Results for “emotional bookkeeping”

Songs

Damaged Goods

Gang of Four

Gang of Four fuse a breakup song with the language of consumer transaction, treating a relationship as a defective purchase to…

commodification of relationships desire versus love alienation under capitalism

Love, Reign O'er Me

The Who

This is the climactic closing statement of Quadrophenia, a plea for emotional deliverance disguised as a weather report. The…

spiritual longing emotional exhaustion love as elemental force

Changes

Yes

A breakup narrated in the language of instability rather than closure, where the title word does double duty as both diagnosis…

breakup and disillusionment emotional numbness self-reflection vs blame

Disorder

Joy Division

Disorder opens Unknown Pleasures with a portrait of dissociation, a speaker who registers the world's speed and violence but…

emotional numbness dissociation longing for normalcy

You Keep Me Hanging On

The Supremes

A woman demands her own release from a dead relationship, addressing an ex who refuses to fully let go even though he no longer…

emotional limbo asymmetry of feeling demand for autonomy

Distant Lover

Marvin Gaye

A slow-burning soul lament in which the narrator addresses an absent lover across an unspecified distance, moving from tender…

romantic longing separation and absence memory and nostalgia

Cranes in the Sky

Solange

Solange catalogs a long list of failed coping mechanisms for an unnamed sorrow, building an inventory of avoidance that…

avoidance and denial depression/emotional exhaustion consumerism as false comfort

Superwoman

Gladys Knight

A domestic monologue in which a woman catalogs the daily labor she performs for a partner who has grown cold and inattentive,…

emotional labor and domestic care the myth of female self-sufficiency withdrawal and neglect in a relationship

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Roberta Flack

A slow, hymn-like ballad that traces one relationship's progress through three ascending intimacies: first sight, first kiss,…

awakening love cosmic/natural imagery as emotional scale vulnerability and surrender

Angel

Chaka Khan

Chaka Khan addresses a fragile, self-sabotaging figure she calls an angel, coaxing her toward vulnerability and self-acceptance.…

emotional fragility self-acceptance codependency and healing

I Don't Want to Know

Fleetwood Mac

A breakup song built on willful avoidance: the narrator repeatedly insists they don't want an explanation for why the…

denial as self-protection romantic dissolution emotional exhaustion

Bizarre Love Triangle

New Order

A euphoric synth-pop track built on lyrics of paralysis and unspoken feeling: the narrator is caught between infatuation and…

romantic paralysis emotional confusion fear of vulnerability

Can We Pretend

Bill Withers

A wounded plea for a fresh start with a partner whose affection is unreliable, built almost entirely around one conditional…

conditional love emotional ambivalence denial as coping

The Weekend

SZA

SZA narrates an affair with candor rather than shame, positioning herself as the intermittent, exciting alternative to a primary…

infidelity and complicity self-worth vs. self-sabotage possessiveness and jealousy

Beast Of Burden

The Rolling Stones

A weary plea for tenderness dressed up as a refusal to keep serving as someone's workhorse. The narrator insists he's given…

exhaustion in relationships emotional labor vs desire masculinity and self-worth

Tear-Stained Letter

Richard Thompson

A wry, uptempo account of a breakup told from the battered-but-wisecracking side, where physical comedy stands in for emotional…

romantic aftermath toxic love masculine bravado as deflection

Born Under a Bad Sign

Jimi Hendrix

This is Hendrix's take on the Booker T./William Bell blues standard, a compact statement of fatalism delivered through the…

fatalism poverty and misfortune blues tradition/lineage

Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 1

Pink Floyd

This short piece establishes the loss of Pink's father as the first foundational trauma in the album's central metaphor, framing…

absence and abandonment childhood trauma war's domestic aftermath

Baby, This Love I Have

Minnie Riperton

A love song built around the anxiety of being misunderstood -- the singer insists that her feelings are genuine even if her…

communication and its failure reassurance devotion

Look At Miss Ohio

Gillian Welch

A short, circling ballad about a young woman fleeing domestic expectation for a taste of freedom before she settles into the…

deferred responsibility female autonomy vs. convention escape and fantasy

Blues Run the Game

Laura Marling

This is a cover of a mid-1960s folk standard, sung here in Laura Marling's plainspoken, weary register, about the impossibility…

itinerancy and escape addiction as self-medication romantic longing and loss

In Every Dream Home a Heartache

Roxy Music

A deadpan monologue delivered by a wealthy consumer who has replaced human intimacy with a mail-order inflatable doll, framed as…

consumerism alienation artificiality vs authenticity

Suzanne

Leonard Cohen

A three-part meditation in waltz time that moves from a woman by a river, to Christ walking on water, and back to the woman…

erotic love as spiritual apprehension faith and doubt surrender to a guide

Crossroads

Cream

This is Cream's electrified rework of Robert Johnson's Delta blues standard, compressing the original's verses into a lean live…

isolation and abandonment desperation and pleading the crossroads as fate/damnation myth