10 Great Songs Performed By Real Life Couples

Anyone who gets to both be a rock star and have sex with a rock star is living the dream. One pair of rock and rollers who make sweet music together (in both the colloquial and literal sense) is Wavves front man Nathan Williams and Best Coast front woman Bethany Cosentino. The pair have recently released a the collaborative track “Nodding Off” by Wavves featuring Best Coast. Take a listen…

Hearing the song and thinking about Nathan and Bethany making sexy eyes at each other while laying down a sweet vocal line got us thinking about the grand history of real life couples who have recorded songs together and, remarkably, the results are always kind of sensational. Even the terrible ones – like The Captain and Tennille – are still fantastic in their own terrible way. Here is a compilation of some of the best…

10 GREAT SONGS PERFORMED BY REAL LIFE COUPLES

Beyonce and Jay-Z “Crazy In Love”
With “Crazy In Love” Beyonce and Jay-Z not only announced to the world that they were together – in song no less! – but turned it into a celebration so infectious that it was the first tune since Outkast’s impossible-to-dislike “Hey Ya!” that could instantaneously change the mood of a room. Every note, every explosive trumpet fanfare sounds like a party – which is what it should feel like when you’re crazy in love.

Sonny & Cher “I Got You, Babe”
Sure it’s an obvious, uncreative choice, but there’s just something truly lovely and timelessly romantic about the sentiment of this song. They tell each other as long as I’ve got you in my life I know that everything will be okay. Give me a karaoke song list with “I Got You Babe” and I will show you Hell’s temperature at below 0 degrees Celcius. Also, their clothes in this video are fucking rad.

Lauryn Hill And Wyclef Jean (Fugees) “Fu Gee La”
Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean have a pretty complicated personal relationship but when they did get along they made insanely good tunes together. Every track on the Fugees 1996 album The Score is so good it’s hard to choose the best one…

Biggie Smalls and Faith Evans “You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)”
Notorious B.I.G. created a track called “You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)” – that didn’t get released until after he got murdered in the infamous drive-by. IRONY. Biggie’s wife Faith Evans, an R&B singer-songwriter, sings the chorus of this song. The pair met at a photo shoot for Puffy’s record label Bad Boy – which is possibly the most un-gangsta hook up scenario of all time. Bless.

Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris- “In My Hour Of Darkness”
The country-rock couple collaborated on many tracks without producing a single dud. Their voices fit together incredibly, like pieces of a puzzle. After Gram Parsons died of an overdoes one of the first songs Emmylou Harris wrote, “Boulder To Birmingham”, was about Parsons: I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham / I would hold my life in his saving grace. / I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham / If I thought I could see, I could see your face. Love is great but also an asshole.

Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz (Tom Tom Club) “Genius of Love”
Who exactly is this ‘genius of love’? This oft-sampled track by husband and wife duo Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz offers a few suggestions like Smoky Robinson, Kurtis Blow, Bob Marley and Sly and Robbie. All great suggestions. The pair were both members of Talking Heads and, in the clip below, perform the song in the Talking Heads music documentary Stop Making Sense, which was done so that David Byrne could go backstage and change into his giant suit.

Fleetwood Mac “Go Your Own Way”
No one really needs a recap of the coke-fueled partner swapping that went on between the members of Fleetwood Mac while recording their classic record Rumours. Lindsey Buckingham wrote “Go Your Own Way” which is really an angry, desperate song about the pain of love. He nails that desperate passive-aggressive response you feel when your feelings for someone aren’t returned. He sings self-righteously: “Loving you isn’t the right thing to do”. Been there bro!

Mates Of State “Fraud in the 80’s”
Indie pop husband-and-wife team of Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel have been together for 14 years, have a baby, and are so into each other they called their most recent album, Crushes which is a covers compilation of their favourite songs. Even their names sound like a pair of American high school sweethearts from a feelgood coming of age movie.

Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) “Teenage Riot”
In 1984 Thurston Moore married Kim Gordon thereby out-cooling every other rock and roll couple thereafter. The end.

Nick Cave and PJ Harvey “Henry Lee”
When the alt dream team of the Nineties, PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, broke up it inspired one of the most depressing and incredible breakup albums ever: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 1997 bawler The Boatman’s Call.

Give us more suggestions in the comment section. Wings, anyone?

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