Erykah Badu
"Danger" opens Erykah Badu's Worldwide Underground suite with a collect call from prison, then unfolds as a woman's monologue…
incarceration and its toll on relationships the drug economy as domestic reality vigilance and paranoia
The Doors
This is a live rehearsal-tape performance of the Van Morrison/Them garage-rock standard, stretched by Jim Morrison into a loose,…
adolescent sexual awakening performance and improvisation desire and impatience
SBTRKT
A short, incantatory dance-pop track built around a single image of overwhelming attraction as combustion. The lyrics stake…
infatuation as danger surrender/vulnerability risk and gambling
Blondie
A cover of a 1963 girl-group style bubblegum tune, reworked by Blondie into a knowing new wave valentine that trades on…
infatuation surface pleasure and artifice girl-group nostalgia
X
This is X's version of the garage-rock standard, stripped down and repeated almost to the point of incantation. Rather than…
infatuation desire uncertainty about love
Mariah Carey
A buoyant celebration of infatuation that lives entirely in the space between attraction and consummation, where the pleasure…
infatuation escapism desire and daydream
The Stooges
Little Doll is a two-minute blues-punk grind built on a simple crush and a raw, repeated command to move. Its lyric barely…
infatuation objectification desire vs. distance
The xx
A duet-style track built around the exhilaration and risk of falling into infatuation, with the two vocalists trading lines that…
infatuation vulnerability risk-taking in love
Michael Jackson
A buoyant, physically driven declaration of infatuation built almost entirely around a single hook that gets repeated, echoed,…
infatuation desire and pursuit possessiveness
Madonna
A buoyant early-80s dance-pop confection that turns a childhood wishing-star rhyme into an adult love song, celebrating…
infatuation luck and fate celestial imagery
Billy Joel
A young narrator describes a destructive, one-sided infatuation using imagery of physical danger — electrified rails, hidden…
obsessive infatuation self-destruction adolescent isolation
Beirut
A brief, deceptively cheerful pop song built almost entirely from a wordless vocal hook, with a single quatrain of lyric…
infatuation uncertainty urgency
Lauryn Hill
This is Lauryn Hill's rendition of the 1967 Frankie Valli classic, placed on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as a brief,…
infatuation gratitude vulnerability
Joan Armatrading
A love song built almost entirely on declaration rather than incident: a narrator confesses an all-consuming attachment, admits…
infatuation self-aware sentimentality gratitude/luck
A slow-dance ballad built around a single moment: crossing a crowded room toward someone and closing the distance between…
infatuation vulnerability physical desire
Queen
A slight, groove-driven vignette about attraction to someone effortlessly stylish and self-possessed, filtered through…
infatuation cool detachment vs. desire surface style over substance
Deep Purple
This is a straightforward garage-pop cover turned hard-rock workout, built almost entirely from nonsense syllables and a simple…
obsessive infatuation powerlessness in love physical desire
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
James Blake
A hazy meditation on romantic infatuation so intense it blurs into hallucination, James Blake's song treats intimacy as…
infatuation and disbelief dissolution of time psychedelic imagery of love
Phoebe Bridgers
A song about being drawn back, again and again, to someone (or something) reckless and self-destructive, using the Peter Pan…
arrested development romanticized danger toxic intimacy
Tears for Fears
A love song that keeps interrupting itself, veering between romantic infatuation and anxious social commentary before dissolving…
infatuation and vulnerability fear of loss social conscience amid personal desire
Bad Company
A road-worn narrator drifts through a neon city at night, half-thrilled and half-alienated by its speed and casual violence. Bad…
urban alienation spectacle and danger the outsider observer
Common
Common builds a countdown thriller out of a love-triangle gone dangerous, narrating an affair with another man's girlfriend as…
infidelity and consequence paranoia masculine posturing
Ella Fitzgerald
A standard-issue torch song from the Great American Songbook, "Misty" describes the disorientation of falling helplessly in…
helpless infatuation surrender of control sensory overwhelm
Curtis Mayfield
A late-70s disco-soul love song built almost entirely around physical and emotional surrender, with Curtis Mayfield trading his…
romantic and sexual devotion surrender of control obsession/infatuation
Björk
Björk's cover reworks a 1951 Betty Hutton novelty tune into a dynamic set piece where hushed, orchestral verses collapse into…
the volatility of infatuation quiet vs. chaos as emotional states the absurdity of romantic obsession
Yes
A harder-edged, riff-driven track from 90125 that trades Yes's usual cosmic imagery for a noirish urban vignette about street…
urban predation temptation and naivety danger as seduction
Creedence Clearwater Revival
A cover of the Gene Pitney-penned, Ricky Nelson-popularized 1961 pop-rock standard, this Mardi Gras rendition is CCR playing it…
love at first sight teenage infatuation nostalgia for early rock and roll
Moby
This is Moby's spare, half-sung meditation built around a repeating road-trip refrain that cycles through the four points of the…
urban danger friendship and loyalty hope versus fear
XTC
A giddy, image-drunk love song that describes a single overwhelming encounter through a barrage of unrelated historical and…
sudden infatuation the inadequacy of language before wonder celestial imagery displaced onto a person
Little Feat
A late-night narrator wanders into a seedy nightclub called the Spanish Moon and finds himself pawning his possessions to keep…
seduction and ruin vice and nightlife music as intoxicant
George Jones
A novelty rockabilly tale about a moonshiner and his lethal homemade whiskey, told by his admiring kin in a comic, exaggerated…
Appalachian folklore outlaw defiance of authority masculine bravado
Noname
Diddy Bop opens Telefone as a childhood remembrance of Chicago summers, braiding sensory nostalgia with quiet undertow --…
childhood nostalgia Chicago community and place innocence versus danger
The Velvet Underground
A deceptively childlike singsong from Moe Tucker turns into an odd meditation on loyalty without limits, where devotion to a…
unconditional loyalty childlike innocence vs. danger identity merging with another
Robyn
A teenage Robyn's breakout single is a straightforward Eurodance declaration of romantic surrender, built around a repeated plea…
romantic vulnerability independence versus surrender demand for reciprocity
Sonic Youth
A chance meeting on a train dissolves into a hazy, possibly murderous conspiracy between the narrator and a stranger, with the…
complicity and denial desire as danger dream logic
Underworld
This is Underworld working in their most minimal, mantra-based mode: a handful of phrases repeated until they become texture…
sensory overload repetition as trance warning/danger
Sleater‐Kinney
A giddy, self-aware love song that keeps interrupting its own swooning with jolts of caution and self-mockery. Sleater-Kinney…
romantic infatuation self-control vs. surrender desire as destabilizing force
A giddy, almost defiantly simple love song built on a single repeated declaration, XTC push romantic euphoria to a comic…
romantic infatuation loss of rational control joy as defiance
The Temptations
A buoyant, uncomplicated love song built around call-and-response praise for a girlfriend, moving through her hair, her…
romantic infatuation possessiveness physical vs. inner beauty