Valentine’s Day is here, and the big softies here at One-Click Wonders want to celebrate by showcasing our favorite love songs. So, concluding today, this blog will feature a different collection of love songs from NBN staffers and various campus figures. Today, NBN staffer Dagny Salas talks about drunk dials, mixed signals and J.R.R. Tolkien.

“I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” by Wilco

I wrote a paper on this song for class last spring. That’s how well front man Jeff Tweedy nails the stormy emotions involved in talking to an ex… especially while drunk. The swirling feedback and his tired, gravelly voice mimic drunken ramblings, and the refrain that ends each verse with “what was I thinking…” poignantly captures the mix of desperation and questioning behind his lyrics. Take it from Jeff: Don’t drunk-dial your ex this V-Day, especially if you think you can try to break their heart.

“Hands Down” by Dashboard Confessional

OK, OK I know this inclusion is kind of emo, but the bridge really gets what it’s like in those perfect, bittersweet moments right before you leave. There is simple guitar strumming in the acoustic version and a power ballad rock out in the other version, but both provide fantastic backgrounds to Chris Carrabba’s emotional outpouring. The line “Hands down this is the best day I can ever remember” resonates with anyone who’s ever had that tingling feeling as you start to fall for someone and the image of “And you stood at your door with your hands on my waist, and you kissed me like you meant it” just sends shivers down my spine. Oh, new love is so sweet.

“If You Don’t, Don’t” by Jimmy Eat World

Everyone knows how much mixed signals suck. Driven by a brisk melody fueled with anguish, this song pleads for clarity. “If you don’t don’t know, why would you say so? Would you mean this please if it happens?” We all know that it hurts when you think people mean things that they don’t, but the song’s strength comes from admitting that sometimes you just can’t get past limbo. This song works really when driving at twilight, just saying. Lesson of the day: Don’t lead people on. It’s a bitch.

“Evenstar” by Howard Shore

The best theme I’ve ever found for that Hollywood-type love story comes from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Scored by the esteemed Howard Shore (he won three Oscars for the Tolkien films), “Evenstar” is a sensual journey pulled straight from the scene in The Two Towers where Arwen and Aragorn are professing their love to each other in a dream sequence. Sung in Tolkien’s fictional Elvish language, this song’s haunting vocals and sorrowful strings pulls you deep within their love, one that stretched across the centuries, defying mortality and evil. Yeah, maybe I’m a LOTR nerd, but I bet you wish you could have a love that epic too.

“The Luckiest” by Ben Folds

Love supposedly has something to do with finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, right? (Right? Right?!) Ben Folds might say so. Backed by his signature piano, “The Luckiest” is his simple love letter about being flawed but so in love that he can’t help but be humbled by it all. “And where was I before the day that I first saw your lovely face? Now I see it everyday.” There are a million ways to say “I love you,” but Ben Folds nails some especially heartfelt ones. Le sigh, indeed.

“Your Ex-Lover is Dead” by Stars

Any song that starts with a grown man growling “When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire” deserves to be included on this list. A surprisingly mature take on the next time you see your ex awhile later, the song is also smart enough to realize that sometimes there’s nothing left to discuss. Twinkling at times with soft vocals, the song’s best moment comes with the clarity of the lines “I’m not sorry I met you, I’m not sorry it’s over, I’m not sorry… there’s nothing to say.” If only we could all be so sage.