Results for “divine persistence”

Songs

Jesus Is Calling

Hank Williams

A plain-spoken gospel invitation built almost entirely on a single repeated refrain, this is Hank Williams working in the…

religious faith spiritual weariness redemption

New York Comeback

Lucinda Williams

A defiant address to an audience already heading for the exits, built around the insistence that the performance—and the…

persistence late-career resilience performance and audience

Breaker

Deerhunter

Breaker is a survivor's song, written by Bradford Cox after a near-fatal car accident, that treats staying alive as an act of…

mortality and survival fate versus agency spiritual ambivalence

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Carly Simon

Carly Simon splices the nursery rhyme about the persistent spider into the title track's refrain from her own 'Coming Around…

resilience cyclical hope romantic disappointment

Conventional Wisdom

Built to Spill

A short, circling meditation on how received wisdom persists even when it no longer fits reality. Built to Spill uses plain,…

conformity vs. change epistemic humility the persistence of habit

I'm a Ram

Al Green

This is a lean, driving groove song built almost entirely around one animal metaphor: the singer as a ram, butting persistently…

persistence in desire masculine self-assertion obstacle and pursuit

Shut Up Kiss Me

Angel Olsen

A driving, garage-pop declaration of romantic persistence, in which the narrator refuses to let a faltering relationship end…

romantic persistence refusal to quit desire versus communication

When the Bridegroom Comes

Judee Sill

A hymn-like meditation built almost entirely from biblical allusion, urging spiritual readiness for a mystical bridegroom figure…

spiritual readiness divine union mercy and reversal

Heaven

Gregory Porter

A soft, devotional love song that treats a romantic partner as a near-mythical arrival — someone who seems to have literally…

romantic wonder divinity/transcendence in love healing through love

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

Precious Lord

Gladys Knight

This is a performance of Thomas A. Dorsey's 1932 gospel standard, one of the most recorded hymns in American music. Gladys…

surrender and dependence exhaustion and weakness death and crossing over

Ride On a Pony

Free

A blues-rock trudge about physical distance standing in for emotional distance: a narrator separated from his partner insists…

distance and longing persistence of love doubt and reassurance

God's Comic

Elvis Costello

A dead entertainer-priest narrates his own arrival in the afterlife, only to find God as an unimpressed, bored figure lounging…

religious satire performance and hypocrisy mortality

I Want You (Vocal)

Marvin Gaye

A slow-burning plea for mutual desire, built almost entirely on repetition of a single wish stated and restated until it becomes…

unreciprocated desire longing for mutuality vulnerability in seduction

I Love the Lord

Whitney Houston

A gospel testimony built almost entirely from a single scriptural refrain, this recording turns a short devotional statement…

divine refuge suffering and lament faith as action

Godwhacker

Steely Dan

A hitman narrative in which God himself is the target, framed as a hardboiled contract-killer's briefing. Steely Dan uses genre…

divine accountability cosmic vengeance satire of religious authority

God's Gonna Cut You Down

Johnny Cash

An old African-American spiritual, reworked by Cash near the end of his life, this is a stark warning that moral reckoning is…

divine judgment mortality moral reckoning

He Walks With Me

Merle Haggard

This is Merle Haggard's rendition of the classic 1912 hymn "In the Garden," recorded for his gospel album. It's a devotional…

personal faith intimacy with the divine solitude and communion

Cold

Chris Stapleton

A straightforward heartbreak song built almost entirely on a temperature metaphor, where sudden emotional withdrawal is rendered…

sudden heartbreak emotional abandonment disbelief

The Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash, in his final recording years, builds an apocalyptic vision almost entirely out of scripture, particularly…

judgment and reckoning mortality apocalypse

Clockwork Angels

Rush

The title track of Rush's final studio album stages a public spectacle of mechanical seraphim presiding over a city square, and…

manufactured faith spectacle and control surrender of reason

You're Still Standin' There

Steve Earle

A restless narrator describes a life spent chasing things he can't hold onto, only to find every path circling back to a lost…

obsessive love restlessness ambivalence

Amazing Grace

Al Green

This is Al Green's reading of the 18th-century hymn, recorded during the period when he had turned fully toward gospel music and…

redemption conversion divine providence

What's on Your Mind?

Eric B.

A New York subway pickup evolves into a slow-building courtship narrative, told from the perspective of a smooth-talking…

courtship and seduction urban geography as narrative backdrop mind versus body

Jesus & Gravity

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton builds a simple physics-and-faith conceit into a testimony song: gravity is the force that keeps her humble and…

faith and humility gratitude versus entitlement balance between grounding and transcendence

Amazing Grace

Loretta Lynn

This is Loretta Lynn's rendition of the eighteenth-century hymn 'Amazing Grace,' one of the most recorded pieces of…

redemption divine mercy mortality and eternity

Windows

Angel Olsen

A short, incantatory song built almost entirely from repeated questions, pressing someone to let light and movement back into a…

emotional withdrawal depression or shutdown persistence and pleading

Can I Sit Next to You

Spoon

A propulsive, repetition-driven track built around a simple invitation that doubles as a plea for closeness and renewal. Spoon…

longing for connection exhaustion and recovery persistence through hardship

Never Stop

Echo & the Bunnymen

A terse, image-dense track that pits mercenary greed and dead ideology against a stubborn, almost defiant insistence on love as…

greed vs. love disillusionment with authority/religion moral ambiguity

Sea Diver

Mott the Hoople

A short, elliptical closer that reads like a benediction wrapped around exhaustion, with the singer casting himself as a diver…

exhaustion and burnout spiritual searching isolation

America the Beautiful

Frank Sinatra

This is Katharine Lee Bates's 1893 hymn to the American landscape, set to Samuel A. Ward's melody and delivered here as a…

national pride natural landscape as moral symbol idealism and unity

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan Stevens takes the 18th-century Robert Robinson hymn and renders it with hushed, folk-inflected intimacy, letting its old…

divine grace spiritual wandering gratitude and debt

Down Where the Valley Are Low

Judee Sill

A hymn-like meditation built almost entirely on paradox, where lowness produces height and cold conceals warmth. Judee Sill…

spiritual longing paradox and inversion surrender

Lover Lover Lover

Leonard Cohen

A prayer disguised as a love song, built from a dialogue between a son and a father-God about shame, embodiment, and the…

shame and self-loathing faith and divine dialogue the body as trial

Wrecking Ball

Dolly Parton

A confessional break-up song built around a single blunt metaphor: love as demolition equipment, arriving to knock down…

destructive love vulnerability disguised as force regret and self-blame

Racing the Tide

Mercury Rev

A short, mantra-like song built almost entirely from a single repeated claim of near-arrival, set against an image of racing an…

pursuit of an unreachable goal time pressure and mortality obsession

Brass Buttons

Gram Parsons

A quiet elegy built almost entirely out of physical detail rather than statement, this song mourns a mother figure through the…

grief and maternal loss memory as objects impermanence

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

Holding On

Gregory Porter

A meditation on a love the narrator can't will himself out of, even when guilt, fatigue, and a bruised past argue for release.…

involuntary devotion emotional exhaustion guilt and self-reproach

Take It to the Limit

Etta James

Etta James takes the Eagles' road-weary highway anthem and turns it into a late-night confession of exhaustion and stubborn…

emotional exhaustion longing for freedom romantic regret