Results for “devotion turned to grief”

Songs

To Turn You On

Roxy Music

A slow-burning devotional plea built almost entirely around one repeated promise: total, unconditional willingness to please.…

devotion and dependency seduction through imagery urban romanticism

Pink Turns to Blue

Hüsker Dü

A quiet, devastating account of finding a partner or friend dead from an overdose, sung by Grant Hart in a flat, stunned voice…

addiction and overdose grief and helplessness loss of innocence

On the Turning Away

Pink Floyd

A gentle, hymn-like protest song that addresses complacency toward poverty and suffering directly, using the recurring image of…

social indifference collective responsibility moral awakening

Turn On Some Music

Marvin Gaye

A late-career Marvin Gaye track that fuses seduction and sound into one continuous metaphor, using the ritual of playing records…

sex as ritual music as therapy/escape longing and reunion

Turn the Lights Back On

Billy Joel

A comeback single that reads as both a reconciliation ballad and a piece of career autobiography, built around the plea of…

reconciliation neglect and regret time and lateness

Pictures of Bernadette

Talk Talk

A brief, searching lament in which the speaker circles the aftermath of a departure, unable to accept or fully articulate the…

loss and abandonment denial and disbelief memory as haunting

Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round

The Roots

This is The Roots' rendition of a civil rights-era freedom song, built almost entirely on a single vow of forward motion…

nonviolent resistance perseverance collective identity

For the Widows In Paradise, for the Fatherless In Ypsilanti

Sufjan Stevens

A quiet, hymn-like meditation that speaks in the voice of a paternal or divine figure addressing a child, community, or…

fatherlessness and inherited grief divine or paternal devotion obligation and sacrifice

I'll Fight

Wilco

A stark chant-driven monologue in which a speaker pledges escalating sacrifice—going, fighting, killing, dying—for an unnamed…

sacrifice and its cost devotion versus self-erasure religious martyrdom

She's the One

Ramones

A stripped-down declaration of devotion built almost entirely from repeated affirmations rather than narrative detail. The song…

devotion simplicity as sincerity teenage romance

Got to Be There

Chaka Khan

A devotional, almost ceremonial love song built on a single vow of presence: to be there at the first light of a relationship,…

devotion presence and belonging new beginnings

For Your Precious Love

Otis Redding

Otis Redding takes the Impressions' original devotional ballad and turns it into a raw, almost pleading testimony of gratitude…

devotion gratitude doubt from outsiders

And I Love Him

Shirley Horn

Shirley Horn's rendering of the Lennon-McCartney standard (gender-flipped from the Beatles' original) strips the song down to a…

devotion constancy simplicity of love

The Very Thought of You

Billie Holiday

A standard-era love song built entirely around the idea of infatuation rather than the beloved's physical presence: the singer…

idealized love longing and absence daydreaming as escape

Caroline, No

The Beach Boys

A slow, mournful address to a woman the singer once loved, mourning a change in her that he can't name directly. It closes Pet…

loss of innocence nostalgia disillusionment

Gold Rush

Death Cab for Cutie

A meditation on urban development as a form of grief, using construction and demolition in a gentrifying neighborhood as a…

gentrification memory and loss impermanence

The Big Unknown

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

Hello In There

John Prine

A song written in the voice of an elderly man cataloguing the small losses that have hollowed out his life: grown children…

aging and isolation loss of connection grief

Sittin' Here Thinkin'

John Lee Hooker

A slow, brooding solo blues meditation built almost entirely on repetition and a single fixed image: a man alone at a window,…

abandonment jealousy and suspicion loneliness

Since I Lost You

Genesis

A stark meditation on sudden, irreversible loss, built almost entirely out of repeated images of fragility and dissolution. The…

grief impermanence regret

Holes

Mercury Rev

"Holes" is a hazy, impressionistic meditation on loss and the failure of memory to hold together, built almost entirely from…

memory and forgetting grief disorientation

Back On The Chain Gang

The Pretenders

A meditation on loss disguised as protest, the song uses the image of a chain gang to describe how impersonal forces — media,…

loss and separation nostalgia powerlessness against institutions

Natural Blues

Moby

Moby builds this track around a looped vocal sample of a field-recorded folk/blues lament, layering electronic production…

grief religious faith as refuge isolation of suffering

My Sarah

Thin Lizzy

A tender, almost devotional love song built on simple repeated vows, addressed to someone named Sarah. Its plainness is the…

unconditional love parental/romantic tenderness devotion

Fire Away

Chris Stapleton

A ballad built around a single dare: the narrator invites a partner to unload their anger and grief onto him rather than keep it…

codependent love self-sacrifice emotional endurance

You're So Good to Me

The Beach Boys

A brief, buoyant mid-60s Beach Boys track that expresses uncomplicated gratitude toward a devoted partner. There's no plot or…

devotion gratitude young love

Completeness

Minnie Riperton

A soft, incantatory love song built almost entirely from direct address and imperative pleading, in which the singer asks a…

romantic surrender identity through the other sensuality

Let's Stay Together

Seal

This is Seal's cover of the Al Green soul standard, a straightforward vow of devotion rendered in his signature smoky vocal…

devotion commitment through hardship romantic idealization

I Couldn't Love You More

Sade

A slow, incantatory love song built almost entirely on a single declarative claim, repeated until it becomes its own proof. Sade…

contentment devotion sufficiency

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

What a Woman Really Means

Donny Hathaway

A late-period Donny Hathaway love song built around a single refrain that gets repeated and reframed across the hours of a day.…

devotion time and memory domestic intimacy

Sea of Love

Cat Power

Cat Power's stripped-down cover of the doo-wop standard turns a bright, buoyant 1959 hit into something hushed and fragile,…

devotion memory vulnerability

Can't Take My Eyes Off of You (I Love You Baby)

Lauryn Hill

This is Lauryn Hill's rendition of the 1967 Frankie Valli classic, placed on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as a brief,…

infatuation gratitude vulnerability

Merry Christmas Baby

Otis Redding

A blues-inflected Christmas standard sung as pure, unguarded gratitude — a lover's holiday toast rather than a story with…

romantic gratitude domestic contentment holiday ritual

Baby, This Love I Have

Minnie Riperton

A love song built around the gap between feeling and expression, in which the narrator worries that her devotion isn't landing…

communication anxiety reassurance devotion

Baby I Love You

B.B. King

A straightforward blues-soul declaration built almost entirely on the repeated phrase of devotion, this track trades narrative…

devotion fear of abandonment reassurance

Cachito

Nat King Cole

A Spanish-language bolero of pure, uncomplicated adoration, built almost entirely around a single pet-name endearment that gets…

devotion gratitude tenderness

Some Enchanted Evening

The Temptations

This is The Temptations' soul-vocal-group treatment of the Rodgers and Hammerstein standard from South Pacific, reframed with a…

fate and destiny in love carpe diem / seizing the moment fear of loneliness

Flower of the Universe (From Disney's "A Wrinkle In Time")

Sade

A quiet lullaby written for a Disney film adaptation, this song addresses a child in cosmic, almost devotional terms, framing…

maternal love cosmic wonder protection

Angels

The xx

A sparse, almost hymn-like love song built around a single repeated claim of devotion, sung by a narrator who seems…

devotion the ineffability of love fear of loss