Songs about love triangles

Three homosexual men can enjoy a threesome shorn of jealousy, mostly. I would not take David Crosby’s advice on the matter, nor would I have returned the late Rick James’ phone calls. Too young for the Sears catalog posturing of peak 1970s appropriation of so-called counterculture values, I wonder just how many couples did like Sigourney Weaver in The Ice Storm and watched the car keys pile up in the fishbowl. To quote ABBA’s Frida in 1983, I know something was going on, though. Check out this lyric from “Two for the Price of One”: “I read your ad, it sounded rather thrilling / I think a meeting could be mutually fulfilling / Why don’t we meet for a chat / The three of us in my flat” — whoa! Benny sings it, I think, which I’d expect after the happy sleazo treatment he gave the execrable “Does Your Mother Know” a couple years earlier.

Alert readers will spot “1963” instead of “Bizarre Love Triangle” because New Order’s b-side to the “True Faith” single is sharper about the stakes than their most perfect single, the latter reliant on Bernard Sumner’s drug-addled obscurantist simplicity.

1. Cyndi Lauper – When U Were Mine
2. Patti Smith – Dancing Barefoot
3. Taylor Swift – August
4. Usher – U Make Me Wanna
5. Robert Cray – Right Next Door (Because of Me)
6. ABBA – Two For The Price Of One
7. Loretta Lynn – You Ain’t Woman Enough
8. Womack & Womack – Love Wars
9. The Smiths – William, It Was Really Nothing
10. Ariana Grande – Ghostin’
11. RaeLynn – Love Triangle
12. Jazmine Sullivan – In Love with Another Man
13. Pet Shop Boys – I Want to Wake Up
14. Erykah Badu – Next Lifetime
15. Ne-Yo – Go On Girl
16. New Order – 1963
17. The Strokes – Automatic Stop
18. Monica ft. Brandy – The Boy is Mine
19. Rick Springfield – Jessie’s Girl
20. Bee Gees – I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You
21. Peaches – I U She
22. Cardi B – She Bad
23. De La Soul – The Magic Number
24. Blur – Girls and Boys
25. T-Pain – My Girl Got a Girlfriend