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Serenade Singles: Ten Rakish Songs of Love & Desire
What better way to get one in the mood than the heartful harmonies and magnetic melodies of the world’s most alluring artists?
Words Ben St George
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Marvin Gaye - Let’s Get It On
Gaye was inarguably a pioneer, and came to epitomise the Motown sound throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s. His style was just as creative, incorporating both ends of the spectrum - from slick silk or velvet suiting to the iconic work shirt and beanie ensemble that graces the cover of 1973’s Let’s Get It On. The album and it’s none-more-lustful title track instantly made Gaye a sex symbol, a reputation that would stay with him until his untimely death in 1984.
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Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin - La Decadanse
Gainsbourg’s taste for the good life is famous - a heavy drinker, smoker and notoriously flagrant lover, he came to embody a uniquely French rakishness - few others could pull off bold, peak lapelled tailoring with Repetto dancing shoes with such eclat. His relationship with Jane Birkin gave rise, if you’ll excuse the pun, to their notoriously steamy duet record Je t'aime... moi non plus, however ‘La Decadanse’, released as a single in 1970, is a kitschy erotic masterpiece - not subtle, but definitely sexy.
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Pulp - Underwear
“If you blanked out his face, you'd still know it was Jarvis. His clothing speaks of his personality” said Norton & Sons’ Patrick Grant of Pulp’s wiry Jarvis Cocker. Signature thick-framed glasses and odd tailoring has become utterly synonymous with him since Pulp’s emergence as a major for in Britpop in the 90’s, and he has remained one of Britain’s most stalwart rakes over the course of his nearly four-decade career. ‘Underwear’, from Pulp’s career high Different Class, shows Cocker at his most lascivious. “I’d give my whole life to see it” he croons. “Just you, stood there only in your underwear”.
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Prince - Kiss
Although most famous for his new romantic, Purple Rain-era look - the purple suit, the ruffle-necked shirt - Prince was a true polymath when it came to dressing, shifting easily from a finely tailored white suit over a roll-neck to a bedazzled kaftan - and making both look good. ‘Kiss’, one his most distinctive singles, was originally not supposed to be his song at all. He gave the song to minor 80’s band Mazerati for their debut, however upon hearing their heavily reworked version he liked it so much that he took it back and added it last-minute to his Parade album. The song’s production, with its stuttering, minimal bassline, would go on to become hugely influential - and as an expression of universal lust, it has no equal.
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The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
Although perhaps most famous today for it’s appearance in Ghost’s pottery wheel scene, ‘Unchained Melody’ was originally written in 1955 for a little-known film called Unchained, hence the title. It wasn’t until a decade later in 1965 that the song achieved mainstream success when Phil Spector’s darlings of blue-eyed soul, The Righteous Brothers, covered it. Allegedly, after he had completed recording his takes, Bobby Hatfield returned to try it one more time, changing the melody for the final ‘I need your love’ and singing it several octaves higher. Hatfield still felt that he could sing it better, to which his bandmate replied ‘No. No, you can’t’.
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The Rolling Stones - She Smiled Sweetly
By the time 1967’s Between the Buttons came out, The Rolling Stones were bonafide superstars and well respected fashion icons, having become darlings of the Carnaby scene bedecked in suits by Edward Sexton and the late Tommy Nutter. ‘She Smiled Sweetly’ shows a softer side of Jagger and Richards’ songwriting, foregoing the swagger and casual misogyny of their early catalogue for something more tender - a lover searching for reassurance.
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Bruce Springsteen - I’m On Fire
He may not be an icon of tailoring, but most every workwear-inspired outfit showing currently owes a heavy debt to Mr. Springsteen. His 1984 smash record Born In The USA carried a string of of his most successful - and bombastic - songs, including the anti-war title track, ‘Glory Days’ and ‘Dancing In The Dark’. However the lithe and understated ‘I’m On Fire’ might just about be one of the most perfect odes to want ever put to record, with Springsteen dialling down to a whisper over a gently picked guitar melody.
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David Bowie - “Heroes”
David Bowie is undisputably one of music’s great masters of dress; his style as inclusive and chameleonic as his approach to music. ‘“Heroes”’ - his famous single of the 1977 album of the same name about a star-crossed couple at the foot of the Berlin Wall - is somehow both bleak and life affirmingly romantic; the very real icon of division only heightening the emotional stakes. ‘Yes we’re lovers’ he sings, ‘and that is a fact’. You believe it. Bowie had fully transitioned out of his Thin White Duke persona by this stage; for his tour to support “Heroes” he often performed in wide-legged, pleated pants and a mandarin-collared pop-over, showing once again just how stylistically ahead of the curve he was.
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Blondie - In The Flesh
Everything about Blondie oozed style - it’s hard to argue with Debbie Harry, a Ms. Rake if there ever was one - and the proto-Reservoir Dogs cool of the rest of the band provided a perfect foil for Harry’s feline energy. ‘In The Flesh’, a dreamy, Spector-esque ballad from their debut album, has a sweetness to it that plays off Harry’s inherent coquettishness, casting herself instead as the pining, almost predatory, romantic to great effect.
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Roxy Music - To Turn You On
Bryan Ferry is one of music’s undisputed masters of style, and his persona as the slick socialite with a deep ocean of melancholy beneath has birthed many great love songs across his career. Roxy Music’s swansong, 1981’s Avalon, is replete with Ferry’s trademark wistful romanticism, perfectly encapsulated by supple, yearning ‘To Turn You On’, as pure a statement of intent as there ever was.
Photographs courtesy of Getty Images.
album, artist, blondie, bruce springsteen, david bowie, jane birkin, love songs, marvin gaye, music, prince, pulp, record, romance, roxy music, serge gainsbour, songs, the righteous brothers, the rolling stones
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