John Hiatt
A recovering drinker treats a kitschy Florida bar as a kind of shrine, praising it in the language of prayer while circling…
sobriety and temptation faux-religious devotion American roadside kitsch
Wilco
A stark chant-driven monologue in which a speaker pledges escalating sacrifice—going, fighting, killing, dying—for an unnamed…
sacrifice and its cost devotion versus self-erasure religious martyrdom
Sufjan Stevens
A short, hymn-like song that begins as a lover's declaration of devotion and quietly reveals itself to be addressed to Christ,…
religious devotion sacrifice intimacy
James Blake
A duet-style love song built around a Spanish-language guest verse (performed by ROSALÍA) and Blake's English hook, the track…
romantic surrender devotion as dependency cosmic/religious imagery
Neutral Milk Hotel
This two-part suite opens with a plainspoken, almost liturgical declaration of love to Jesus Christ before erupting into a…
religious devotion and doubt birth and rebirth language and inarticulacy
Laura Marling
A song addressed partly to a goddess and partly to an absent man, this piece uses classical and religious imagery to explore a…
silencing and voice betrayal religious/mythic guilt
Thin Lizzy
A tender, almost devotional love song built on simple repeated vows, addressed to someone named Sarah. Its plainness is the…
unconditional love parental/romantic tenderness devotion
Depeche Mode
A song that opens Songs of Faith and Devotion with a burst of religious ecstasy repurposed as erotic and romantic devotion. It…
sacred/profane fusion erotic transcendence conversion and rebirth
Charley Pride
A seasoned romantic admits that despite a long history with love, he's never encountered devotion like this before. It's a…
romantic experience versus new love surprise and gratitude devotion
Boyz II Men
A devotional love song built on a long-term relationship that has weathered strain and complacency. The narrator uses cosmic and…
enduring love gratitude after hardship intimacy and familiarity
The Beach Boys
A brief, buoyant mid-60s Beach Boys track that expresses uncomplicated gratitude toward a devoted partner. There's no plot or…
devotion gratitude young love
Minnie Riperton
A soft, incantatory love song built almost entirely from direct address and imperative pleading, in which the singer asks a…
romantic surrender identity through the other sensuality
Seal
This is Seal's cover of the Al Green soul standard, a straightforward vow of devotion rendered in his signature smoky vocal…
devotion commitment through hardship romantic idealization
Sade
A slow, incantatory love song built almost entirely on a single declarative claim, repeated until it becomes its own proof. Sade…
contentment devotion sufficiency
Ramones
A stripped-down declaration of devotion built almost entirely from repeated affirmations rather than narrative detail. The song…
devotion simplicity as sincerity teenage romance
Bert Jansch
A gentle, almost devotional love lyric that imagines a woman through a series of pastoral and courtly images — a spirited pony,…
idealized love devotion nature imagery
Chaka Khan
A devotional, almost ceremonial love song built on a single vow of presence: to be there at the first light of a relationship,…
devotion presence and belonging new beginnings
Jefferson Airplane
A hushed, almost fragile love song built on simple present-tense devotion rather than narrative event. Jefferson Airplane strip…
devotion inarticulacy of love transformation through love
Donny Hathaway
A late-period Donny Hathaway love song built around a single refrain that gets repeated and reframed across the hours of a day.…
devotion time and memory domestic intimacy
Dinah Washington
A torch-song vow of exclusive devotion, sung as a series of promises about what the singer will refuse to see, feel, or accept…
devotion exclusivity romantic vow
Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson takes the well-worn Kern-Fields standard and slows it into something closer to a devotional murmur, letting the…
devotion memory as comfort aging and constancy
A straightforward declaration of romantic devotion and desire, built almost entirely on the call-and-response between the words…
desire devotion reassurance
George Michael
A cover of Ewan MacColl's 1957 folk standard, rendered here as a slow, orchestral torch ballad. George Michael strips the song…
first love devotion transcendence through intimacy
Musiq Soulchild
A neo-soul love song built almost entirely around a single declaration of devotion, sung directly to a partner the narrator…
devotion reassurance longing
Barry White
A slow-building soul declaration in which the singer pledges total, permanent devotion, built almost entirely on vamped ad-libs,…
devotion permanence fulfillment/completion
A love song built around the gap between feeling and expression, in which the narrator worries that her devotion isn't landing…
communication anxiety reassurance devotion
Otis Redding
A blues-inflected Christmas standard sung as pure, unguarded gratitude — a lover's holiday toast rather than a story with…
romantic gratitude domestic contentment holiday ritual
Lauryn Hill
This is Lauryn Hill's rendition of the 1967 Frankie Valli classic, placed on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as a brief,…
infatuation gratitude vulnerability
Otis Redding takes the Impressions' original devotional ballad and turns it into a raw, almost pleading testimony of gratitude…
devotion gratitude doubt from outsiders
B.B. King
A straightforward blues-soul declaration built almost entirely on the repeated phrase of devotion, this track trades narrative…
devotion fear of abandonment reassurance
Nat King Cole
A Spanish-language bolero of pure, uncomplicated adoration, built almost entirely around a single pet-name endearment that gets…
devotion gratitude tenderness
Billie Holiday
A standard-era love song built entirely around the idea of infatuation rather than the beloved's physical presence: the singer…
idealized love longing and absence daydreaming as escape
Shirley Horn
Shirley Horn's rendering of the Lennon-McCartney standard (gender-flipped from the Beatles' original) strips the song down to a…
devotion constancy simplicity of love
A quiet lullaby written for a Disney film adaptation, this song addresses a child in cosmic, almost devotional terms, framing…
maternal love cosmic wonder protection
The xx
A sparse, almost hymn-like love song built around a single repeated claim of devotion, sung by a narrator who seems…
devotion the ineffability of love fear of loss
D'Angelo
A slow-burning testimony that fuses erotic devotion with religious language, treating a lover as both a physical presence and a…
sacred and profane love transcendence through intimacy devotion and permanence
Chris Stapleton
A ballad built around a single dare: the narrator invites a partner to unload their anger and grief onto him rather than keep it…
codependent love self-sacrifice emotional endurance
Smokey Robinson
A late-career Smokey Robinson ballad built almost entirely around one rhetorical question: what does a couple actually possess…
romantic interdependence gratitude and devotion completeness through partnership
Patti Smith
A dance-trance hymn to erotic and spiritual surrender, where a woman's devotion to a man is described in the third person as…
erotic devotion as religion loss of self through ecstasy gender and idealization
Joe Williams
This is the standard Johnny Mercer/Richard Whiting torch-song standard, given a warm, unhurried reading by Joe Williams. The…
ineffability of love the limits of language playful hyperbole