The Book of Love

Merritt wrote it. No fetched source names the lead vocalist. He told WBUR in 2015 that he didn't think of it as a better song than the 1950s pop standard, and that the listener is supposed to know that there is already a song with that title. Stereogum quotes him telling the A.V. Club that he used it to explore the way the different clichés interact, and describes it as sparse and guitar-driven; a Tidal interview, which we could not open, reports him questioning its use at weddings, saying it is about the ambivalence and ambiguity of love.

Peter Gabriel first performed it as an encore with the band in London in 2001 and recorded it in 2009 for Scratch My Back; it was released on January 30, 2010 as a double A-side with Merritt's cover of "Not One of Us", and it is in Shall We Dance? (2004) and the Scrubs finale "My Finale" (2009). Gavin James's single of January 2, 2015 went platinum in the Netherlands. Others who covered it include Cheryl Bentyne (2006), Mike Doughty (2008), Tracey Thorn, the Chaps Choir (2016), the Shadowboxers for the 2016 film The Book of Love, Mishima in Catalan (2022), Atle Pettersen (2019) and Olivia Rodrigo, for War Child, on March 6, 2026. Dave Matthews played it on November 19, 2024. The original is in Extraterrestrial (2014), Lethal Weapon and Friends from College, and Nicola Yoon's novel Instructions for Dancing takes its title from a line in it. Our upload is presumably the album recording.