Duets for Valentines Day

Valentine’s Day is typically celebrated in pairs. So while you’re searching your music collection for love songs to wine and dine to, why not choose a few duets to celebrate your togetherness?

The Oracle catalogues some of the best duet love songs for your Valentine’s Day listening pleasure.

“Paradise by the Dashboard Light” – Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley

They were barely 17 and they were barely dressed. This epic love ballad from 1977 depicts two young lovers about to go “all the way” in a car parked by a lake. This song is great because it time travels, has an extended sports metaphor and is just way too fun to not sing at the top of your lungs.

The first part of the song talks about the burning passion between the two “glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife” until it breaks into a clip of a baseball broadcast by Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto.

Just before the boy can “steal home,” the girl, Ellen Foley, demands in an outburst that the boy vow to love her forever. After begging to let him “sleep on it,” he finally accepts the vow.

The third part of the song shifts to present day, when the two characters can’t stand each other. Now the boy is “praying for the end of time” because he won’t break his vow.

“Lucky” – Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat

Want to make other couples hate you? Memorize the lines to this duet and watch as those around you marvel in your cuteness as you sing: “I’m lucky I’m in love with my best friend, lucky to have been where I have been, lucky to be coming home again.”

This 2010 Grammy winner for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals is a classic back-and-forth between guy and girl proclaiming their love to one another. The best parts are when Mraz and Caillat’s voices stagger and then suddenly harmonize in the bridge between verses.

“I Got You Babe” – Sonny and Cher

Before this was the song that Bill Murray woke up to in “Groundhog Day,” it was the No.1 pop song of August 1965. The song is laced in youthful optimism, with the opening: “They say we’re young and we don’t know, we won’t find out until we grow. Well I don’t know if all that’s true, ‘cause you got me, and baby I got you.”

Of course, this optimism ran dry 10 years later when the couple divorced and the group split. Cher went on to a successful solo career while Sonny Bono was elected to Congress.

“If I Ain’t Got You (Remix)” – Alicia Keys and Usher

Keys’ solo rendition of this ballad won the Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, so adding in Usher for the remix was a no-brainer. The two showed Beyonce and Jay-Z how a real contemporary duet is done with this powerful vocal performance.

The best part is when their voices harmonize, climbing into crescendo as they sing the line “three dozen roses.” Though the lyrics are practically incomprehensible, it offers guaranteed goosebumps.

“Endless Love” – Lionel Richie and Diana Ross

Many know this as the song from the ice skating scene in “Happy Gilmore.” Yet the song was actually written for another movie that shares its title. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1981.

Billboard named it the greatest song duet of all time and it has been covered by Luther Vandross with Mariah Carey as well as Kenny Rogers.