It Must Be Love

Madness released their version of Labi Siffre's 1971 song in November 1981 and it reached number four in the UK, becoming a winter radio staple that is not strictly a Christmas record but is requested by December couples year after year. Suggs sings the title with a shrug rather than a swoon, and the lyric about nothing more and nothing less is plain enough to feel honest on a wedding dance floor. The tempo is a gentle skank, so it suits couples who want to move about rather than cling. Siffre himself appears in the video playing a violin, and the song charted all over again in 1992, reaching number six when it was reissued after the band reformed.