Led Zeppelin
A slow-building folk-rock epic that follows a mysterious woman convinced she can purchase spiritual transcendence, using her as…
spiritual materialism vs. authentic enlightenment ambiguity of language and meaning pastoral/mythic imagery as escape
The Beach Boys
A love song that opens by admitting its own limits "" the singer won't promise permanence "" and then spends the rest of its…
conditional devotion dependence and identity uncertainty as a form of honesty
Townes Van Zandt
A ballad about a Mexican bandit's death and the shadowy figure who may have betrayed him, told with the flat affect of folklore…
betrayal and complicity myth-making versus truth exile and diminishment
Harry Nilsson
A short set of declarative lines about escape and entrapment dissolves into a chant that repeats itself into…
entrapment disguised as freedom codependency compulsion and addiction
Betty Davis
Betty Davis takes a lover's insults—bitch, witch, alley cat, dirty dog—and turns them into a badge of honor, staging a…
sexual autonomy and shame reclaiming derogatory language power reversal in a relationship
Bill Callahan
Bill Callahan opens his own name into someone else's -- the title alludes to the noir novelist James M. Cain -- and uses that…
self-transformation the writing process as detective work impermanence and mortality
Sufjan Stevens
A quiet domestic love song that strips Christmas of all its commercial and social trappings and relocates the holiday's meaning…
intimacy vs. commercialism presence over spectacle domestic love as sanctuary
Judee Sill
Judee Sill's 'The Kiss' fuses erotic and devotional language until they become indistinguishable, imagining spiritual union as a…
sacred and profane love transcendence death as release
The Staple Singers
This is the Staple Singers' rendition of the traditional African American spiritual, built almost entirely on call-and-response…
deliverance and salvation collective faith and community crossing over / transition between states
Nina Simone
A traditional African-American spiritual rebuilt by Simone into a ten-minute chase sequence: a sinner runs from judgment on the…
judgment day futile flight refused sanctuary
Patti Smith
A duet between erotic urgency and something closer to faith: the speaker asks a lover to take her as she is, and then defends…
erotic desire as sustenance night as sanctuary from harm doubt and belief
Kate Bush
A song about two lovers who keep wounding each other without meaning to, and the narrator's fantasy of a supernatural fix: a…
empathy as an impossible exchange the violence hidden inside love gendered misunderstanding