Sade
A stark, slow-burning meditation on grief and survival, written in the voice of someone descending into loss while insisting on…
grief survival descent and rebirth
Big Star
A Christmas carol built from borrowed and paraphrased hymn imagery, recorded by a band whose songwriter was in visible crisis at…
rebirth and renewal faith versus despair tradition and inheritance
Van Morrison
Van Morrison's title track drifts through a hazy, half-remembered landscape in search of rebirth and connection, using dreamlike…
rebirth and renewal spiritual longing displacement
Judee Sill
A short, dense allegory in which cosmic and mythological imagery (a phoenix, dragons, an implied battle with the Devil) stands…
spiritual struggle self-doubt and sincerity transformation and rebirth
A hushed, almost liturgical meditation on grief and the search for mercy, built around the ancient plea for divine pity. Judee…
grief and mourning dreams as spiritual descent supplication and mercy
Neutral Milk Hotel
This two-part suite opens with a plainspoken, almost liturgical declaration of love to Jesus Christ before erupting into a…
religious devotion and doubt birth and rebirth language and inarticulacy
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
A folk-tinged incantation built around a mythic animal-guide figure, the song trades narrative clarity for mood and repetition,…
loss of control seeking guidance/protection transformation and rebirth
Black Sabbath
This is Black Sabbath's opening statement with a new singer, and it plays like a mission statement disguised as…
heroic fantasy renewal/rebirth good versus evil
Talk Talk
"Eden" opens Spirit of Eden with a fragmentary, hymn-like meditation on loss and belief, using biblical imagery of Eden and…
loss of innocence religious doubt and faith death and rebirth
Grandaddy
A short, incantatory song about self-renewal that treats change as a kind of switch that, once flipped, can't be reversed.…
renewal and rebirth escape from stagnation transformation as irreversible
Ann Peebles
A gratitude-soaked soul ballad in which the narrator credits a lover with rescuing her from despair and teaching her what love…
redemption through love gratitude rebirth/renewal
Depeche Mode
A song that opens Songs of Faith and Devotion with a burst of religious ecstasy repurposed as erotic and romantic devotion. It…
sacred/profane fusion erotic transcendence conversion and rebirth
Free
A short, incantatory song built around images of ascension and release, using afterlife and angelic imagery to describe a…
transcendence death and rebirth freedom from bondage
Cat Stevens
A hymn of thanksgiving that treats an ordinary sunrise as if it were the first morning of creation. Cat Stevens' recording turns…
gratitude renewal and rebirth nature as sacred
Nina Simone
A catalog of natural images—birds, rivers, blossoms, stars—builds toward a declaration of liberation and renewal. Simone's…
liberation and freedom renewal rebirth through nature
Deerhunter
A brief, jangly pop song that fuses the language of romantic infatuation with imagery of illness, possession, and death, so that…
obsessive love possession and illness death and reincarnation
A frantic, horn-driven elegy that fuses the story of Anne Frank with a surreal, almost hallucinatory imagery of reincarnation…
death and afterlife war and atrocity obsessive love/grief
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith stages a full descent-into-hell nightmare as a twelve-bar blues, using classic AAB stanzas to build a horror…
mortality and damnation nightmare and dream logic sin and judgment