songs to sing to your lover’s window

These days, people expect full-blown relationships to blossom from Tinder swipes and text messages, instead of actually getting out there, in the rain, boombox in hand and belting out a classic love song under their lover’s window. To help you in your quest for love, we’ve assembled a few bombastic ballads prime for John-Cusack-in-Say-Anything type scenes (plus one song that really is just deranged).

What Dreams Are Made Of – Hilary Duff

The Lizzie McGuire Movie is the greatest story ever told. I can’t go into depth about the film, because there’s a lot of subtlety and nuance and references to Dostoyevsky that you really only get after the 300th viewing, but basically Lizzie McGuire – a klutzy, adorable highschooler we can all relate to – gets roped into pretending to be an Italian pop star at the VMAs, where she’s meant to lip sync, but actually Paolo – the hot guy who got her in the situation in the first place – is setting her up to fail. But joke’s on Paolo, because Lizzie McGuire is actually Hilary Duff – who can sing! And then Lizzie sings this song that makes everyone love her, in case you didn’t already. Difficulty level: Low, till you get to the mid-point and need to start reaching higher notes. One workaround is to break into a violent dance, while chanting, “Hey, hey, hey!” ad infinitum – or at least until the cops turn up.

Can You Feel The Love Tonight – Elton John

Elton John is responsible for so much happiness in the world. How can anyone hear “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”, “Candle in the Wind” or everyone’s favourite, “Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza” without breaking out into loud and tuneless song? With great ease apparently, because I haven’t seen anyone else doing this in the supermarket, aside from me, which fortunately makes me a star by default. Whipping out “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” is almost guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye of your favourite dude or dudette, be it because they’re having Lion King flashbacks, or because you’re actively ruining their happiest Disney childhood memories. Either way, mission accomplished. Difficulty level: Again, low, but start deep in order to give yourself some wiggle room to really hit those notes at the end. This one is all about the key change.

I Want To Know What Love Is – Foreigner

You should already know this song by heart, but in case you don’t, basically it was immortalised by Anthony Callea on Australian Idol. Before that it was just some random song by some random band called Foreigner. Joke! It was extremely well-known before that. But Callea really did bring it home when he belted this one out for all the folks watching in TV land, and that’s what you should be aiming for when you sing it yourself – Callea-grade bombast. You’re basically guaranteed a night of passion and romance – or perhaps having sharp objects thrown at your head until you leave, suffering permanent brain damage and returning to where you came from: the ’80s. Difficulty level: Super-easy, if you whisper the quiet bits and yell the loud bits, because then you’re not even really singing at all.

Love Shack – The B-52s

I actually hate The B-52s. For years, I thought they were a joke band somebody invented literally just to annoy people. Then I had a partner who was a mega B-52s fan (as in, had all their albums on vinyl, had to listen to them every day, “Rock Lobster” was basically on a loop in his apartment). Around the same time, I attended a dance competition, where they played “Love Shack” and everyone rushed to the dance floor to collectively seizure. At this point, I learned that a) people are legitimate fans of the B-52s, b) people are insane, and c) you can make most people happy by singing a B-52s song, except for me – I will have a panic attack. Difficulty level: Actually quite hard, because you have to do both the guy and the girl’s vocals. And the guy’s vocals have a very distinct rhythm, which may cause some people breathing difficulties. Good luck.