Results for “collective longing for peace”

Songs

Peace Train

Cat Stevens

A buoyant early-70s anthem that turns hope for global reconciliation into a literal vehicle, imagined as a train that anyone can…

utopian hope collective longing for peace spiritual/religious undertones

I Won't Be Long

Beck

A brief, hook-driven single that trades in fragmentary, almost dissociated imagery of division and delay, wrapped around a…

impending departure social division sensory disorientation

Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time)

Elton John

A spaceman narrates the mundane dread of leaving home for another routine off-world shift, and finds the glamour of space travel…

alienation the gap between public and private self domestic loss

Tomorrow Is a Long Time

Sandy Denny

A Bob Dylan song given to Sandy Denny's voice becomes a study in absence: the singer measures every image of beauty and time…

longing and absence time as burden identity dissolved by loss

Water Curses

Animal Collective

A dreamlike wish-song built around water as an image of fluidity, ease, and self-erasure, drifting through loosely connected…

desire for formlessness/transformation mortality and impermanence creativity and artistic longing

FloriDada

Animal Collective

A barrage of interrogative fragments and postcard-sized images collages the world into a single imaginary destination, half…

placelessness and utopian longing collage as method identity without borders

I Gotta Find Peace of Mind

Lauryn Hill

A raw, semi-improvised confessional performed live, in which Hill wrestles aloud with an internal voice of doubt and control…

psychological bondage vs. freedom spiritual surrender toxic control in relationships

Long Legged Larry

Aesop Rock

A children's-book superhero story about a heroic frog who rescues people (and a poodle) from peril, delivered with a straight…

heroism as ritual childlike wonder absurdism

Long May You Run

Neil Young

Neil Young's elegy for a car that has died is written with such tenderness it plays as a breakup song or a eulogy for a person,…

loyalty and companionship loss and mortality nostalgia for youth

Love Is a Long Road

Tom Petty

A mid-tempo Heartbreakers-style rocker built around a single deflating refrain: whatever romance is being described, the song…

disillusionment with romantic idealism emotional exhaustion letting go

Long Black Veil

Rosanne Cash

A ghost narrates his own wrongful execution, explaining that he chose death over revealing the affair that would have cleared…

forbidden love silence and secrecy guilt and sacrifice

Four Long Years

Wire

A short, elliptical piece built from fragmented statements about breakdown -- of attention, feeling, and communication. It reads…

mental exhaustion alienation failure of language

Long Way Home

Tom Waits

A wandering, guilt-soaked ballad in which a restless narrator confesses his inability to settle down even as he pleads for…

restlessness and wanderlust guilt and self-forgiveness domestic responsibility vs freedom

Lying in the Grass

Animal Collective

A tangled, riddling song about the effort of self-diagnosis — trying to name a discomfort that resists naming. Animal Collective…

self-examination communication breakdown instinct vs. denial

Golden Gal

Animal Collective

A song built around a half-real, half-mediated female icon glimpsed through screens and reviews, with the narrator working out…

celebrity and mediated desire gender and sexuality fandom as devotion

Street Flash

Animal Collective

A song about the paralysis of anxious self-consciousness and the small, almost accidental relief of stepping outside. It moves…

anxiety and self-criticism domestic clutter as psychological weight inertia versus movement

Grown Ocean

Fleet Foxes

The closing track of Helplessness Blues describes a visionary dream-state of peace and permanence, set against a waking world of…

dreams versus waking life longing for peace impermanence and mortality

Maybe Not

Cat Power

A hushed, incantatory song that treats freedom as something willed into being through repetition and quiet insistence rather…

freedom and liberation collective will powerlessness and possibility

Freddie's Dead

Curtis Mayfield

A eulogy and a warning delivered in the same breath, this song uses the death of a minor drug-trade casualty from the Superfly…

addiction and exploitation systemic racism/economic entrapment urban despair

Don't Know Why

Smokey Robinson

A spare confession of regret builds around a single unanswered question: why didn't the narrator show up for someone waiting.…

regret emotional paralysis longing

Sharp Cutting Wings (Song to a Poet)

