Etta James
Etta James takes the 1933 Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler standard and strips it down to raw, aching testimony, using weather as an…
heartbreak and abandonment weather as emotional metaphor spiritual longing
James Taylor
A spare, almost proverbial song about walking away from a failed relationship or a bad chapter of life, addressed as much to the…
self-recrimination forward motion as survival regret
James Blake
A minimalist ballad structured as a farewell blessing, where the speaker releases someone from obligation while affirming an…
letting go unconditional love spiritual blessing
Bill Callahan
A restless, aphoristic meditation on identity and self-narration, borrowing its title's initials to nod toward the noir novelist…
self-mythology impermanence of mood the unreliability of narrative
Black Sabbath
This is Black Sabbath's title track marking the arrival of Ronnie James Dio, trading the band's earlier horror-movie doom for…
moral ambiguity illusion versus reality corrupted power
