ’70s song isn’t called Layla. Her real name is Pattie and she is actually taken by the Beatle George Harrison. But love never takes the easiest path. And that’s how Eric Clapton came to write a song for a friend’s married wife. With success: Pattie Boyd left Harrison and married Clapton. However, the marriage only lasted until 1989, when the song had more endurance.
AnnenMayKantereit – “Frequently Asked”
Love songs don’t always have to be about affection for the loved one. The Cologne boys from AnnenMayKantereit prove that. Your song “Often asked” is a declaration of love to the father of the singer Henning May. “You were alone at home’, missed me. And asked you what you still are to me” – the love of parents for their children is also a very elementary one.
U2 – “Sweetest Thing”
This love song is probably the cutest excuse a man can make when he doesn’t show up at his wife’s birthday party because he’s working. And if he then makes that dog face like Bono does in the Sweetest Thing video, where he sits across from his wife Ali in a carriage, all the trouble might be forgotten. At Ali’s request, the band donated the proceeds from the song to the organization “Chernobyl Children International“.
If there is one song that cannot be left out of this list of love songs and who they were sung for, then it is Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect”, one of the best-selling singles in Germany. At the latest after an interview with “US Weekly” it was known that the lines he sings are dedicated to his then girlfriend Cherry Seaborn. By the way, the mutual favorite song, to which they danced barefoot in the grass, is said to have been Future’s “March Madness”. Today the two are married and have a young daughter: Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran.
This list was first published on musikexpress.de in February 2021.