Ride the ups and downs of your romantic life — in song

Romantic relationships: one moment they have you feeling like a million bucks and the next you're trying to figure out how you got yourself into this mess. Whether or not you're celebrating or just surviving the good, the bad and everything in between of your relationship, music has your back. 

In this playlist, I bring you songs for each stage of the relationship trajectory (or at least the one the Internet tells me commonly occurs). Here's a sample of what you will find.

Stage 1: Attraction and romance

In the beginning a new relationship can really fill your sails, energizing you with possibility.  "Wild Love" is a near perfect expression of this initial spark. It's a song off Tenille Arts's new album with the apropos title, Love, Heartbreak and Everything in Between. 

Stage 2: Reality sets in/crisis

It's like a choose-your-own-adventure game: it's still early in the relationship but things are leaving the fantasy stage and you'll have to make some hard choices. Is it going to be like Carly Rae Jepsen's new tune "Let's Be Friends"? Or is "Stand By You" by The Wild Feathers your course forward?

Stage 3: Disappointment/working

At this point, if you still "Got Love" like in the song from The Revivalists, then you might be ready for the real relationship work to begin. 

But maybe it's time to crank up Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar singing the song "Gonna Find It."

Stage 4: Commitment/stability

After all that hard relationship work you arrive at the real deal. William Prince, the Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter out of Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, has a new album out called Reliever. On it, his song "The Spark" will help you rekindle that deeper flame. 

Stage 5: Real love/bliss

They say hindsight is 20/20 and in this final stage you can look back fondly over the distance you have covered through all the ups and downs in your relationship with a sense of calm satisfaction for having made the journey together. Folk musician Dave Gunning's latest album Up Against the Sky has a perfect tune for this stage called "Ferris Wheel."