Happy Valentine's Day

Once again, we offer up a bouquet of lesser-known love songs and even some comedy just for the occasion. To start off, here are two of the most beautiful that I know -- but particularly from musicals, which has more than its share of love songs.

This first is probably my favorite of the two, "When Did I Fall in Love?" from Fiorello! with a score by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and also Tony Award for Best Musical (tying, of all things, that year with The Sound of Music).  It's sung here by Ellen Hanley.  What I most admire about the song is the simplicity of the words, almost conversational, yet that bring out rich emotion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyAfSdXfPAY

The other, a very close runner-up, is "I Know Now" from the 1964 British musical Robert & Elizabeth, about the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  In many ways, this is the opposite of "When Did I Fall in Love?", being very poetic (befitting its two main characters) and lush.  The show had a score by Ron Grainer and Ronald Millar.  It's performed by Keith Michell and June Bronhill.  The treat here is that they recreated the number seven years later for a 1971 television special, so we have video of it. 

By the way, some may recognize Keith Michell's name.  He most-famously played the lead in the PBS Masterpiece Theatre mini-series, The Six Wives of Henry VIII.  And also had a recurring role as insurance investigator (and former jewel thief) 'Dennis Stanton' on Murder, She Wrote.  He also had the lead in the London West End production of Man of La Mancha.  June Bronhill was an Australian opera singer who also performed in several musicals, including as 'Maria' in the original Australian production of The Sound of Music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h6IrMhrxo4

Okay, as a bonus, here's another love song from Robert & Elizabeth sung by the pair.  Not precisely a comic number, but a lively fun one -- with a couple of among my favorite rhymes in any song -- as Robert explains to the overly-protected Elizabeth that he's deeply in love with her, which she tries to put off, knowing that her authoritarian father would never permit it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdDWJsD_aPg