Results for “desire versus confusion”

Songs

Just Like Water

Lauryn Hill

Performed live and introduced almost as an experiment in vulnerability after the confrontational 'Rebel', this song builds an…

surrender spiritual longing conflated with romantic desire purification

Lola

The Raincoats

The Raincoats' version of the Kinks' 1970 hit keeps the original words intact but changes everything about who is speaking,…

gender ambiguity sexual awakening performance of identity

Faith

George Michael

A dance-pop declaration of self-preservation dressed up as a love song: the narrator is attracted to someone but refuses to hand…

romantic self-protection distrust of surface attraction patience versus desire

Because the Night

Patti Smith

A co-write between Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen, this song turns nighttime into a sanctuary where desire overrides doubt…

desire as sustenance night as refuge doubt versus surrender

Love Is Like a Heat Wave

The Supremes

A woman tries to name an overwhelming physical sensation of desire and cannot settle on whether it is bliss or affliction, so…

overwhelming desire loss of control bodily sensation as metaphor for emotion

Surgeon

St. Vincent

A woman narrates a summer of collapse—medication, isolation, avoidance of family and mail—while a chorus repeats a request to be…

depression and isolation medicalization of the self desire for external repair

Love Will Find a Way

Yes

A commercial-rock love song built on hesitation rather than certainty, in which the narrator wavers between wanting closeness…

romantic ambivalence reassurance through repetition emotional confusion

I Feel Like Breaking Up / Somebody's Home Tonight

Ann Peebles

A woman alone on a rainy night confesses to a desire strong enough to make her willing to wreck another relationship just to…

forbidden desire loneliness emotional compulsion versus morality

You Can't Always Get What You Want

The Rolling Stones

A gospel-choir-backed anthem that stitches together disconnected scenes of desire, disillusionment, and death, all resolving…

disillusionment compromise the counterculture's limits

On Hold

The xx

A breakup song built on the gap between assumed permanence and sudden loss, where the narrator realizes too late that…

complacency in love loss of control desire versus resentment

I Want Your Sex, Pts. 1 & 2

George Michael

George Michael turns a single, blunt demand into a sustained argument about desire, patience, and monogamy, dressing up a simple…

sexual desire and frustration persuasion and rhetoric monogamy versus promiscuity

9 Crimes

Damien Rice

A duet between a man and woman (recorded here as a solo vocal) confessing an affair in the aftermath, framed as a confession of…

infidelity and guilt moral ambiguity desire versus loyalty

100%

Sonic Youth

A tribute song built from fragments of grief, aggression, and dark humor, written in memory of a scene figure lost to violence.…

violent death and its aftermath rock scene mythology and idolization gender and predation within a music subculture

You and I

Betty Davis

A slow, confessional ballad in which Betty Davis strips away the funk-rock swagger of her usual persona to admit vulnerability…

emotional vulnerability the gap between maturity and desire dependency versus independence

I Can't Get Next to You

Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox reworks a Motown-era declaration of romantic helplessness into a stark, brooding torch song, stripping away The…

romantic longing powerlessness disguised as power emotional isolation

This Is Love

PJ Harvey

A blunt, riff-driven declaration of desire that keeps colliding with the speaker's own disbelief at how simple and overwhelming…

desire versus complexity secrecy and shame repetition as devotion

You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want To Do It)

Patsy Cline

This is a classic Tin Pan Alley standard reworked through Patsy Cline's country-pop phrasing, built almost entirely around a…

reluctant surrender desire versus resistance emotional vulnerability

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

All Right Now (Single)

Free

A blues-rock pickup story stripped to its essentials: a street encounter, a home invitation, a moment of resistance, and a…

seduction and courtship male bravado reassurance versus persuasion

Devil's Spoke

Laura Marling

A folk incantation that reads like a spell against dread, moving from natural imagery of isolation into a defiant, almost ritual…

control versus surrender fear personified self-possession

Mello: Sumthin (The Hush)

