Results for “idealization of the dead or departed”

Songs

Curtis Mayfield

A eulogy that refuses to sentimentalize its subject, using the death of a small-time hustler named Freddie as a blunt instrument…

addiction and exploitation urban poverty complicity and blame

The Cure

A meditation on grief and memory in which a narrator clings to photographs of a lost lover, unsure whether the images preserve…

grief and loss memory versus reality idealization of the dead or departed

Mott the Hoople

A glam-rock anthem that assembles a cast of disaffected, gender-bending teenagers and hands them a vague, urgent 'news' to…

generational rupture glam identity and androgyny disaffection with 60s idealism

Ramones

This is the Ramones' cover of a 1964 surf-pop nugget, stripped down and sped up into a blast of bubblegum escapism. It's not a…

escapism idealized geography youthful pleasure-seeking

Sandy Denny

A cover of Dylan's early ballad, rendered here as a hushed meditation on longing and self-erasure in absence. Sandy Denny's…

longing and absence loss of self idealized love

Neil Young

A domestic sketch collides with a highway fantasy: the narrator remembers a diner waitress and imagines her alternate, freer…

restlessness and rootlessness domestic confinement vs. freedom idealization/myth-making

Queen

A piano ballad structured as a direct plea to a departing lover, built almost entirely on repetition rather than narrative…

romantic loss supplication and pleading possessiveness in love

The Supremes

A woman demands her own release from a dead relationship, addressing an ex who refuses to fully let go even though he no longer…

emotional limbo asymmetry of feeling demand for autonomy

Fleetwood Mac

A breakup song delivered as calm prophecy rather than complaint. The singer grants her departing partner the freedom he asked…

romantic separation loneliness as consequence foresight and prophecy