Greetings and salutations, Hivers. Another Tuesday, another set of tunes.

This week’s thread ended up circling around a loose theme: the sweetness of love, the snap of heartbreak, and the strange in-between space where you’re just trying to keep moving. Three different eras, three different moods, but they all talk to each other surprisingly well.

As always, thanks to @ablaze for keeping this tradition going.

Van Morrison – Brown Eyed Girl

A classic, obviously, but it earns the cliché. Every time this comes on, it feels like a small private movie you once lived through: sun, youth, someone you loved, and the ache of remembering it too clearly. Morrison sells nostalgia better than almost anyone, and this one is basically distilled golden afternoon.

Geez, y’know even when I think even is enough and I’ve heard it far too much, as soon as the notes announce the song, I’m there for it.

Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello – I’ll Never Fall in Love Again

Moving ahead a couple of decades but staying on theme. Bacharach’s touch gives this a bright, almost playful surface, and then Costello’s voice cuts straight through it with a tired, bruised honesty. It’s that perfect pairing: elegant melody, bitter humor.

The whole song is basically one long eye-roll at romance, but the catch is that the bitterness only works because the person singing it has obviously been hurt. It’s snappy, classy, and deeply human.

Now I know this song almost invariably recalls Austin Powers 2. But let’s try to separate them, eh? The song is great on it’s own.

Harry Styles – As It Was

For the modern anchor. “As It Was” is deceptively upbeat, but the lyrics sit in isolation, nostalgia, and the fear you’ve drifted too far from who you used to be. It mirrors Van Morrison’s warmth and Costello’s melancholy but wraps them in contemporary pop production.

This also balances the set generationally: one classic, one late–20th-century gem, and one track from the present moment. The connective thread is simple: trying to understand who you are after love changes you.

So what’s your favorite of the three?

David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. 【Support @dbooster with Hive SBI】