The greatest love song sung by the greatest singer ...

... with the greatest face-acting by any singer, ever. Except, maybe it wasn't acting?

The songwriter left the singer not long after. I'll never want to speculate on another person's pain, but when she sings these lines - "some people say that I should forget you," "I'm never going to be a fool" - and she clenches her eyes, as if in pain, between lines, does she already know? That he'll be leaving her, for a fool? That she'll be forced to forget him, or suffer trying?

They talk about growing up in public. I'm talking about breaking up in public.

I'm talking about Richard and Linda Thompson performing "A Heart Needs a Home" live in 1975, on The Old Grey Whistle Test, posted up on YouTube along with a whole lot more (but, necessarily, lesser, this being the greatest, etc.) stuff by Patzu.

Notice the songwriter, who would soon leave the singer of his love song, talk only about the key the song is in before she has to sing this heart-mulcher he wrote for her.

Linda Thompson, born Linda Peters, once said if she had married a carpenter, she would have built houses. But, she married a songwriter, a writer of broken heart songs, so she clenched her eyes shut between the lines as she sang them.

If you know pain, or would like to know pain, please watch this performance. And, if you don't know pain, and don't want to know pain, then please kill yourself, now, painlessly.

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Picture from that 1975 BBC session borrowed from an amazing music blog. They used to say, "Blah, blah, blah." Now, "blog, blog, blog."