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
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
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin's 1967 reworking of Otis Redding's song turns a man's plea for domestic deference into a woman's non-negotiable…
demanding respect sexual and economic bargaining power gender and domestic power