5 Classic Rock Songs That Take Gen Xers Back To Their First Kiss

Generation X may have found itself labeled as the cohort with the most cynical worldview in recent decades, but none of that canceled out the excitement of a first kiss. Even among the dawning of grunge music and the ever-present need to keep things real, recordings emerged that count among the greatest love songs in popular music, and these five rock tracks were specially selected to remind Gen Xers of that inaugural smooch.

While bands like Nirvana and Sonic Youth may be most closely associated with the Gen X label retrospectively, the truth is that the teenage years of this generation span a wide range of eras and musical styles. Born between 1965 and 1980, older Gen Xers would have come of age during the era of hair metal and classic rock bands, while later Gen Xers would have been teenagers just as the grunge revolution was taking effect and making many '80s rockers seem suddenly dated. In this article, we've sifted through the eras to select five especially romantic songs that chime with those uncertain first love feelings — if you're Gen X, there's a good chance one of these will be especially evocative.

The spine-tingling "Faithfully" is possibly the most romantic track in Journey's sprawling discography. A 1983 single that hit No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Faithfully" soars high with emotion thanks to Steve Perry's exceptional vocals, which manage to be both powerful and vulnerable while delivering a ballad of great magnitude that has kept it an arena rock favorite ever since.

The song was written on tour by keyboardist Jonathan Cain, who had observed that the road crew who accompanied Journey were typically unable to fly in their partners to visit them during their many months on the road. To heighten the sense of isolation that Journey's touring entourage felt at the time Cain penned "Faithfully," they were also trapped by a snowstorm.

It's a song of distant yearning, with simplistic, evocative lyrics: "Highway run / Into the midnight sun / Wheels go round and round / You're on my mind." Cain tells American Songwriter that the track is also a paean to his own marriage, which was new at the time and already feeling insecure. "There were early signs that we would probably split apart. I knew I needed to do something that said, 'I love you, and whether or not you want to leave me, here it is.'" 

The Smiths are one of the definitive indie groups of the 1980s. Led by frontman Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr, the band is famous for its idiosyncratic blends of working class grit and high romanticism, lush melodies and driving rock soundscapes, and its music has captivated generation after generation of lovelorn youths. "There is a Light that Never Goes Out" is one of the band's slow-burn masterpieces. The song was originally an album track on the acclaimed 1986 album "The Queen is Dead" and released as non-charting single in the U.S., but is now at the time of writing the band's most popular song on Spotify. 

One of the Smith's most achingly romantic songs, "There is a Light," is performed from the point of view of an unsure, alienated narrator, who tells their apparent lover to "Take me out tonight / Because I want to see people and I want to see lights." The track then swells to an indulgent and sentimental but surprisingly rousing chorus in which the narrator fantasizes about being hit by a bus, preserving their moment of unity; no wonder it has struck a chord with self-serious teens for the last four decades. It is the perfect reflection of how young love seems to be a matter of life and death, and whatever irony is implicit in it, it certainly has the power to move you if you find yourself utterly wrapped in the object of your desire.

The Cure is renowned for tapping into the strong emotions arising from young love, experienced from an outsider perspective that sees relationships as a sanctuary from the hard realities of the world outside. Released in 1990 as a single from the 1989 studio album "Disintegration," "Pictures of You" is arguably the band at its most openly romantic, with Robert Smith's lyrics portraying the loss of a lover who becomes present in the mind of the narrator through a set of photographs. 

The instrumental is an accumulation of the band's explorations in new sounds in the late 1980s, with shimmering synths that soften the melancholic guitar lines, creating an evocative, nostalgic atmosphere. And Smith has been open about the first-kiss energy he was trying to capture on songs like "Pictures of You."

"With 'Disintegration,' I wanted to see if The Cure was still able to make a record which had a real substance and if we were able to express and share such deep feelings," he said in 1989. "The kind of things you feel the first time somebody kisses you violently on the mouth. It's this kind of intensity, when you're young, that you must never forget with age. Never..." (via American Songwriter)

​​There are few songs from the 1990s as achingly melancholic as Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You." The 1993 song, which peaked at just No. 44 on the Billboard Hot 100, is a dream pop classic, an ode to longing that became a touchstone for Generation Xers who were drawn to its fragility and vulnerability.

Penned by vocalist and lyricist Hope Sandoval and composer Dave Roback, who performs tasteful slide guitar throughout, "Fade Into You" is a pensive meditation on the nature of obsessive love and the potential for losing oneself in another person's identity, and the ethereal music paired with Sandoval's sleepy delivery is reminiscent of those swirling feelings that can accompany a first kiss.

The dreamy track succeeds in walking the line between being a laid-back listen and an intense one — depending on your frame of mind, it is possible to enjoy "Fade Into You" as soothing chill-out music, or as a tool to explore your own emotional state in moments of crisis. Its lyrics are vague but effective, adding to the song's universality, and it is one of those songs that means a great deal to many listeners who return to it again and again throughout their lives.

Australian rockers INXS hit the stratosphere in 1987 with the release of their seminal studio album "Kick," which showcased the band's incredible stylistic breadth. As well as the No. 1 funk-rock classic "Need You Tonight," one of the album's most enduring highlights is "Never Tear Us Apart," the uber-'80s synth-and-sax-drenched power ballad that achieves the rare trick of being a gorgeous waltz that also rocks hard.

The studio version sees frontman Michael Hutchence in full-voiced form, reassuring a lover about the power of their enduring relationship. The lyrics are deceptively simple: "I was standing / You were there / Two worlds collided / And they could never tear us apart." But the song also alludes to the freedom that love provides. Above all, as a declaration of love, you can't escape its apparent authenticity.

"Never Tear Us Apart" was inspired by Hutchence's relationship with his girlfriend Michele Bennett, and co-writer and INXS member Andrew Farriss has claimed that the song was "Straight from the heart. I know how much that lyric meant to [Hutchence]. It was a personal love lyric very much in the moment for him" (via The Music).