Results for “fulfillment/completion”

Songs

Completeness

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

Never Gonna Give You Up

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

Today

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

Oh Santa!

Mariah Carey

A holiday novelty song that recasts Santa Claus as a matchmaker rather than a gift-giver, with the narrator petitioning him to…

romantic longing holiday nostalgia wish-fulfillment

Scandalous

Prince

A slow-burn seduction track built almost entirely around anticipation, in which the narrator promises total sexual surrender to…

erotic surrender impatience and urgency fantasy fulfillment

I Couldn't Love You More

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

Heaven

Brandi Carlile

A straightforward love ballad built entirely around the metaphor of romantic devotion as paradise, tracing a relationship from a…

romantic devotion redemption from past struggle gratitude

Walk Through This World With Me

George Jones

A simple, direct marriage proposal set to music, built almost entirely from a single repeated plea. George Jones uses plain,…

romantic devotion commitment companionship

If We Don't Have Each Other

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

I Can't Get Next to You

Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox reworks a Motown-era declaration of romantic helplessness into a stark, brooding torch song, stripping away The…

romantic longing powerlessness disguised as power emotional isolation

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Kacey Musgraves

This is a cover of the 1953 novelty Christmas standard, performed straight rather than reinvented, letting a child's absurd,…

childhood wish-fulfillment comic absurdity holiday tradition

Borrow Trouble

Feist

A meditation on the anxious mind's habit of manufacturing worry before it's even needed, built around the old idiom about…

anticipatory anxiety self-fulfilling negative thought borrowed time and mortality

Money Can't Buy It

Annie Lennox

A gospel-tinged anthem built on a simple negation—money, sex, and drugs can't purchase what actually matters—before pivoting…

materialism vs. spiritual fulfillment the emptiness of wealth love as redemptive force

Every Word

Sade

A quietly devastating account of betrayal, built around the image of returning a letter and everything it contained. Sade's…

betrayal broken trust disillusionment

Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 3

Pink Floyd

This is the moment PinkInk's protagonist Pink completes his self-imposed isolation, rejecting comfort, chemical or human, as a…

emotional withdrawal self-destruction disguised as independence accumulated trauma

Ever Fallen in Love?

Buzzcocks

A power-pop punk song about the humiliation of loving someone who treats you badly, built around a chorus whose grammar…

romantic humiliation self-recognition through a partner codependency

Get Out of My Life Woman

Solomon Burke

A wronged lover uses blunt repetition to talk himself into a breakup he's not fully sure he wants. Solomon Burke turns a simple…

betrayal and retaliation performed toughness self-persuasion

Now And Then

The Beatles

A simple, unguarded love plea built from a demo John Lennon left behind, completed decades later by his surviving bandmates. The…

longing mortality and memory reunion

30 Days

Run-DMC

Run-DMC turns a courtship pitch into a mock infomercial, with the rapper selling himself as a consumer product complete with…

commodification of romance braggadocio satire of advertising

The Ballad of Billy the Kid

Billy Joel

Billy Joel builds a mock-heroic Wild West ballad complete with outlaw legend and hanging, then in the final verse reveals it as…

mythmaking self-deprecation Americana pastiche

Part-Time Lover

Stevie Wonder

A slick mid-80s dance-pop track built around the mechanics of a secret affair, complete with coded signals and cover stories.…

infidelity and secrecy coded communication double standards in relationships

I Want Your Sex, Pts. 1 & 2

George Michael

George Michael turns a single, blunt demand into a sustained argument about desire, patience, and monogamy, dressing up a simple…

sexual desire and frustration persuasion and rhetoric monogamy versus promiscuity

Nessun Dorma

Aretha Franklin

This is Aretha Franklin's rendition of Puccini's aria from Turandot, sung in a hybrid of the original Italian and an English…

secrecy and revelation romantic conquest defiance of darkness

Babooshka

Kate Bush

Kate Bush tells a compact fable of a wife who sets a trap for her own marriage by inventing a mysterious alter ego, only to…

jealousy and self-sabotage disguise and identity the decay of romantic feeling

Radio

Lana Del Rey

A victory lap dressed as a love song: the narrator announces that fame and romantic fulfillment have arrived simultaneously, and…

fame as vindication American dream mythology self-worth tied to being desired

Long Legged Larry

Aesop Rock

A children's-book superhero story about a heroic frog who rescues people (and a poodle) from peril, delivered with a straight…

heroism as ritual childlike wonder absurdism

I Wish (A Cappella)

Robyn

An early, unadorned Robyn ballad about longing for a lost lover, delivered as a stripped-down vocal performance that puts the…

young love and heartbreak longing and regret powerlessness in love

Hawaii

The Beach Boys

A breezy invitation song built almost entirely around one question repeated to a friend or love interest: come to Hawaii with…

escapism surf culture idealization invitation/courtship

Restless

New Order

Restless opens New Order's Music Complete with a bright, synth-driven track that masks a fairly bleak inventory of consumer…

consumerism and desire emotional exhaustion alienation in modern life

White Ferrari

Frank Ocean

A hushed meditation on a fading relationship, framed through the image of a car ride and the drift between two people who once…

fading intimacy transience and impermanence emotional withholding

Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 1

Pink Floyd

This short opening piece establishes the album's central image—the wall built from accumulated emotional injuries—by introducing…

paternal absence childhood grief war's aftermath

Jenny of Oldstones (Game of Thrones)

Florence + the Machine

A cover of a folk ballad from George R.R. Martin's fictional world, this song follows a woman who dances alone in an abandoned…

grief and memory nostalgia as refuge mortality and the passage of time

Paul Revere

Beastie Boys

A cartoonish spaghetti-Western pastiche in which the three Beastie Boys members appear as characters in their own tall tale,…

mythmaking and self-invention outlaw fantasy adolescent bravado

Shady Lane

Pavement

A wry, deadpan tour through the small humiliations of dating, class anxiety, and suburban aspiration, filtered through Malkmus's…

class and status anxiety suburban aspiration irony and detachment

Boredom

Buzzcocks

A blunt, sneering anthem of anti-affect, "Boredom" turns the emptiness of punk's stock subject into a self-parodying joke,…

boredom and apathy self-parody punk minimalism

Frosty The Snowman

Ella Fitzgerald

This is Ella Fitzgerald's swinging take on the beloved children's Christmas novelty song, complete with an extra descriptive…

childhood wonder impermanence and mortality (softened) magic versus rationality

Lovesick Blues (Show 4)

Hank Williams

This is a live radio broadcast performance of Hank Williams' signature hit, complete with the show's folksy introduction and…

romantic abandonment wounded masculine pride performance and showmanship

Blue Sky

Common

Common builds a triumphant victory-lap track around a sampled ELO hook, using the sky as a running metaphor for ascent,…

ambition realized spiritual gratitude celebrity and success

Hellacious Acres

Kris Kristofferson

A carnival-barker satire that reimagines hell as a theme park, complete with billboards, ticket lines, and celebrity attractions…

moral corruption as entertainment consumerism and commodified sin celebrity and infamy

Crackity Jones

Pixies

A frantic, barely two-minute sketch of a roommate whose grip on reality is slipping, delivered with the manic energy and…

mental illness paranoia housing instability