Leon Bridges
A funk-steeped come-on built around a slippery little logic game: if desire feels this good, the song argues, it can't really be…
desire vs. restraint moral ambiguity of attraction surrender to pleasure
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
The Cure
This is The Cure's cover of Jimi Hendrix's psychedelic classic, recorded as a B-side. Robert Smith takes a song built on…
disorientation altered perception romantic infatuation as intoxication
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
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
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
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
Ride
A straightforward infatuation song built almost entirely from one refrain, tracking the dizzy, repetitive logic of early…
infatuation loss of control idealized future
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
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
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
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
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
Cassandra Wilson
This is Cassandra Wilson's 2015 reading of the 1938 Coots/Gillespie standard, delivered as part of a tribute to Billie Holiday.…
intoxication as metaphor for desire self-awareness versus helplessness obsession
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
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
Superchunk
A hazy, fragmented recollection of a drunken night that may or may not have involved romance, tallied up through physical…
memory and forgetting intoxication erased identity
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
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
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
Tyler Childers
A hazy, sensory account of a night of intoxicated intimacy that keeps circling back to a plea for reassurance and permanence.…
desire and intoxication vulnerability beneath bravado longing for stability
Vince Gill
A country love song built around the physical panic of infatuation rather than its resolution. The narrator never gets to…
unrequited longing vulnerability idealization
FKA twigs
A seduction aimed squarely at someone else's partner, delivered with total confidence rather than guilt. The speaker frames…
sexual confidence rivalry and displacement desire as intoxication
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
Nirvana
Nirvana's debut single is actually a cover of a Dutch band Shocking Blue's psychedelic pop song, retooled into a droning,…
intoxication of desire miscommunication in love repetition as feeling
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
Heaven 17
A straightforward infatuation song built almost entirely around a single repeated image of kissing as a drug or a portal to…
romantic obsession loss of control idealized escape
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
Jamie xx
This is a dance track built almost entirely from two chants, one about intoxicating love and one about repetition, that function…
ecstasy and repetition collective euphoria love as intoxication
The Divine Comedy
A playful, slightly starstruck pop sketch of the eighteenth-century Russian empress, delivered with Neil Hannon's trademark mix…
hero worship power and intellect historical pastiche
Dire Straits
A giddy, London-after-dark infatuation song that treats desire as a kind of caffeine rush -- intense, quickly brewed, maybe not…
infatuation and obsession urban nightlife doubt beneath euphoria
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
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