This week’s Two for Tuesday songs with a similar theme are from the Swedish pop-rock duo Roxette and the blues-rock band Cinderella.
It Must Have Been Love
and
Don’t Know What You’ve Got (‘til it’s gone)
Both songs tell the stories of lost love, regret, and the feelings that the singers could have, should have, done something more to keep their relationships from fading away even though realistically they know there was nothing they could have done to prevent the breakup.
Each song is a power ballad in its own right that tells the deep anguish of dealing with lost, or almost lost, love and the life together that might have been.
It Must Have Been Love was written by Per Gessle, one half of the Roxette duo. Marie Frederiksson, the other half of the duo and the lead singer, passed away in 2019. It Must Have Been Love didn’t see musical success in Sweden, but it skyrocketed to the top of many music charts due to the song being the featured number at the end of the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman.
The song became Roxette’s signature song, and it is also referred to as the perfect break up song.
Don’t Know What You’ve Got (‘til it’s gone) was written by Cinderella front man Tom Keifer for the 1988 album Long Cold Winter. This song, like Roxette’s song, is a lamentation of trying to figure out what has gone wrong in the relationship and making a last attempt to make it right. The sadness in the music itself let’s us know there is no hope that the relationship can be salvaged.
Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time