X‐Ray Spex
A clipped, sardonic sketch of a teenager so sanitised she's become unreachable, used as a vehicle for punk-era disgust with…
hygiene as social control consumer culture and advertising alienation and intimacy
Billy Joel
A young narrator describes a destructive, one-sided infatuation using imagery of physical danger — electrified rails, hidden…
obsessive infatuation self-destruction adolescent isolation
The Replacements
A scrappy, two-minute blast of teenage bravado that barely holds together as a song, which is the point: Westerberg sketches a…
adolescent defiance self-destructive pride desire disguised as indifference
Foreigner
"Luanne" is a straightforward power-pop/rock song about a narrator pining after a girl who keeps avoiding him, built almost…
unrequited longing persistence/pursuit adolescent infatuation
The Stooges
Little Doll is a two-minute blues-punk grind built on a simple crush and a raw, repeated command to move. Its lyric barely…
infatuation objectification desire vs. distance
Jefferson Airplane
A breezy, repetitive love-at-first-sight song built almost entirely around a single question addressed to a companion as both…
infatuation shared observation inarticulacy
Blondie
A cover of a 1963 girl-group style bubblegum tune, reworked by Blondie into a knowing new wave valentine that trades on…
infatuation surface pleasure and artifice girl-group nostalgia
X
This is X's version of the garage-rock standard, stripped down and repeated almost to the point of incantation. Rather than…
infatuation desire uncertainty about love
Mariah Carey
A buoyant celebration of infatuation that lives entirely in the space between attraction and consummation, where the pleasure…
infatuation escapism desire and daydream
Ride
A straightforward infatuation song built almost entirely from one refrain, tracking the dizzy, repetitive logic of early…
infatuation loss of control idealized future
Anita O’Day
This is Anita O'Day's vocal-jazz treatment of the Fats Waller standard, a breezy declaration of infatuation built entirely on…
infatuation sweetness as metaphor public admiration
Bryan Adams
A straightforward arena-rock love song built on the conceit of romantic revelation: the narrator claims total worldly experience…
infatuation romantic awe physical desire
Laura Nyro
An early Laura Nyro composition built almost entirely on sensation rather than narrative, this song uses the image of fire and…
infatuation loss of control transcendence through desire
Billie Eilish
A hushed debut single built around a single extended metaphor: a pair of eyes compared to the ocean, standing in for the…
infatuation vulnerability fear of intimacy
The xx
A duet-style track built around the exhilaration and risk of falling into infatuation, with the two vocalists trading lines that…
infatuation vulnerability risk-taking in love
Lupe Fiasco
A straightforward pop-rap infatuation song in which Lupe Fiasco uses the language of songcraft itself—hooks, choruses, verses—as…
infatuation obsession music as metaphor for love
Madonna
A buoyant early-80s dance-pop confection that turns a childhood wishing-star rhyme into an adult love song, celebrating…
infatuation luck and fate celestial imagery
Michael Jackson
A buoyant, physically driven declaration of infatuation built almost entirely around a single hook that gets repeated, echoed,…
infatuation desire and pursuit possessiveness
Luna
"Indian Summer" is a stripped-down declaration of infatuation built almost entirely from repetition, where a simple want…
infatuation desire as affliction irony toward pop romance
Jamiroquai
A breezy declaration of infatuation built around a single repeated hook, this track trades narrative complexity for pure…
infatuation the ineffability of attraction romantic devotion
American Football
A short, understated meditation on the unreliability of memory, specifically the memory of teenage emotion and romance. The…
unreliable memory nostalgia adolescence
Beirut
A brief, deceptively cheerful pop song built almost entirely from a wordless vocal hook, with a single quatrain of lyric…
infatuation uncertainty urgency
Queen
A slight, groove-driven vignette about attraction to someone effortlessly stylish and self-possessed, filtered through…
infatuation cool detachment vs. desire surface style over substance
En Vogue
A buoyant declaration of new romantic surrender, this song finds its narrator overwhelmed by affection and physical attraction,…
infatuation vulnerability in love physical attraction
Disclosure
Tenderly is an early, largely instrumental-minded Disclosure track where a handful of vocal phrases are looped and reconfigured…
infatuation obsession as repetition minimalism
Lauryn Hill
This is Lauryn Hill's rendition of the 1967 Frankie Valli classic, placed on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as a brief,…
infatuation gratitude vulnerability
Humble Pie
A short, almost skeletal love song built around the old rock-and-roll conceit of the heart skipping a beat, borrowed and…
infatuation the body as evidence of love repetition and ritual
Joan Armatrading
A love song built almost entirely on declaration rather than incident: a narrator confesses an all-consuming attachment, admits…
infatuation self-aware sentimentality gratitude/luck
The Animals
A straightforward R&B cover-style number built on a single comic premise: a woman's beauty is so overpowering it reorders the…
infatuation male desire and pursuit comic exaggeration
A slow-dance ballad built around a single moment: crossing a crowded room toward someone and closing the distance between…
infatuation vulnerability physical desire
Vince Gill
A country love song built around the physical panic of infatuation rather than its resolution. The narrator never gets to…
unrequited longing vulnerability idealization
A quiet, unglamorous portrait of teenage isolation, framed around confusion about sexuality and identity. Instead of anthemic…
adolescent alienation sexual confusion loneliness
Snail Mail
A short, blunt document of emotional depletion from an artist barely out of adolescence, 'Thinning' sketches a narrator who…
depression and numbness self-doubt withdrawal/isolation
Deep Purple
This is a straightforward garage-pop cover turned hard-rock workout, built almost entirely from nonsense syllables and a simple…
obsessive infatuation powerlessness in love physical desire
Sufjan Stevens
A young narrator recounts the slow death of a girl he loves from bone cancer, intercutting scenes of adolescent intimacy with…
mortality and illness adolescent love faith and doubt
Atmosphere
A nostalgic autobiographical verse-and-hook piece in which Slug recounts joyriding and petty rebellion with a childhood friend,…
nostalgia male friendship adolescence and rebellion
The Undertones
A two-minute blast of teenage bravado dressed up as intellectual boasting, where the narrator's claims to brains are undercut by…
adolescent bravado romantic pursuit self-mockery
Wet Leg
CPR turns the disorienting rush of new infatuation into a mock medical emergency, treating falling in love as a near-death…
infatuation as peril loss of control love versus self-destruction
The Pretenders
A giddy, slightly defensive love song built around a single repeated plea: don't misread my erratic behavior as indifference.…
infatuation and its contradictions fear of being misunderstood impermanence versus commitment
James Blake
A hazy meditation on romantic infatuation so intense it blurs into hallucination, James Blake's song treats intimacy as…
infatuation and disbelief dissolution of time psychedelic imagery of love