I have, throughout my life, taken crushes very seriously. I have yearned to yearn. I have thrilled to the the potential of the other as I go about my quotidian tasks; I have delighted in becoming a person who is a little more in love with the world for knowing that the object of my desire is roaming around in it. Crushes have made me buy strange things, travel to places I had never intended to visit, read books I had previously disdained, watch movies with run times of over 3 hours. (I have drawn the line at watching sport.) I do not think crushes are cute, the domain of teenagers or embarrassing. I think they are dangerous and intoxicating, and if you are looking for adorable songs about falling in love this is not the playlist for you! This playlist is mostly in the business of yearning, of feeling insane as it drives into yet another curb. This playlist has Pavlov’s dog-ged itself by choosing a signature tone on its phone for its crush so it can drop everything the moment it hears it. This playlist is sleeping with its phone on the pillow, volume UP. It is not well and it is feeling ALIVE.
I hope these songs fill you with longing. Let me know about your very own favorite songs for yearning please! Not content to just yearn through song? Well, there are also some wonderful crush filled film and book recommendations from Petya K. Grady of A reading life and Katelyn Gray of i have great taste for you, as well as some undignified behaviour from my main insane crush dudes - 18th and 19th century composers.
EXTRA!!!!!!! BOOKS ABOUT CRUSHES
I asked Petya K. Grady for some of her favorite books about yearning, which luckily is one of her favourite genres!
THE STORY OF A NEW NAME - ELENA FERRANTE
In the second Neapolitan novel, a young woman’s intense attraction to a brilliant but elusive classmate reveals how romantic yearning can intertwine with ambition, rivalry, and the longing to escape the life you were born into.
THE PIANO TEACHER - ELFRIEDE JELINEK
Jelinek’s disturbing novel follows a repressed piano instructor whose fixation on a younger student exposes the violent undercurrents of desire, control, and humiliation.
A SIMPLE PASSION - ANNIE ERNAUX
In this slim autobiographical novel, Ernaux chronicles her consuming affair with a married Soviet diplomat in her characteristic stark, unsparing prose that reveals how quickly obsession can reorganize the rhythms of an entire life.
IF ONLY - VIGDIS HJORTH
A playwright falls desperately in love with a married colleague and becomes trapped in a cycle of longing, humiliation, and relentless self-examination.
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME — ANDRÉ ACIMAN
During one languid Italian summer, a young man experiences the exquisite torment and awakening of his first overwhelming crush on an older visiting scholar.
EXTRA EXTRA!!! MOVIES FOR CRUSHES!
I asked Katelyn Gray to recommend some movies about crushes and she delivered some really brilliant and unexpected ideas!
SING STREET - JOHN CARNEY
A classic tale of “boy starts a band to impress his crush” but the songs are actually good. Have you heard the theory that if white boys were still forming garage bands, there wouldn't be incels?
THE WAY WE WERE - SYDNEY POLLACK
You watch Katie (Barbra Streisand) develop a fondness for Robert Redford’s Hubbell even as she tries to resist. She doesn’t want to pine after the most popular guy in school! When they reunite years later, she can’t help herself. The way she looks at him is heartbreaking.
DIDI - SEAN WANG
A painfully, hilariously real teenage crush set in 2008. I love the period-perfect choice to show him changing his ringtone to his crush’s favorite song in hopes she’ll hear it.
FRIENDSHIP - ANDREW DEYOUNG
A ridiculous look at what can happen to a man when he’s got a friend-crush on another guy.
ROMY AND MICHELE’S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION - DAVID MIRKIN
Fun clothes, iconic dialogue, and so many crushes! Ramon on Romy. Romy on Billy. Heather on Sandy. Sandy on Michele. And whatever was going on with Janeane Garofalo and Justin Theroux's characters.
WILL I EVER STOP!!!! EVEN MORE BOOKS ABOUT CRUSHES!!!
I also want to tell you about some crush books.
THE IDIOT - ELIF BATUMAN
Elif Batuman wrote one of the best and most important books about what a crush will get you to do (in this case go to Hungary).
THE FIERY PANTHEON - NANCY LEMANN
A book full of romantics and eccentrics, our female protagonist, Grace “bats her eyelashes at the whole world” as well as at the pantheon of venerable southern men she holds in high esteem, while crazed young man, Walter, follows her to Europe hoping to join the fiery pantheon himself!
THE VIRGIN SUICIDES - JEFFREY EUGENIDES
Featuring I think our most iconic crush related move: writing their name on your underwear. Things obviously do not go well in this book, but the boys fascination with the girls is what keeps the whole thing moving.
GOOD LORD I’M STILL NOT DONE. COMPOSERS AND THEIR CRUSHES!
You know who felt things? Classical composers. They loved to yearn!
Brahms Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118 No. 2
Spotify / Apple Music
No one has ever yearned quite as well as Johannes “Bros before hoes” Brahms. He was very in love with his close friend Robert Schumann’s wife, Clara, an affection that lasted an unrequited life time, with this piece being dedicated to her.
Schumann: Fantasie in C Major, Op 17: I
Spotify / Apple Music
Clara (yes the same one as above!) must have loved it so much when Robert S was like “I wrote you a love song during this difficult time of our separation, but also lol it’s for Beethoven. ” In June 1836, Schumann composed a lament for Clara which he titled ‘Ruins’. But that autumn, he decided to incorporate that movement into a ‘Grand Sonata’ for Beethoven in three movements: ‘Ruins’, ‘Trophies’ and ‘Palms’. Clara’s reaction upon hearing it was:
“Yesterday I received your wonderful fantasy—today I am still half ill with rapture; as I played through it I was drawn involuntarily towards the window, and there I felt like leaping out to the beautiful spring flowers and embracing them.”
You should send this message to your crush, just replace “fantasy” with “voice note.”
Beethoven Sonata 14 in C-sharp minor, Op 27, No. 2“Moonlight”
Spotify / Apple Music
During an agonizing period in his life, Beethoven started teaching Julie Guicciardi the piano. For the previous four years, he’d been suffering from tinnitus, a ringing and buzzing in his ears, and was having trouble discerning high notes and Julie helped lift his despair by being a “dear, enchanting girl” 18th century for being a babe. He wrote Moonlight Sonata for her. She went and married a Count.
Wagner — Prelude to Tristan und Isolde
Spotify / Apple Music
One of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written and inspired by a huge crush Wagner had (whilst married) on Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of a wealthy patron.
Berlioz — Symphonie Fantastique
Spotify / Apple Music
Berlioz the Mad King of Crushes! While in love with actress, Harriet Smithson who he pursued with”emotional derangement.” Berlioz wrote semi-autobiographical programme notes for this piece that allude to the romantic sufferings of a gifted artist who has poisoned himself with opium because of his unrequited love for a beautiful and fascinating woman. It was arranged for performance on 5 December to celebrate Harriet’s return to Paris. She did not show up. Not to worry, it’s time for another obsessive crush, said Berlioz! This time on 19-year old pianist Marie-Félicité-Denise Moke. The couple planned to be married, but Marie broke off their engagement to marry an older and richer suitor. Berlioz was outraged and did something totally normal: purchased poisons, pistols and a disguise and concocted an elaborate plan to kill them both, together with her mother. Luckily he changed his mind! Years later he and Harriet briefly and unhappily married.
Oh to yearn
hi i'm back with more novels.
all fours
the pisces
acts of desperation