Secrets of the best love songs

Want to get an idea of just how hard it is to write a love song? Try putting your heart’s desires on paper — and then singing them out loud. With Valentine’s Day just a kiss away, we spoke with songwriting masters about the musical magic of love — whether it’s about breaking up, making up or just updating Shakespeare’s story about a couple of kids named Romeo and Juliet.

JOSS STONE

Love-song credentials: “Right To Be Wrong,” “Could Have Been You”

Essentials: “A love song is like a movie. If it draws you in and makes you feel the emotions, it’s a great love song.”

Swoon tunes: “I was just 6 when my dad played Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven.’ He explained what it was about [Clapton’s son Conor, who died when he was 4] and I cried for days. That was when I first felt the power of a love song. I also love ‘I Put a Spell on You.’ That one works because it’s sung from the point of view of a total mental case. The attitude is, ‘You will love me, whether you like it or not, end of story.’ It’s absolutely brilliant.”

Memory lane: “I wrote ‘Could Have Been You’ when I was 15. It’s not deep, because I was a kid, but that song made me realize that love is better when you’re young. That’s when you can enjoy it freely, without all the adult complications.”

SMOKEY ROBINSON

Love-song credentials: “The Tracks of My Tears,” “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “You Really Got a Hold on Me”

Essentials: “Relativity makes songs great and lasting,” says Robinson. “When I write, I ask not just what it means, but what it will mean 50 years from now. The relativity to life and love makes the song what it is. You hear that in the music of Beethoven, Chopin, Gershwin, Duke Ellington and hopefully me.”

Swoon tunes: “The song Etta James sings, ‘At Last,’ has always been a favorite of mine. That speaks to me — and my wife, Francis, wanted it played at our wedding. Also, as a wedding gift, I wrote ‘I Don’t Know Where I End and You Begin’ for her, and I sang it for her at our wedding.”

Memory lane: “I had the melody to ‘The Tracks of My Tears,’ and I listened to it again and again, and finally I came up with the first few lines. I was living in Detroit, and I wanted to clear my head, so I got in the car and went driving around. And, out of the blue, it hit me. What do you notice about someone’s who’s been crying? Tracks of tears on their cheek.”

ROD STEWART

Love-song credentials: “You’re in My Heart,” “Maggie May”

Essentials: “Melody. You have to listen carefully to the melody to hear if it strikes something in you for romance,” says Stewart. “That happened with ‘You’re in My Heart.’ When I wrote it, I’d already finished with Britt Ekland. I wasn’t going out with anybody at the time — I was whoring around a bit.”

Swoon tunes: “I love ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. From the modern era, Van Morrison’s ‘Have I Told You Lately.’ That’s one of the greatest love ballads in rock — gorgeous music and lyrics.”

Memory lane: “I’ve never really considered ‘Maggie May’ a love song, but when you think about it, the guy [in the song] is still hung up on this older woman. I was at a jazz festival in New Orleans — I was 17 or so — and I [had sex] in a tent with this beautiful older woman. It always helps if you write about things that happened to you.”

LUCINDA WILLIAMS

Love-song credentials: “Passionate Kisses,” “Still I Long for Your Kiss”

Essentials: “It has to be written from experience.”

Swoon tunes: “The one song that really made an impression on me growing up was Chet Baker singing ‘My Funny Valentine.’ My dad used to play that for me. That song is great because it says you don’t have to be perfect, and I’ll love you anyway.”

Memory lane: “Last year I wrote ‘Kiss Like Your Kiss’ for my husband, Tom. Whenever you write about someone you’re close to, you can’t help but be nervous about it. I put [the song] down on tape and just handed it to him in his studio upstairs, and I went back downstairs and waited. When I saw his face, I knew he loved it.”

TREY SONGZ

Love-song credentials: “I Need a Girl,” “Love Faces”

Essentials: “You want to make the ladies feel sexy,” says Songz. “You also want to be a little different.”

Swoon tunes: “R. Kelly’s ‘Touched a Dream’ works because it’s poetic, but not sugary.”

Memory lane: “I kissed my first girl to ‘I Like the Way (The Kissing Game)’ by the Hi-Five. I was young, and it was at a recreational center across the street from my house. I hear that song and think of that kiss.”

NEIL SEDAKA

Love-song credentials: “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do,” “Love Will Keep Us Together”

Essentials: “A love song has to be touching and rip at the heartstrings — and don’t forget that the story has to be universal.”

Swoon tunes: “I wrote ‘Breaking Up Is Hard To Do’ in 1962. I’m a Brill Building kid, where we were taught to write a 2½-minute song — even a love song — with hooks and a catchy melody. That song sprang from the title.”

Memory lane: “When I wrote ‘Love Will Keep Us Together,’ I was experimenting with combining singing styles. You can hear how I matched three singing styles — Diana Ross, the Beach Boys and Al Green. I didn’t know if it would work, but when I played it for my mother-in-law for the first time, she looked at me and said, ‘That’s a No. 1 record.’ I guess she had an ear. I won the Grammy in ’74 for that one.”

CLAUDE KELLY

Love-song credentials: “Hold My Hand” (Michael Jackson), “My Life Would Suck Without You” (Kelly Clarkson)

Essentials: “You have to be aware of the time you live in,” Kelly says. “When I wrote ‘My Life Would Suck Without You’ for Kelly [Clarkson], I was trying to be relevant to our times and stay true to the artist. If I wrote that same song for Frank Sinatra, it would have been ‘My Life Is Nothing Without You.’ ”

Swoon tunes: “Billy Joel’s ‘Just the Way You Are.’ It’s easy to sing along with, and the lyrics are simple and say what they mean.”

