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
Nick Drake
A brief autobiographical arc compressed into a handful of couplets, tracing a movement from innocence through disillusionment to…
loss of innocence depression and fatigue dependency on another
Elliott Smith
A quiet, almost lullaby-like address to someone (or something) that promises comfort while actually describing a kind of…
addiction and dependency seduction and control erased identity
The Beach Boys
A love song that opens by admitting its own limits "" the singer won't promise permanence "" and then spends the rest of its…
conditional devotion dependence and identity uncertainty as a form of honesty
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
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
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
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