oh, dance in the dark of night

So no one's posted in nine weeks but I just joined and wanted to play along. I figured I might as well continue the Love theme.

Robyn Hitchcock - I Feel Beautiful
Hitchcock is sometimes accused of concealing genuine emotion under layers of surrealist lyrics, but on this track he's quite bare and sincere. The percussion is bouncy and childlike and the waves of acoustic guitar are typically beautiful, but Hitchcock's imperfect voice (Lennonish and nasal) has the cracks and scrapes of a mature man, someone who really has been "hanging round Covent Garden for you for centuries / ...waiting round Festival Pier for you, honey, for decades." Hitchcock is not only aging, he's a notably homely guy, adding a funny and/or poignant touch to singing that he feels beautiful because his woman loves him.

Mike O'Neill - She Believes in Me
Mike used to be half of the Inbreds, who had a minimalist but very tight aesthetic, and this has the same spare but poppy sound. It's not actually acoustic but it's not processed much, and the less-than-three-minute construction is light. The lyrics, meanwhile, hint of a shady past redeemed by love, full of optimism for the future.

Rheostatics - Take Me in Your Hand
Martin Tielli is a songwriter who, for whatever reason, rarely writes love songs. Even this one, though sweetly intimate and full of wonder, is also about feeling fearful and overwhelmed by love. He urges his lover, "put me back into the nest", portraying himself (with no concern for masculinity) as a baby bird and as a little girl, while the beloved is "as wicked as a bee, much happier than me." The guitar is all angular strumming and the production is hushed and still, capped off with a little tin-whistle march, solemn as a child.