Ah, Valentine’s Day. If you’re in the mood to feel the love this February 14th, Lacey Walker has some good news for you: she’s cooked up an ace playlist filled with her favourite love songs to groove along to (whether you’ve got plans to celebrate or not). Grab some chocolates, light some candles and make sure to listen to our playlist down below, we’re about to get romantic.

GAMBLE EVERYTHING FOR LOVE – BEN LEE Sydney’s own Ben Lee sings: “Make a list of things you need / Leave it empty / Except for number one, write love.” And I reckon that his whole song is advice to live life by. We sometimes don’t realise just how important love is until we’re learning to live without it. I’m unsure how best to describe Lee’s music, but if I had to pick three words, I’d say indie, earthy and groovy. The album on which this appears, Awake is the New Sleep, has one of my favourite covers in our CD collection, it’s the words spelled out in flowers – how lovely!

ALL I WANT IS YOU – U2 Before my time, my dad’s friend Al performed this at my parent’s wedding, and they’ve now been married for almost 27 years. Bono sings about his lover promising a long list of treasures; “a highway with no one on it,” and “a river in a time of dryness,” but he follows this with “all I want is you.” Aw! This is what true love is, I think: accepting a person with all their flaws and no bribes or gifts to sweeten the pot. The album version times in at almost a whopping ten minutes, but I promise it’s worth it.

I AM YOURS – THE ADICTS This is a change of suit from the usual music of the British punk band, The Adicts, but “I Am Yours” is just so heart-warming (and it’s a bit shocking to believe this is the same band who sang about getting run over by a steam roller). It’s got a line where they sing, “I am yours, whenever you want me / I am yours, whenever you need me,” which is exactly how I reckon a good solid romance should function. The band are a tricky mix of English punk rock and ‘80s indie, and this track is no exception. It’s just so dang upbeat!

THE GAMBLER – FUN Nope, it’s not the original Kenny Rogers song. This one’s a bit different than the rest of the tracks on today’s list, in that it isn’t someone professing the strength of their love but instead inferring it through a pleasant little tale of life together. We all know the band’s songs like “We Are Young” and “Some Nights” but before that global icon of an album, they released Aim and Ignite in 2009. On it was “The Gambler”, the most gorgeously romantic story of lovers I’ve heard in my life, told to a backing track of violins. If you’re ever at a loss for words to describe the insurmountable abundance of your fondness for another, try quoting its third verse: “I swear when I grow up I won't just buy you a rose / I will buy the flower shop, and you will never be lonely.”

ALL FOR YOU – COLD CHISEL I know what you’re thinking, Cold Chisel are for middle-aged Australian dads, but bear with me! They included this as a bonus track on their 2011 greatest hits album, and it is five minutes of Jimmy Barnes pouring his heart out about how everything he does is all for her (his long-time wife Jane, I assume). He goes on to say how he’s “young again”, and “it feels so good to be alive.” My dad went to a Cold Chisel concert around the time this was released and came home with a code to download it free from iTunes, so I listened to “All For You” as a little eleven-year-old, and realised that this is what love is.

YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL – JAMES BLUNT Do you believe in love at first sight? James Blunt does. So much so that he falls in love with the face of an angel on the subway. Most of us have been in love with someone unattainable at one point, (I think it’s a universal experience) but most without divine intervention. Did we all used to cry to this song playing on our pink CD player alone in our room as a kid too? Just me? Okay. I know this one’s a bit cheesy, but hey, what’s Valentine’s Day without a bit of cheese?

I WANT YOUR LOVE – TRANSVISION VAMP In a similar way to U2’s “All I Want Is You”, this song is about the worthlessness of promises and objects in comparison to actual love, but this time in a more tangible way. Girly pop-rocker Wendy James doesn’t want your money, car, books, records or stars, she wants “your love.” I’ve always cherished this tune because it’s so simple, so catchy, so ’80s, and the lyrics are so admirable. It’s always nice if your lover has cash, a car and good reading material, but that should pale in comparison to how precious they make you feel.

ONLY OF YOU – GREEN DAY I always imagine this as a hand-written love note scrawled on a piece of lined notebook paper. Back in the day, I did suggest a few of my high school crushes to give it a listen. It appears on the first full-length album of pop-punk legends, Green Day, from 1991. Vocalist Billie-Joe Armstrong sings, “The first time I caught a glimpse of you / Then all my thoughts were only of you.” I see it as him professing his love for the first time to a girl he likes, hence the love note vision. And that inability to get the one you crave out of your head? Yeah, we’ve all been there.

I WANNA BE YOURS – ARCTIC MONKEYS In true grunge Tumblr-core style, Arctic Monkeys paint a vivid portrait of a borderline obsessive love affair here with “I Wanna Be Yours.” If this song was a colour, it’d be midnight purple with silver glitter. Don’t ask me why, it just would be. How wild and yet oddly charming is the phrase, “I wanna be your vacuum cleaner / Breathing in your dust.” Only frontman Alex Turner could call himself a vacuum and make it hopelessly but deliciously sensual. If you’re stuck on what to write in that Valentine’s card, borrow a few lines from this song. Your secret’s safe with me!

NOTHING COMPARES 2 U – CHRIS CORNELL, LIVE AT SIRIUS XM To finish us off is a top-tier bittersweet love song. It’s hard to beat Prince or Sinèad, but with this cover of the classic love song, I think Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell comes pretty close. The timeless track untangles the woes of lovesickness; trying and failing to move on from a lost darling. If the lyrics aren’t enough to bring a tear to your eye, Cornell recorded this live less than two years before his untimely passing in 2017. The most devastatingly romantic line? “All the flowers that you planted mama / In the back yard / All died when you went away.” Excuse me while I grab a tissue.