Sarah McLachlan
This is a cover of Joni Mitchell's 1971 song, recorded here as part of a holiday album, though its content is anything but…
regret and self-blame isolation amid festivity longing for escape
A gentle, almost hymn-like children's-film song that treats the mundane workings of nature -- rain, sunrise, the seasons -- as…
wonder in the everyday cycles of nature gratitude
Alex G
An early Alex G sketch about a manipulative relationship narrated by someone who half-recognizes his own cruelty. The song…
emotional manipulation self-loathing dissociation
Thin Lizzy
A tender, almost devotional love song built on simple repeated vows, addressed to someone named Sarah. Its plainness is the…
unconditional love parental/romantic tenderness devotion
Sarah Vaughan
A standard by Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington, here rendered by Sarah Vaughan as an intimate meditation on physical presence…
desire and presence the inadequacy of romantic cliché vulnerability
This is a torch song run in reverse: instead of pining, the singer delivers a verdict, reminding a former lover that the…
romantic retribution reversal of fortune emotional score-settling
Sarah Vaughan's 1986 reading of the Gershwin standard treats the lyric as a meditation on wanting a specific kind of protection…
romantic longing vulnerability self-deprecating humor
Sarah Vaughan's 1950 reading of the Harold Arlen–Johnny Mercer standard treats the lyric's blunt vow of permanence as an…
unconditional devotion acceptance of hardship romantic fatalism
A torch song built entirely around one confined domestic scene: a woman drinking coffee alone through the small hours, waiting…
romantic waiting and vigilance gendered domestic roles insomnia and time distortion
A brassy carpe-diem anthem in which the singer declares total commitment to pleasure and defiance of sorrow before death…
carpe diem defiance of sorrow mortality as motivation
Sarah Jarosz
A hushed invitation to elope into the natural dark, this song builds its romance almost entirely out of pastoral imagery and…
forbidden or secret love escape/flight from society nature as refuge
A standard from the Rodgers and Hammerstein songbook, this is a portrait of adolescent restlessness dressed up as a…
longing without an object self-aware irrationality anticipation and desire
This is a devotional address built almost entirely on paired opposites, culminating in a refrain of unconditional love. The…
unconditional love moral duality forgiveness
This is a cover of Bob Dylan's 1989 song, urging church bells to be rung as an alarm against a world sliding into moral…
moral decay religious urgency apocalyptic imagery
Sondheim's meditation on romantic timing gets a slow, harmonically rich reading from Vaughan, whose jazz phrasing treats the…
misaligned timing regret self-mockery
Massive Attack
A stripped, weary meditation on romantic inertia, sung by Sara Jézéquel (credited as Sarah Jay) with Robert Del Naja's added…
emotional numbness romantic dependency self-dissolution
