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
Sam Cooke
A first-person account of a life lived under constant pressure — poverty, fear of death, segregation, betrayal by one's own —…
racial injustice and segregation endurance and faith mortality and doubt
Paul Simon
A reunion single from Simon and Garfunkel that reads as a bitter anti-nostalgia song, dismantling the idea of small-town…
small-town disillusionment loss of faith suppressed violence
Gram Parsons
A hymn-structured elegy that mourns three losses in succession -- a young man killed in a car crash, a musician taken too soon,…
mortality and premature death grief and mourning faith and supplication
Leonard Cohen
A three-part meditation in waltz time that moves from a woman by a river, to Christ walking on water, and back to the woman…
erotic love as spiritual apprehension faith and doubt surrender to a guide
Otis Redding
Otis Redding's rendition of Sam Cooke's civil-rights-era anthem transforms a carefully wrought protest song into a raw,…
racial injustice and endurance faith versus doubt family and disappointment
Yes
A three-part suite that moves from pastoral invocation through cosmic address to a mantra-like affirmation of shared awakening.…
cosmic consciousness nature as spiritual messenger transmission of hidden knowledge
Bert Jansch
This is a traditional Appalachian song (with roots in older British/American folk balladry) about a woman driven out of a…
exile and social rejection itinerancy gendered outsider status
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