The Staple Singers
This is the Staple Singers' rendition of the traditional African American spiritual, built almost entirely on call-and-response…
deliverance and salvation collective faith and community crossing over / transition between states
Judee Sill
Judee Sill's 'The Kiss' fuses erotic and devotional language until they become indistinguishable, imagining spiritual union as a…
sacred and profane love transcendence death as release
Kate Bush
A song about two lovers who keep wounding each other without meaning to, and the narrator's fantasy of a supernatural fix: a…
empathy as an impossible exchange the violence hidden inside love gendered misunderstanding
Stevie Wonder
A new father's unfiltered, almost breathless reaction to the birth of his daughter, rendered as a series of rhetorical questions…
fatherhood and new birth gratitude love as creative/generative force