Angel Olsen
A short, driving song that circles a single unresolved feeling: the narrator loves someone who is present in her thoughts but…
unrequited or distant love self-doubt forgiveness as an open question
A breakup song that refuses the genre's usual apology, opting instead for flat, exhausted clarity about a relationship that has…
emotional exhaustion the end of a long relationship refusal of guilt
A driving, garage-pop declaration of romantic persistence, in which the narrator refuses to let a faltering relationship end…
romantic persistence refusal to quit desire versus communication
Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan addresses a fragile, self-sabotaging figure imagined as a wounded angel, urging her toward emotional openness and…
emotional vulnerability self-acceptance healing through love
Elliott Smith
A quiet, corrosive warning song addressed to someone being courted by fame and the music industry, personified as a seductive…
temptation and corruption the music industry as predator loss of autonomy
The xx
A sparse, almost hymn-like love song built around a single repeated claim of devotion, sung by a narrator who seems…
devotion the ineffability of love fear of loss
John Prine
A young man's ventriloquized portrait of an aging woman worn down by a marriage and a life that never became what she imagined.…
aging and disillusionment domestic entrapment lost youth
Warren Zevon
A junkie in a rundown corner of Los Angeles narrates his own decline in a strangely tender, almost comic voice, addressing an…
addiction and withdrawal romantic longing as survival strategy poverty and bureaucracy
Snoop Dogg
A breezy, sun-drenched ode to Los Angeles life that runs its title's double meaning -- rolling a joint and 'going with the flow'…
California/L.A. mythology cannabis culture seduction and courtship
