Results for “impermanence versus inner constancy”

Songs

Across the Universe

The Beatles

A meditative lyric that treats consciousness itself as an overflowing, uncontainable stream, moving from language to imagery to…

meditation and detachment the limits of language transcendence of the self

Things Behind the Sun

Nick Drake

A quiet, oracular warning-song in which Nick Drake counsels a listener (or himself) to resist the seductions of vanity and…

spiritual disillusionment authenticity versus performance isolation and inner vision

Let's Dance

David Bowie

A dance-floor invitation built on a simple repeated command that gradually reveals an undertow of anxiety about impermanence and…

desire and vulnerability impermanence performance versus intimacy

Everything Must Change

Nina Simone

A meditation on impermanence set as a slow, incantatory song rather than a story. Simone (performing a standard she didn't…

impermanence time and aging acceptance

Who Knows Where the Time Goes

Fairport Convention

A meditation on mortality and constancy, written by Sandy Denny and here performed by Fairport Convention (who backed her on the…

mortality and impermanence the passage of time constancy in love

Where's the Catch?

James Blake

A song about the discomfort of being happy, sung by someone so used to disappointment that contentment itself feels suspicious.…

distrust of happiness anxiety and self-sabotage intimacy versus paranoia

The Sea Captain

Sandy Denny

A short, dreamlike ballad in which a wandering narrator and a sea captain mirror each other's escapes from burning or confining…

escape and departure transcendence versus disaster fate and mirroring

As the World Falls Down

David Bowie

A courtly, almost hypnotic love song written for the film Labyrinth, in which the speaker offers cosmic gifts to a beloved while…

seduction and enchantment love as surrender impermanence

Certainty

Big Thief

A quiet meditation on romantic uncertainty that refuses to resolve into either commitment or departure. Lenker circles the…

ambivalence in love impermanence faith versus doubt

Seal Eyeing

Animal Collective

A short, quietly unsettling piece that starts as a simple pastoral scene of watching a seal in a half-frozen lake and slides…

environmental collapse tourism and spectacle of nature impermanence

Grown Ocean

Fleet Foxes

The closing track of Helplessness Blues describes a visionary dream-state of peace and permanence, set against a waking world of…

dreams versus waking life longing for peace impermanence and mortality

Heart's Content

Brandi Carlile

A meditation on a romance that idealizes itself even as it self-sabotages, built around the tension between two people who…

self-sabotage in love idealization versus reality fear of vulnerability

Christmas In the Room

Sufjan Stevens

A quiet domestic carol that strips Christmas of all its commercial and decorative trappings and relocates the holiday's meaning…

domestic intimacy anti-consumerism presence versus decoration

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

Simulation Swarm

Big Thief

A hazy, image-drenched love song that treats intimacy as something both cosmic and fragile, staged inside a metaphor of the…

impermanence and renewal love as refuge from unreality memory and childhood

Are You Sleeping?

Harry Nilsson

A gentle, lullaby-like meditation on a fading or already-lost relationship, framed as a bedside address to a sleeping (or…

love's impermanence uncertainty and doubt tenderness amid loss

Change

Big Thief

An acoustic meditation that opens Big Thief's 2021 double album by asking whether permanence is even desirable. Adrianne Lenker…

impermanence and mortality acceptance versus fear of loss romantic jealousy and letting go

Water Curses

Animal Collective

A dreamlike wish-song built around water as an image of fluidity, ease, and self-erasure, drifting through loosely connected…

desire for formlessness/transformation mortality and impermanence creativity and artistic longing

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

Sexy Boy

Air

A woozy, vocoder-warped taunt built almost entirely out of one phrase, "Sexy Boy" pokes at masculine vanity and celebrity…

vanity and self-image celebrity and consumerism irony versus seduction

Don't Get Me Wrong

The Pretenders

A giddy, slightly defensive love song built around a single repeated plea: don't misread my erratic behavior as indifference.…

infatuation and its contradictions fear of being misunderstood impermanence versus commitment

Four Strong Winds

Neil Young

A drifting laborer weighs a move west for work while quietly accepting that the relationship he's leaving behind won't survive…

itinerant labor resignation fading love

Outdoor Miner

Wire

A deceptively sweet pop song from a band known for angular art-punk, built around the tiny natural phenomenon of a leaf-mining…

nature observation hiddenness and exposure innocence versus threat

Unravel

Björk

A brief, obsessively repeated lyric turns romantic anxiety into a small folk-tale: love as thread that comes loose during…

separation anxiety loss and impermanence of love fate versus renewal

Hidden Treasure

Traffic

A gentle, meditative song that treats a riverbank walk as a spiritual exercise, urging the listener toward openness and…

contemplation and inner openness nature as teacher spiritual seeking

This Mess We're In

PJ Harvey

A duet-style meditation on a fleeting New York encounter, sung against a backdrop of helicopters, sunsets and skyscrapers that…

transience of connection urban alienation desire versus impermanence

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

Only This Moment

Röyksopp

A minimalist electro-pop meditation on love as a present-tense gamble, oscillating between dread that a relationship is doomed…

uncertainty in love presentism versus fear of the future doubt and surrender

It's All Over

Johnny Cash

A short, direct breakup song built around a man arriving at a lover's door already expecting rejection, and the internal voice…

heartbreak self-address and inner conflict denial versus acceptance

All That You Have Is Your Soul

Emmylou Harris

A mother's warning becomes a hard-won personal confession, as the narrator traces her own failures to heed advice about…

inherited wisdom moral compromise self-possession versus loss of self

To Live Is to Fly

Townes Van Zandt

A traveling songwriter's meditation on impermanence, love without possession, and the necessity of moving on, framed as both a…

impermanence itinerant life love without attachment

You Are My Sunshine

Carly Simon

Carly Simon's version of this old folk standard strips it down to a hushed, almost prayer-like lullaby, trading the song's usual…

fragile love fear of loss comfort and vulnerability

Oh Very Young

Cat Stevens

A meditation on mortality and inheritance addressed to a child, using the wearing-out of a pair of jeans as an emblem for how…

mortality impermanence legacy and inheritance

Leaves That Are Green

Simon Jäger

A young songwriter watches a single year of his life pass and turns that small span of time into a meditation on mortality and…

impermanence aging and time lost love

Red Guitar

Cassandra Wilson

This is a meditative, almost devotional song built around a simple ritual: each day's mundane and sensory acts are catalogued by…

impermanence ritual and routine art as anchor

When We Were Young

Adele

A chance reunion at a party becomes the occasion for Adele to measure the distance between who she was and who she's become. The…

nostalgia aging and mortality lost love

Drifter

John Lee Hooker

A stripped-down Delta blues lament built on the image of the drifter, a man cut loose from home and love, cast adrift with no…

isolation betrayal homelessness/wandering

With a Song In My Heart

Chet Baker

A slender, devotional love lyric built around a single conceit: that romantic feeling and musical feeling are the same…

romantic devotion music as spiritual metaphor transcendence through love

2/1

Brian Eno

"2/1" is the second piece on Ambient 1: Music for Airports, built from a small set of slowly looping piano phrases and wordless…

stasis and drift impermanence non-intrusive listening

Avril 14th

Aphex Twin

Avril 14th is a brief solo piano piece by Aphex Twin, built from a simple, halting melodic phrase that repeats with small…

memory fragility impermanence