Villain Love Song

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Laundry day, see you there
 Under things, tumbling
 Want to say, 'Love your hair'
 Here I go...mumbling
 With my freeze ray, I will stop the world.

—Dr. Horrible, "My Freeze Ray," from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

The song sung by the villain as he seduces the heroine or by the evil Vamp as she seduces the hero.

Generally not a full-blown Villain Song—hey, the villain's trying to impress someone, and blatantly reveling in puppy-punting has a knack for driving away potential love interests. Villains in love with other villains go under Unholy Matrimony.

Contrast Final Love Duet.

Examples of Villain Love Song include:

Film

  • "September Song" from Knickerbocker Holiday is an early example.
  • "As the World Falls Down" and "Within You" from Labyrinth, though the latter is more "If I can't have you, why should I bother existing!"
  • While it could be said that anytime Dr. Frank-N-Furter is singing in The Rocky Horror Picture Show he's seducing someone, the show has an interesting subversion in "Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me" where Janet sings a song about how the bad doctor seduced her, and how it changed her—to the point that she's now seducing Rocky.
  • Disney's 1961 film version of Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland features the Crooked Little Man Mr. Barnaby (Ray Bolger) attempting to seduce Mary Contrary (Annette Funicello) with the song "Castle in Spain".
  • Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Baron's Bomburst's song to his Baroness wife, "You're My Little Chuchi Face". Subverted, though, since he spends the whole song trying to kill her.
  • The title song from GoldenEye qualifies, as does the one from The World Is Not Enough.

Live Action Television

Music

  • Goethe's poem Der Erlkönig has been set to music by many composers, but Schubert's version features a particularly beautiful and chilling melody from the Erlking to the young boy, meant to entice him. His final lines, translated:

I love you, your beautiful form entices me,
 And if you're not willing, I shall use force.

  • The Black Sabbath song "N.I.B." probably qualifies, since the narrator is apparently Satan.
  • Wednesday 13 and his associated acts have quite a few. To name a few:
    • "Love at First Fright" is a love song to the girl from The Exorcist, from the perspective of the demon possessing her.
    • "Ghoul of My Dreams" is a somewhat campy vampire confessing his love.
    • "Happily Ever Cadaver" takes this for a bizarre twist, in that it is about a transvestite grave robber swooning over the latest corpse he's dug up. And, yes, the POV character is explicitly stated to be a transvestite.

Theatre

  • "Whatever Lola Wants" from Damn Yankees.
  • "My Love" from Candide.
  • A Long List from The Phantom of the Opera:
    • "The Mirror"
    • "The Music of the Night"
    • "Wandering Child"
    • "Point of No Return"
    • "Down Once More"
    • Indeed, Phantom could easily be retitled Villain Love Song: The Musical.
  • "A Dangerous Game" from Jekyll and Hyde.
  • "Special" from Avenue Q.
  • "Me" from the stage version of Beauty and the Beast.
  • "Hello, Little Girl" and "Any Moment" from Into the Woods.
  • "Where's the Girl?" from The Scarlet Pimpernel musical adaptation.
  • The latter part of "The Madness of King Scar" from Broadway's The Lion King.
  • Evil Dead The Musical sets this trope to happy circus music in "Join Us" and again in "Housewares Employee (Reprise)"
  • To a degree this applies in The Pirates of Penzance in "Oh, False One (You Have Deceived Me)" Where, although Fredrick has rebuked Ruth she makes one last effort to get him to marry her.
  • In a weird twist of Plant/Human Relations, "Feed Me" From Little Shop of Horrors qualifies as Audrey II seduces Seymour with images of money, power, and love.
    • And later, the plant does the same thing to Audrey. Right before it tries to eat her.
  • Young Frankenstein The Musical has a truly odd take on this in "Please Don't Touch Me" including a dance number with everyone dancing together and not touching.
  • The Snake from Children of Eden has a song tempting Eve to eat the apple called "In Pursuit of Excellence." Different in that the snake is played by a harmonizing quartet and the entire song consists of inspirational catchphrases ripped from motivational posters.
  • Herbert's part in "Wenn Liebe in dir ist" from Tanz der Vampire can be seen as one of these, in his own special way, of course. (This largely depends on the ratio of woobieness to pervertedness he's played with.) More straightforwardly, there's practically all of Graf von Krolock's musical interaction with Sarah.
    • And considering what happens to Sarah, her Final Love Duet with Alfred may qualify as this on her side too. (Hell, the fact that Sarah likes all of her interaction with Krolock, and is not particularly nice to begin with in her own right, makes all of her singing a bit morally ambiguous as well...)
      • Magda (victim who decides she likes a debatable villain) and Chagal's (said debatable villain) song in their shared coffin may also count.
        • Can we safely decide that Tanz likes its villainous love songs? And its villains.
          • It says a lot about the show that the audience typically thinks of The Hunter as a douchebag by the end of it, and not only as a result of Misaimed Fandom. You're supposed to like the vampires.
  • In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, "A Little Priest" can fall under this, as it is a villain seducing the hero. The thing is, it's Sweeney who is being, er, "seduced" by Mrs. Lovett to go with her idea. "By the Sea" and her part of "My Friends" can fall under this trope a bit more firmly (although see the Dr. Horrible example above.)
    • A probably better example would be Turpin's "Johanna", in which he's not directly singing to her (much like the Dr. Horrible examples), but is expressing his extreme lust for her.
  • Pepe Cibrián's Dracula musical has both Dracula's Love Theme and My Sweet Mina.
  • Frank Wildhorn's version of Dracula is full of these:
    • "Forever Young" (the three Brides to Jonathan Harker)
    • "Life After Life" (Dracula and Lucy; it only sort of fits due to the fact that by this point Dracula sees Lucy as purely the "spearhead" of his plans for vampire conquest and addresses her more like a father/creator than a lover)
    • "You Already Love Me/Please Don't Make Me Love You" Dracula and Mina.
  • 'Bolero Di Amor' from Copacabana.
  • "Lost and Found" from City of Angels.
  • Evita has two. "I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You", in which Eva Duarte meets future husband and budding politician Juan Peron, and convinces him that they'd be perfect for each other. She's shamelessly manipulating him, as she does for their entire marriage - if he knows yet depends on the production. And then there's "Waltz for Eva and Che", which isn't quite a love song (though Your Mileage May Vary) as much as Eva and Che manipulating and sniping at each other's perceived faults.
  • "Evil is Hot" from The Toxic Avenger: The Musical.

Webcomics

Web Original

Western Animation

  • "If Only" in the Musical Episode of Batman: The Brave And The Bold is actually a Love Triangle duet. The villainous portion is sung by Music Meister about his adoration of Black Canary, while the heroic portion is by Black Canary about her crush on Batman. Canary reacts in horror when she realizes they've been singing 'in tune' together and rejects Meister at the end of the song.
  • "Don't Make Me Laugh" from The Pebble and the Penguin especially qualifies...

So right this way to the Drake estate or write your epitaph
 You choose your fate
 Don't make me wait
 And baby... don't make me laugh!!!!!!"

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