It’s Valentine’s Day, and depending on your relationship status, you’re either trying to kill yourself  by listening to these songs on a couch with double chocolate chip ice cream, or tying kill your loved ones by gifting them these songs on tape. Either way, it’s just a vicious cycle of morbidity.

There are numerous pretty words which all infatuated wooers are trained to whip out in two shakes of a Martini to tell their objects of lust how they feel – I love you, You complete me, Let’s do it on the road, shake that thing, shake that thing please, I want your money and so on. But more than anything, the besotted lovekittens like to dedicate swoony songs to each other. Songs which they feel are written about their mind-numbingly dull, inconsequential love lives.

Every February 14th, the multi-billion Greeting Card industry and commercial radio giants take it upon their cupidoid selves to shove a whole barrage of terrible love songs down all our relevant orifices, so that the ones in love get sick of love and the ones not in love try to kill themselves because of the constant reminder that they’re not in love. In loop. 

Here are five songs that make you want to turn into a love hating social outcast with mean knife skills:

#5: Billy Ray Cyrus: Achy Breaky Heart

Here’s what I think happened. Billy Ray Cyrus, like all the weird and rich, got himself a barely legal young ‘un. Now the barely legal young ‘un (or BLYU) proved to be too much for him. He read her charming poetry by famous poets, quoted Shakespeare to her, wrote her deep meaningful songs with multiple layers, but all the poor codger got were nonchalant whatevs from the bubblegum chewing BLYU. So finally the beguiled one, after extensive market research, decided to get down to her literary level and write a song with cutesy made-up words. 

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Everybody in the video looks like they’re going through major mid-life and wardrobe crises.

#4: Savage Garden: Truly Madly Deeply

The first time you give this song a listen, you worriedly wonder if the vocalist is held hostage by a certain ‘Clint’ with the ‘Love you, Mom!‘ tattoo on his left bicep, and is being forced to recite the lyrics at gunpoint. But then you hear this treat the second time, and realise that the poor thing must’ve just gotten the lyrics mixed up with his grocery list and is reciting them along with 100 grams of sugar and an extra deluxe pack of tampons.

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Even the Pussycat Dolls have more voice modulations in their songs than this. But at least he’s safe and there’s no gun involved.

#3: N’Sync: God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You

There now God, there’s no point beating yourself over this. They’re your wayward children after all, so forgive them you must. Giveth them some holy brownie points, O piestic one, for at least they didn’t make the song on their neighbours’ wives (or Stacy’s mom!). Yes, I do agree that the lyrics put your fine-assed creation to much shame, but you have to give them a pat on their backs for all that delightful rhyming. You know you love them funky rhymes and they’re nothing less than godliness.

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Tell me, can this be real

 How can I put into words what I feel?

Bravoeth!

#2: Puff daddy: I’ll be missing you 

I believe this is as real as it gets. P Diddy had lost his girl (again) and was feelin blue, so he went ahead and wrote this bad boy. There are no frills and fancies or orchestrated harmonies; just pure, deep emotions from the lean and mean streets. When you gaze upon his stoic, gleaming face, you experience a sudden clarity, like you’ve been repeatedly hit on the head with his diamond studded earring. His music is eye opening and ear popping; he’s just too cool.

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Sometimes it’s hard for a nigga to wake up

It’s hard to just keep going

I feel you one hundred percent, brah.

#1: Billy Ocean: Get Outta of My Dreams, Get Into My Car

Every time I listen to this song, I picture a 60 year old creep asking random women on the street to get into his car. Remember Baba Saigal‘s ‘Aaja Meri Gaadi Mein Baith Jaa‘ ? When they refuse, he hits them on the head and plops their unconscious bodies into the seat next to him. He then proceeds to take the bodies out for dinner in his garage which he shares with his mom. Dinner is usually a delightful assortment of cheese, wine and puffs. After dinner, he braids their hair lovingly, liberally using Sarah Jessica parker’s hair products. Around this time, they start regaining consciousness and panicking. This is when he plays them Stevie Wonder‘s ‘I just called to say I love you‘, on his handy acoustic guitar, and explains that it’s just a dream – Right before he hits them again on the head again, ironically with the same guitar he’d been serenading them with minutes ago.

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Snazzy video though.

These songs, along with a million other painful ones, would probably get a laugh out of you, most of the time. But on Valentine’s Day, perfectly sane and non-tonedeaf people like to make mixed CDs of such atrocities and try their best to choke their loved ones with them. After all, doing it thusly keeps things stylish, since executions and beheadings are so passé these days.