Memory lane: “Working on ‘Hold My Hand,’ ” Kelly recalls, “I wanted to write a song about universal love, something important. I was sitting with my mother talking about songs that were beautiful and also had a message, and she went to her albums and put on Bob Marley’s ‘One Love.’ That’s where the inspiration came from.”

CHRISTOPHER “TRICKY” STEWART

Love-song credentials: “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (for Beyoncé), “Inseparable” (Mariah Carey)

Essentials: “Great songs have to have lyrics with substance, not just be a bunch of pretty words that rhyme.”

Swoon tune: In “Hummingbird Heartbeat” (Katy Perry), Stewart says, “I tried to convey that moment when a woman or a man gets that heart flutter when they meet someone special for the first time, and they wonder if this is the one.”

Memory lane: “I was in junior high, and there was a girl I really liked and I finally got the courage to ask her to dance, and the music playing was Madonna’s ‘Crazy for You.’ The moment, our first kiss, the excitement of new love is wrapped up in that song for me.”

CYNTHIA WEIL

Love-song credentials: “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” (for the Righteous Brothers)

Essentials: “Most people can’t express their feelings, so a good love song has to make them say, ‘Oh my God, that’s just the way I feel.’ ”

Swoon tune: “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin “is a heartbreaker that really moves me. It works because it’s so raw and real; simple words that express unrequited love so perfectly.”

Memory lane: “When Barry [Mann] and I wrote ‘You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,’ we were very influenced by the song ‘Baby I Need Your Lovin’ ’ — we couldn’t stop listening to that, and we wanted to write one as good that had the same kind of yearning. Barry hit the melody first and I put together two verses and the chorus, but neither of us liked the title. It was just too long. We sent over what we had to Phil Spector, and I told him, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll change the title.’ He just got that look on his face, didn’t say anything, and then told me, ‘No you won’t.’ He was right.”

JESSE HARRIS

Love-song credentials: “Don’t Know Why” (sung by Norah Jones)

Essentials: “Most of the lasting love songs are about heartbreak, because people feel things deeper when they suffer the pain in love. If Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” was an album about how happy Dylan’s marriage was, I don’t think anyone would care.”

Swoon tune: “I love Roberta Flack’s version of Jimmy Webb’s ‘Do What You Gotta Do.’ What impresses me is how it’s so heartbreaking, sincere and eloquent. The Beatles’ ‘All You Need Is Love’ is not this happy, silly slogan song. It’s serious yet optimistic.”

Memory lane: “I try not to tell to much of where any of my songs come from. When you do that, you steal their mystery. It’s like kissing and telling.”

WILL.I.AM

Love-song credentials: “I Got a Feeling,” “Ordinary People”

Essentials: “To make a great love song, a writer has to channel life’s turmoil into the music. Good love songs hurt.”

Swoon tune: “I wrote ‘Ordinary People’ with John Legend. It’s a song close to me because it is about vulnerability, turmoil and how ordinary people risk everything for love.”

KALENNA HARPER

Love-song credentials: “Let Me Put You Up on Game” (performed by Aretha Franklin and Fantasia), and “Pucker Up” (performed by Ciara).

Essentials: “It has to have honesty and integrity. You don’t write a love song, you live it,” says the member of Diddy-Dirty Money.

Swoon tune: “I love SWV’s ‘Rain.’ It works because it captures a girl’s simple dream of having a husband and a home. Al Green’s ‘Can’t Get Next to You’ is also great. That’s the coldest love song ever.”

Memory lane: “¤‘Put You Up on Game’ comes from deep in me. Me and my boyfriend were just 21 and I was living on my own, chasing my dream. At that time I was in Baltimore, and I was actually living in my car. I thought my guy would support me and my dream — fairy-tale-like — but he didn’t. The song is about waking up to the reality of love and learning the rules of the love game.

MARTHA WAINWRIGHT

Love-song credentials: “In the Middle of the Night,” “Love Is a Stranger”

Essentials: “When I sing a love song, I’m most interested in the tragic side of love. I identify with the pining of unattainable love; it makes for more interesting situations and more interesting characters in the song. That’s why a love song like ‘Stormy Weather’ works.”

Swoon tunes: Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” “The sentiment of the song is lovely, but I really like how it captures the time. If feels like the early ’80s — there’s this punk attitude.”

Memory lane: “The song that always moves me because it’s so close to me is by my mother [Kate McGarrigle], written about my father, called ‘Go Leave.’ It’s such a heartbreaking song and there still so much love in it. It’s about loving each other but not being able to live together.”

PIERS FACCINI

Love-song credentials: “Two Grains of Sand,” “Your Name Is No More”

Essentials: “There are no new love stories,” Faccini says, “so it’s details that make you forget the clichés.”

Swoon tune: “That has to be Dylan’s ‘Sara.’ It works because it is hopelessly sad, but achingly beautiful.”

Memory lane: “I was a teenager and I had a very passionate but short-lived affair that left me heartbroken. I had a notion that if I wrote a beautiful enough love song, she’d come back to me. I wrote a song that didn’t even have a title — and sent her the tape. She cried, she told me she was sorry for leaving, but it didn’t bring her back.”