Music is often described as the universal language of love. And love, to not coin a phrase, is a many splendored thing. Is it any wonder, then, that love songs are the most prevalent theme in the history of popular music? There are 1,187 songs which include “love” in the title alone.* So, a playlist of simply “love songs” would be ridiculously too general, not to mention embarrassingly trite for an erudite site like the one with which you’re currently interacting, and for highly discerning listeners and readers such as yourselves.

No, for any novel interest to be found within this concept we’ll need something a lot more restrictive, a little more quirky, and maybe even a bit strange. So this is what we’re going to do: we’ll take love in the song title, but only when paired and preceded with another one-word qualifier. Too quick? Here’s the three critical ground rules, more plainly stated:

• Two words only; a single word and then the word “love.” No X of love, Y to love, or Z for love, etc. Just two words.
• It’s the qualifier before “love,” not “love” then some other word.
• No other “love” word forms (lover, lovely, loving, etc.) are acceptable. All you need is love (a famed title that quite obviously will not qualify).

The resulting list, exhaustively researched as always by the team here at So Much Great Music, reveals some rather, well, strange forms of love. In addition to what might be more expected emotional attributes (“endless,” “real,” “everlasting,” even “crazy”) you’ll find some idiosyncratic, and certainly a bit stranger introductory usages. Would you ever expect to find in normal nomenclature, for instance, love being led into by a qualifier of burning? Radar? Jungle? Stoned? Baby? Expresso (neither express nor espresso)?? Probably not.

Nevertheless, here they are – and, of course, a collection of utterly lovable songs to boot – on the brand new SMGM playlist: “Strange Love”. It’s a top 30 list of tunes of which both offbeat love-centric listeners and Peter Sellers can be rightly proud.

*I basically just made that up, but it seems vaguely believable and I bet it’s still an undershoot.