'Dark Love' Valentine's Day Playlist

Love. It has many dimensions. It falls on a spectrum and definitely isn’t always black or white. There’s reciprocated love, unrequited love, puppy love, secret love, forbidden love, friendship love, conditional or unconditional love. The intensity of wherever you fall on the spectrum varies drastically from situation to situation, even two people in the same storyline could have polar opposite points of view. Love is beautiful when it is in sync, but tragic and heart wrenching when the stars don’t align. Valentine’s Day brings up a lot of these emotions which are sometimes impossible to shake, so much so that they create their own genre of love: dark love. Valentine’s Day isn’t just about the tequila and roses of love. It is also about the longing and darkness of love. To quote Maren Morris, there is a song for everything, which is why Rockin Rox has a Dark Love Valentine’s Day Playlist, a perfect culmination of all these emotions and phases of love.

Track 1: Chasing After You by Ryan Hurd & Maren Morris

The song that sparked this playlist, Ryan and Maren’s first duet together Chasing After You is the depiction of romanticizing a booty call situation that you keep running back to beyond will power or reason, there’s just something about that person that you keep coming back to. You come over when your wine’s all gone/Always catch me when I’m not that strong/with you the answer’s always yes. The person we have a pattern with doesn’t always mean they are the only love in the picture. Every time you say we’re done/You come back to the love you were running from. Sometimes we aren’t strong enough to give up the chase. It’s dark, sometimes it’s foolish, but it is the dark kind of love that is impossible to quit. TK McKamy’s cinematography for the song is the perfect visual for this uncontrollable, desirable longing. The messiness of love.

Track 2: I’ll Be the Moon by Dierks Bentley ft. Maren Morris (demo by Ryan Hurd)

Speaking of messy love, an added layer of complication is added when secret love intertwines more than two people. A situation portrayed in Ryan Hurd’s demo of I’ll Be the Moon. Ryan released his demo version on his Panorama EP and Dierks Bentley cut the song with Maren Morris for his Black album. I don’t want to be a secret but I will if you want me to. The sun is a metaphor for the guy she has in the open, the moon is her secret love she keeps in the dark. This is one of those uneven loves, where one lover is kept in the shadows, but as the song says You can keep me in the dark if that’s all I get from you - sometimes taking what you can get is better than giving up the high of that person all together.

Track 3: Just For Now by Maren Morris

In a more optimistic view sometimes those initial flings that you just can’t shake actually turn into something more as she has proven with her marriage with Ryan Hurd. Just For Now was a demo of Maren’s back when her and now husband Ryan were just hooking up, both hoping it would lead to something. In Maren’s case it did, and this song is a message to not discount what starts off as casual. On the other hand not every casual situation should lead you down the aisle. Sometimes the short lived loves give you just what you need during that time. Love isn’t always meant to be forever, but there is a beauty in the temporary. A fling or hooking up doesn’t have to be something to be ashamed of or to regret. As long as the situation is benefitting you and not harming you, even that type of love can bring light into your life. I was in the dark for so long but you brought that light/ You don’t have to be the answer to the question that's going to change my life/ This could turn into something or tomorrow morning could be over. Any love, lust, or source of light in your life should be valued and looked back on fondly for the period you had it. Who doesn’t want gold in the love they found, even if it’s just for now? As they say, better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Track 4: Say You Do by Dierks Bentley (written by Old Dominion)

Lost love can play a trick on our minds. Sometimes we miss something so much that we fixate on preserving our image of the love with that person, even if it contradicts reality. Our memories reconstruct themselves in our brain, they might not be exactly how it happened, they are what we want to believe how it was or is. Say You Do, a demo written by Old Dominion and cut by Dierks Bentley on his Riser album speaks to this purposeful delusion we play into when it comes to unrequited love. The pain of the truth that someone doesn’t feel as strongly as you do is too much to bear, so much so that we tell ourselves beautiful lies to preserve the past. Don’t worry about the damage done/ even if you're lying/ If you don't mean them I really don’t care. This is the tragic part of love when one person would rather be led on than to let go and move on.

Track 5: Lie with Me by Lady A

Lies of love, eventually do more harm than good, but until you are ready to accept a love long gone they can help you cope and temporarily prevent the pain. Lady A sings about this last ditch effort in their song Lie with Me off of their 747 album. The play on words here is in the word ‘lie’. Lie with me/hold me like you mean it/ make me feel like it ain’t over/ it ain’t the truth’s gonna set me free/ come on, come on, lie with me. Literally lie to this person one more time so he or she can feel how it was and physically lie with the person, let them feel you close to them one last time.

Track 6: If I Were You by Jillian Jacqueline ft. Keith Urban

A response to the person that would rather be lied to than move on would be Jillian & Keith Urban’s duet If I Were You. In this song one lover is trying to do what is best for the other and force them to move on and find someone better, even though what the singer wants is the person they are trying to set free. If I were you I wouldn’t look back/ Oh, but I want you to. Sometimes it is the hardest thing to do to let someone go, whether you would be holding them back or there’s distance between, you know what the best thing for them is even if it pains you to do it. And then there are times when we aren’t strong enough to resist. Keep me in the back of your mind/ in a couple years/ if you haven’t found somebody new/ I wish I could kiss you/ And have you be the only one/ That I’m thinking about/ If you stay I’m gonna break your heart.

