Prince
A slow, gospel-shaped ballad in which a speaker apologizes for hurting someone, then gradually widens the address from a single…
apology and regret failed intimacy that could not become friendship spiritual deliverance
Otis Redding
A man who has moved across the country sits by the water in San Francisco, watching ships come and go, admitting he is doing…
idleness and drift migration and displacement loneliness
Marvin Gaye
A returning-soldier's-eye plea addressed to family members in turn — mother, brother, father — asking why grief and violence…
war and its cost at home generational misunderstanding police brutality and protest
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
Radiohead
A petulant office-worker fantasy in which the speaker summons an imaginary cosmic police force to arrest people who irritate him…
petty vindictiveness bureaucratic and corporate servitude dehumanisation
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