Lucinda Williams

An early Lucinda Williams ballad addressed to an idealized poet-lover, mixing plainspoken country-blues devotion with a fantasy…

idealized love escapism artistic admiration

White Christmas

Otis Redding

Otis Redding takes the Irving Berlin standard and rebuilds it as soul testimony, stretching its plain, nostalgic lines into…

nostalgia longing devotion

Unchained Melody

Al Green

Al Green takes a mid-century ballad already worn smooth by decades of cover versions and slows it down further, turning its plea…

longing and separation time as erosion faith and supplication

If I Could See the World

Patsy Cline

A weary adult voice imagines borrowing a child's unclouded vision as a way of escaping accumulated disappointment. The song…

lost innocence nostalgia for childhood perception weariness with adult disillusionment

At the End of the Day

Sandy Denny

A simple, tender travel song built around a single promise: the singer will return to a loved one when the day ends. Sandy Denny…

longing separation and reunion homecoming

Back Up Train

Al Green

A young man begs a train conductor to reverse course so he can return to a lover he left too hastily. Al Green, still developing…

regret and reversal longing isolation

If I Could See The World (Through The Eyes Of A Child)

Patsy Cline

A simple, wistful song built on a single wish: that the singer could trade her adult, disillusioned view of the world for a…

lost innocence nostalgia for childhood disillusionment with adulthood

Over the Rainbow

Chet Baker

This is an instrumental reading of the Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg standard, recorded by Chet Baker on his 1962 comeback album Chet…

longing exile and return faded innocence

Tangerine

Chet Baker

This is an instrumental reading of the pop standard "Tangerine" as performed by Chet Baker, likely on trumpet (possibly with a…

longing romantic nostalgia exoticism/escapism

Moon River

Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean's 2018 cover strips the classic Mancini/Mercer standard down to its skeleton, treating the original as a found…

longing transience companionship

An Ocean In Between the Waves

The War on Drugs

An instrumental-forward, motorik rock track from Lost in the Dream whose lyrics function almost as texture rather than narrative…

emotional distance self-doubt longing

Love, Reign O'er Me (From "Reign Over Me")

Pearl Jam

This is a cover of The Who's 1973 track, rendered here for a film soundtrack about grief and recovery. Pearl Jam's version leans…

longing emotional drought catharsis

Which Will

Nick Drake

A quiet, almost unbearably direct song built entirely around a single repeated question, addressed to someone the narrator loves…

romantic uncertainty fear of rejection self-doubt

I Want You

Tom Waits

This piece reads less like a finished lyric than a raw studio artifact: a repetitive, formulaic love song built almost entirely…

longing distance repetition as devotion

Now And Then

The Beatles

A simple, unguarded love plea built from a demo John Lennon left behind, completed decades later by his surviving bandmates. The…

longing mortality and memory reunion

Superstar

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth's cover of the Carpenters' "Superstar" strips the original's lush orchestration down to a slow, droning haze,…

one-sided obsession loneliness the falseness of mediated intimacy

If I Could Only Win Your Love

The Louvin Brothers

A plain, pleading country ballad built entirely around a single conditional wish: to win the love of someone who remains just…

unrequited love longing devotion

The W.A.N.D.

The Flaming Lips

A funky, riff-driven anthem that dresses up a political fantasy of taking down authoritarian power in the language of magic…

power vs. greed collective resistance fantasy as political metaphor

Summer (Estate)

Shirley Horn

This is a slow, hushed apostrophe to a season, treated as a lover whose absence the speaker will endure with quiet fidelity.…

seasonal longing love as devotion beyond presence nature personified as beloved

Wild

Spoon

A restless meditation on the pull between domesticated, image-managed adulthood and some untamed force outside it. The song…

restlessness under routine authenticity vs. performance longing for freedom