The Cranberries
This is a cover of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard, best known from the Carpenters' 1970 version, recorded by The…
idealized love infatuation celestial imagery
Roxette
A breathless, carnival-barker pop song that treats falling in love as an amusement-park ride, piling up fairground and travel…
infatuation as spectacle loss of control/surrender circularity of love
Childish Gambino
A lightweight, breezy love song that compares infatuation to the sensory pleasure of summer -- sunlight, dancing, ease. It's…
infatuation seasonal metaphor devotion/exclusivity
Jefferson Airplane
A breezy, repetitive love-at-first-sight song built almost entirely around a single question addressed to a companion as both…
infatuation shared observation inarticulacy
Shawn Mendes
A pop-funk confession of infatuation as loss of control, where the narrator frames surrender to a magnetic partner as liberation…
infatuation loss of control risk as freedom
Aaliyah
A breezy declaration of infatuation built on simple, direct address, "I'm So Into You" trades complex metaphor for plainspoken…
infatuation desire courtship rituals
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
Ride
A straightforward infatuation song built almost entirely from one refrain, tracking the dizzy, repetitive logic of early…
infatuation loss of control idealized future
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
One Direction
A straightforward teen-pop crush song built on a single conceit: an unnamed quality in the object of affection that the narrator…
infatuation powerlessness in attraction unrequited longing
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
Anita O’Day
This is Anita O'Day's vocal-jazz treatment of the Fats Waller standard, a breezy declaration of infatuation built entirely on…
infatuation sweetness as metaphor public admiration
A pop-R&B infatuation song built around a single impulsive premise: the narrator is near Japan and wants to fly to see someone…
infatuation impulsivity long-distance desire
Bryan Adams
A straightforward arena-rock love song built on the conceit of romantic revelation: the narrator claims total worldly experience…
infatuation romantic awe physical desire
Laura Nyro
An early Laura Nyro composition built almost entirely on sensation rather than narrative, this song uses the image of fire and…
infatuation loss of control transcendence through desire
Lupe Fiasco
A straightforward pop-rap infatuation song in which Lupe Fiasco uses the language of songcraft itself—hooks, choruses, verses—as…
infatuation obsession music as metaphor for love
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
Billie Eilish
A hushed debut single built around a single extended metaphor: a pair of eyes compared to the ocean, standing in for the…
infatuation vulnerability fear of intimacy
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
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
Luna
"Indian Summer" is a stripped-down declaration of infatuation built almost entirely from repetition, where a simple want…
infatuation desire as affliction irony toward pop romance
Jamiroquai
A breezy declaration of infatuation built around a single repeated hook, this track trades narrative complexity for pure…
infatuation the ineffability of attraction romantic devotion
The Sisters of Mercy
This is Andrew Eldritch's venomous state-of-the-world address, built around George H.W. Bush's dismissive phrase about not…
political cynicism consumerist excess moral corruption
Fergie
A breezy pop song built on a single conceit: falling in love as a literal loss of physical balance. Fergie narrates the giddy,…
infatuation loss of control self-aware romantic vulnerability
Disclosure
Tenderly is an early, largely instrumental-minded Disclosure track where a handful of vocal phrases are looped and reconfigured…
infatuation obsession as repetition minimalism
A slow-dance ballad built around a single moment: crossing a crowded room toward someone and closing the distance between…
infatuation vulnerability physical desire
Jonas Brothers
This is a reunion single built entirely around a single declaration of helpless devotion, dressed up in glossy funk-pop…
infatuation loss of control devotion as intoxication
Humble Pie
A short, almost skeletal love song built around the old rock-and-roll conceit of the heart skipping a beat, borrowed and…
infatuation the body as evidence of love repetition and ritual
Carly Rae Jepsen
A maximalist pop song that strips romantic desire down to pure velocity and sensation, piling up images of flight and ascent to…
infatuation impatience with restraint transcendence through romance/desire
Luke Combs
A straightforward love song that frames a partner's contradictions and habits as the very thing that makes her captivating. It…
infatuation acceptance of imperfection domestic intimacy
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
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
Christina Aguilera
A gospel-soaked cover of the Etta James classic, reworked for the Burlesque soundtrack as a showcase for Aguilera's vocal range…
infatuation bodily sensation as proof of emotion surrender of control
En Vogue
A buoyant declaration of new romantic surrender, this song finds its narrator overwhelmed by affection and physical attraction,…
infatuation vulnerability in love physical attraction
Vance Joy
A straightforward love song built around the paradox of someone destructive and sustaining at once. The narrator describes a…
infatuation elemental imagery of love comfort in presence
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
Beirut
A brief, deceptively cheerful pop song built almost entirely from a wordless vocal hook, with a single quatrain of lyric…
infatuation uncertainty urgency
The Animals
A straightforward R&B cover-style number built on a single comic premise: a woman's beauty is so overpowering it reorders the…
infatuation male desire and pursuit comic exaggeration
Coldplay
A euphoric, almost reckless declaration of love built around a single cosmic image repeated until it becomes a kind of chant.…
infatuation surrender transcendence through love