XTC
A giddy, image-drunk love song that describes a single overwhelming encounter through a barrage of unrelated historical and…
sudden infatuation the inadequacy of language before wonder celestial imagery displaced onto a person
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
Sharon Van Etten
A quietly seething breakup song in which the narrator sees through a partner's self-serving reassurances and names the pattern…
emotional self-protection disillusionment in love fading intimacy
Tom Petty
A meditation on departure and reinvention, built around a plain, almost mantra-like refrain that insists on forward motion even…
restlessness self-liberation uncertainty
Erykah Badu
A meditation on getting lost as a form of self-discovery, built around a single wandering vamp that never resolves into a tidy…
self-forgiveness uncertainty as growth intuition over planning