Sometimes lost in all this talk of love and romance is that this day commemorates the death of a saint. As a way of paying homage to St. Valentine, this post looks out how the word saint(s) is used in pop music by looking at its occurrence in songs from the Billboard year-end Top Thirty charts (1951-2015) and presents videos of some of these songs.

Generally speaking, the word occurs in two categories. The first is as a noun, where it is often used metaphorically to mean "good person/people." It is used this way in the songs "This Ole House" (1954), and "Demon" (2012), and the following song from 1996, 1997, and 2005, respectively:

The other general category that the word falls into in the Top Thirty is in its use as a name; however, this category has four subcategories associated with it. The first comprises those songs in which it is used in reference to an actual saint, as in which there are three references to St. Peter, in "The Thing" (1951), "Sixteen Tons" (1955), and in the following song from 2008:

Another subcategory comprises placenames with the word Saint in them, one being a reference to St. Louis in "Country Grammar Hot Shit" (2000) and the other a reference to St. Thomas, in the following song from 1977:

A third subcategory consists of family names, St. George being used as the name of a fictional detective in "St. George and the Dragonet" (1954) and St. Laurent as the name of a designer who then applied his name to his fashion business, Yves St. Laurent, as mentioned in the following song from 2015:

The fourth and final subcategory comprises a single tune (from 2013) and is also in reference to a clothing retailer, AllSaints:

Here's a bonus from The Boss:

Here's a word search comprising uses of the word saint in the collection, as well as some random names of saints that were added into the mix.

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