Track 7: I’m On It by Old Dominion

Even when that person gets the space and distance they need, we don’t choose who our heart misses and we certainly do not dictate who our minds remember. In Old Dominion’s song I’m On It they open strong with the imagery of someone’s memory always being with you even when you least expect it. I know you’re rollin’ down a runway out of LAX/ Takin’ off to wherever you’re going next/ Doesn’t matter that I’m nowhere near that jet/ Baby, I’m on it. The metaphor of someone’s memory being literally everywhere the person is is so gut wrenchingly relatable. You know this memory ain’t gonna leave you alone/ the only over I’m gonna be is over your shoulder. Memories are relentless when we miss someone. Make no mistake, memories aren’t just a sign that a love is over, there is still love in longing and missing someone. Just because a relationship or situation ends doesn’t automatically mean the love between two people disappears. Memories are a form of love, whether you are mourning love or keeping love alive, remembering even the sad ones is an act of love.

Track 8: Cry Over Boys by Alexander 23

As I said before, sometimes our memories of the past become our enemy. Alexander 23 points out the over romanticizing of love and the pain that can come from it in his song Cry Over Boys. Some loves that ended sometimes weren’t as great as we remember them, but we miss the person so much that even the dark times are misconstrued as romantic rather than traumatic. Aren’t you tired of getting hurt?/ Aren’t you tired of making it worse?

Track 9: Driver’s License by Olivia Rodrigo (Cover by Lindsay Ell)

When love ends it is usually because the people realized they weren’t right for each other, conditional love, some condition that makes love not enough. Even when that condition comes to light it isn’t always equally obvious to both people. One person is always left guessing, stuck with the questions, and stuck with the heart ache. In Olivia Rodrigo’s song Drivers License the singer belts out a ballad deep in the feeling of despair after a breakup. I just can’t imagine how you could be so okay now that I’m gone / I guess you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me. Even though she knows it’s over she is haunted by the shadows of what once was: you said forever now I drive alone past your street/ know we’re through/ but I still fucking love you, babe. The emotion is raw and everyone has covered it. My favorite cover so far is by Lindsay Ell check it out below!

Track 10: A Little Bit Yours by JP Saxe

Just like in Driver’s License getting over somebody is never easy, especially when one person moves on more easily than another. As JP Saxe says in A Little Bit Yours no matter how many times you get over somebody that person can still be a part of you. Moving on is not a linear process, in fact it is possible to never get good at it with certain exes. This is the saddest type of dark love, when someone isn’t yours anymore, but you still feel a part of them. I let myself want you/ I let myself try/ I let myself fall back into your eyes/ I let myself hope/ I let myself feel things I know that you don’t. That person moved on, but they will always have a little piece of your heart no matter what. An ongoing dark love that blurs the clear cut ending of a situation.

Track 11: All Too Well by Taylor Swift (Cover by Jake Scott)

When memories don’t deceive us, sometimes we remember exactly how euphoric or toxic (depending on the dynamic) a love story was, all too well. In Taylor Swift’s song All Too Well off her Red album each verse goes through a stage of a now ended relationship. Down to the old scarf from the very first week/ cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me/ You can’t get rid of it, cause you remember it all too well. Jake Scott has a new cover of this song on piano and sings with the same emotion and elicits the vivid imagery of the original lyrics.

Track 12: I Don’t Love You by Lindsay Ell

Just because our brains have the ability to remember such details of high intensity emotions, such as all the different depths of love, doesn’t mean we are still in love with that person. I said before that memories are a form of showing love, but they are also just memories that can be triggered by the present and open the flood gates to the past. As Lindsay Ell states in her song I Don’t Love You just because you try to avoid the things that you used to do with someone, because they can trigger old feelings or memories, doesn’t mean you are still IN love: No, I don’t love you anymore/ But I still miss you sometimes. We all get lonely and when that happens sometimes it is a mental fight to convince ourselves we don’t love or want someone anymore.

So there you have it. The 12 songs (16 including covers and demos) that expose the other side of love: the dark side. The side that has many phases, extra complications, more blurred lines, rollercoaster of intense emotions. Disclaimer: I am not saying use this as an excuse to reach out to an ex just because it's Valentine’s Day or not move on from the past pains. On the contrary, I am encouraging self love, reflection, and the realization that it is okay to be stuck in one of these places. To feel that your story isn’t over yet, to cherish the temporary moments for what they gave us at the time, to long for a feeling or another time with someone. If this year has done anything it definitely has broadened the definitions and bounds of love. Does distance or body language hold as much weight as it used to? Are people quicker to express themselves through words since in person big gestures are less feasible? It is okay to redefine what love means for you. Keep your standards and expectations high, but don’t discount dark love.

~ XOXO Rockin Rox