Results for “forgiveness over vengeance”

Songs

Murder in the City

The Avett Brothers

A hypothetical death frames what is really a plainspoken meditation on family love and sibling rivalry. The narrator uses the…

mortality and premonition sibling rivalry and reconciliation unconditional family love

Perfection

Badfinger

A gentle, almost sermon-like pop song that trades in blunt moral aphorisms rather than narrative or imagery. Badfinger use plain…

anti-violence imperfection and acceptance communication over conflict

Not Many Miles to Go

Rosanne Cash

A meditation on a long marriage viewed from its later stretch, where gratitude, hard history, and mortality sit side by side.…

long-term partnership aging and mortality gratitude after hardship

All About Our Love

Sade

A spare, almost liturgical love song that trades narrative detail for repetition and affirmation. Sade uses a handful of phrases…

endurance of love forgiveness renewal

Turn the Lights Back On

Billy Joel

A comeback single that reads as both a reconciliation ballad and a piece of career autobiography, built around the plea of…

reconciliation neglect and regret time and lateness

Sinner or Saint

Sarah Vaughan

This is a devotional address built almost entirely on paired opposites, culminating in a refrain of unconditional love. The…

unconditional love moral duality forgiveness

Stronger Than Before

Chaka Khan

A pleading reconciliation song built almost entirely around a single promise: that a rocky past can be transformed into a more…

reconciliation vulnerability disguised as strength forgiveness

Death with Dignity

Sufjan Stevens

This opening track from Carrie & Lowell addresses the songwriter's estranged, deceased mother directly, groping toward…

maternal loss grief and forgiveness spiritual uncertainty

Fish and Whistle

John Prine

John Prine spins a shaggy-dog catalog of small humiliations—bad jobs, unnoticed passes at girls, aching ankles—into a wry…

forgiveness and mortality working-class drudgery humility and self-deprecation

Long Way Home

Tom Waits

A wandering, guilt-soaked ballad in which a restless narrator confesses his inability to settle down even as he pleads for…

restlessness and wanderlust guilt and self-forgiveness domestic responsibility vs freedom

Easy On Me

Adele

A woman on the far side of a broken marriage asks for leniency rather than forgiveness, framing herself as someone who acted…

divorce and self-reckoning forgiveness versus mercy arrested emotional development

That Wasn't Me

Brandi Carlile

A confessional address to loved ones (or a fanbase) about a period of failure and self-destruction, structured as an appeal to…

redemption and self-forgiveness addiction or personal crisis identity versus past behavior

Tramp the Dirt Down

Elvis Costello

A furious, funereal protest song in which Costello imagines dancing on the grave of a still-living political leader, using that…

political rage class resentment mortality and vengeance

Easy on My Soul

Free

A late-period Free track that trades narrative for mantra, circling the questions of what love and life amount to before…

exhaustion self-forgiveness spiritual uncertainty

Matty Groves

Fairport Convention

This is the Fairport Convention electric-folk arrangement of the ancient English/Scottish ballad about adultery, betrayal, and…

class inequality adultery and its consequences honor and vengeance

Black Sun

Death Cab for Cutie

A breakup song dressed as a litany of paradoxes, where the singer catalogs contradictions in the world as a way of processing…

disillusionment after divorce contradiction and paradox forgiveness withheld

Valentine's Day

Steve Earle

A plain-spoken confession of forgetfulness dressed up as a love song, in which the narrator arrives on the holiday with nothing…

romantic devotion failure and forgiveness commercialized ritual vs. genuine feeling

Sorry

Madonna

A dance-floor kiss-off built almost entirely from repetition, in which the narrator refuses to accept an apology she's clearly…

romantic betrayal emotional exhaustion self-reliance

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

Me & Mr Jones

Amy Winehouse

A blistering, funny complaint about a lover who keeps letting the narrator down, built around a chant of ownership that keeps…

possessive love betrayal and self-deception ambivalence

Didn't Cha Know

Erykah Badu

A meditation on getting lost as a form of self-discovery, built around a single wandering vamp that never resolves into a tidy…

self-forgiveness uncertainty as growth intuition over planning

If It Takes a Lifetime

Jason Isbell

A recovering man tallies the small, unglamorous work of staying sober and rebuilding a life, using a job anniversary as a rough…

recovery and sobriety patience versus instant redemption estrangement from home and self