Maxwell

This live, stripped-down rendition of "Sumthin' Sumthin'" turns a slow-jam come-on into an intimate ritual of secrecy and…

secrecy and discretion desire and consent seduction as ritual

Sumthin' Sumthin': Mellosmoothe (Cut)

Maxwell

This is a stripped-down, mostly instrumental-feeling neo-soul seduction piece built from fragments rather than full verses. It…

desire and seduction emotional guardedness persistence versus reciprocity

Long Flowing Robe

Todd Rundgren

A lonely Friday-night bar excursion turns into something closer to a ghost story or wish-fulfillment dream, as a mysterious…

loneliness desire and fantasy the uncanny

Steam

Peter Gabriel

A funk-driven track built around a slippery central image—steam as heat, pressure, arousal, and creative combustion all at once.…

desire and arousal pressure and release perception versus performance

When Doves Cry

Patti Smith

This is Patti Smith's cover of Prince's 1984 hit, stripped of its synth-funk architecture and rebuilt as a spoken-sung…

inherited conflict desire and abandonment vulnerability versus pride

I Want to Be Loved #2

Muddy Waters

A blues plea built on a familiar Chicago blues formula: the narrator lavishes praise on a woman who barely acknowledges him, and…

unrequited desire romantic frustration adoration versus neglect

Dancing star

Pet Shop Boys

A biographical tribute in the form of a synth-pop anthem, tracing a defector's escape from the Soviet Union to global stardom in…

defection and exile fame and celebrity freedom versus authoritarianism

The Lady Don't Mind

Talking Heads

A breezy, mid-80s Talking Heads pop song built around a woman who slips through logic and expectation without apparent friction.…

surrender to irrationality enigmatic femininity detachment vs. desire

Let's Dance

David Bowie

A dance-floor invitation built on a simple repeated command that gradually reveals an undertow of anxiety about impermanence and…

desire and vulnerability impermanence performance versus intimacy

Sometimes a Fantasy

Billy Joel

A driving new-wave rocker about phone sex and the loneliness that drives someone to it, dressed up in a jittery, almost…

loneliness desire and substitution shame versus need

One Mo'Gin

D'Angelo

A chance reunion with an old lover becomes the occasion for a quiet, unresolved confession of longing. D'Angelo's narrator…

nostalgia unfulfilled desire emotional restraint

Say You Love Me

Rodney Crowell

A road-worn narrator, hungover and rattled by a bar-room bigot, turns to his partner and demands verbal reassurance rather than…

insecurity and reassurance aging and mortality bigotry and disgust

Slide Tackle

Japanese Breakfast

A short, almost breathless meditation on the effort of self-improvement, framed through the odd, physical image of a soccer…

self-sabotage the labor of happiness obsessive thought patterns

Wild Fire

Laura Marling

Laura Marling narrates from the outside of a relationship, watching a woman she's fascinated by perform for others while…

watching versus being seen inherited family damage artistic self-consciousness

I’ve Been Tired

Pixies

A jagged, half-spoken dialogue between a narrator and a politically self-styled woman curdles into an anxious confession about…

sexual anxiety disease and contamination fear performative politics

Another Day

Roy Harper

Roy Harper's "Another Day" is a quiet chamber piece about a reunion that almost becomes something more and then doesn't. Two…

missed connection regret over an unlived life desire versus inhibition

You Should Probably Leave

Chris Stapleton

A late-night seduction song built on reverse psychology, where the narrator repeats a warning to leave while doing everything…

temptation and self-denial desire versus restraint vulnerability disguised as control

This Mess We're In

PJ Harvey

A duet-style meditation on a fleeting New York encounter, sung against a backdrop of helicopters, sunsets and skyscrapers that…

transience of connection urban alienation desire versus impermanence

I Can't Quit You Baby

John Lee Hooker

A slow, circling blues built on a single contradiction: the singer announces he's leaving while making clear he has no intention…

romantic obsession self-deception domestic wreckage

Sexy Boy

Air

A woozy, vocoder-warped taunt built almost entirely out of one phrase, "Sexy Boy" pokes at masculine vanity and celebrity…

vanity and self-image celebrity and consumerism irony versus seduction