Praise God

Kanye West Tribute Band

A gospel-adjacent opener that stages resurrection as both spiritual claim and career narrative, framing survival and success as…

redemption and resurrection survival against despair fame and scrutiny

I Don't Want to Know

Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight delivers a hard-edged breakup address to a partner who is leaving for someone else, refusing to grant him the…

betrayal and infidelity emotional exhaustion self-respect after sacrifice

Goin' Down Slow

Free

This is a slow, confessional blues about a man reckoning with mortality, sung as a deathbed message to a mother and lover rather…

mortality regret confession

It's Going to Take Some Time

Carole King

A quiet post-breakup meditation in which the narrator refuses easy resolution, choosing patience over self-pity. Carole King…

heartbreak recovery self-forgiveness patience

Back Up Train

Al Green

A young man begs a train conductor to reverse course so he can return to a lover he left too hastily. Al Green, still developing…

regret and reversal longing isolation

Serpents

Sharon Van Etten

"Serpents" is a slow-burning indictment of a manipulative partner, built from fragmented images of surveillance, control, and…

emotional abuse surveillance and suspicion self-protection

May You Never Be Alone Like Me

Hank Williams

A plainspoken country waltz of heartbreak in which the narrator, abandoned by a lover after sacrificing everything for her,…

betrayal loneliness sacrifice for love

New World Order

Curtis Mayfield

Recorded after the injuries that left him paralyzed, this is Mayfield's late testament of hope grafted onto hard social…

absent fatherhood and family under economic strain mass political awakening spiritual renewal and forgiveness

oh baby

LCD Soundsystem

An opener built as a slow, hushed invocation—half lullaby, half plea—where James Murphy addresses a lover (or a version of…

vulnerability and reassurance doubt within intimacy addiction and self-forgiveness

Bird On a Wire

Leonard Cohen

A confession and an apology run together as the speaker compares himself to a series of unstable, straining images to explain…

freedom versus commitment guilt and self-forgiveness instability of the self

Sometimes Always

The Jesus and Mary Chain

A duet-style breakup song built as a call-and-response argument between two wounded lovers, each trading accusations, apologies,…

pride vs. surrender cycles of hurt and forgiveness unreliable reconciliation

Chicago

Sufjan Stevens

A road-trip song about young adulthood as a series of impulsive reinventions, told through fragmented memory rather than plot.…

self-reinvention transience and travel romantic idealism

Something Changed

Interpol

A late-period Interpol track built around emotional exhaustion and tentative reconnection, where the speaker keeps asking an…

forgiveness without resolution emotional numbness belonging and collective suffering

Close Your Eyes (And Count to F**k)

Run the Jewels

A high-velocity posse cut where El-P and Killer Mike trade verses of violent bravado, prison-abolitionist rage, and sexual…

mass incarceration and prison abolition institutional hypocrisy (church, courts, police) hypermasculine bravado and sexual conquest

Shake It Out

Florence + the Machine

A confessional anthem about trying to physically expel guilt and self-recrimination, built around the image of dancing off a…

guilt and self-forgiveness cyclical regret catharsis through movement

Forgiven/Forgotten

Angel Olsen

A short, driving song that circles a single unresolved feeling: the narrator loves someone who is present in her thoughts but…

unrequited or distant love self-doubt forgiveness as an open question

100%

Sonic Youth

A tribute song built from fragments of grief, aggression, and dark humor, written in memory of a scene figure lost to violence.…

violent death and its aftermath rock scene mythology and idolization gender and predation within a music subculture

Elevate Myself

Grandaddy

A songwriter's confession of exhaustion with the mechanics of making music for effect, paired with a plainer, almost desperate…

creative burnout self-loathing and self-forgiveness authenticity vs. craft