Deftones
This is Deftones' cover of John Lennon's 1971 confessional ballad, recorded for a charity compilation benefiting Darfur relief.…
jealousy and insecurity guilt and apology emotional self-awareness
Sarah Jarosz
A breakup song built from natural imagery—bees, suns, waves, a moon—that casts romantic jealousy and regret as forces as…
romantic regret jealousy and suspicion independence vs. longing
Death Cab for Cutie
An extended, deliberately monotonous instrumental build frames a lyric spoken by someone who refuses to accept another person's…
obsession denial of rejection unreciprocated desire
Muddy Waters
A restless blues confession built on Muddy Waters's own nickname, this track uses the imagery of turbulent water to describe…
restlessness heartbreak and recovery self-identity through nickname
Hozier
A seduction song that casts the singer as a serpent drawn to an innocence he no longer possesses, admiring a lover's untainted…
loss of innocence corrupted desire idealism vs cynicism
PJ Harvey
A jealous, obsessive lover refuses to let go, oscillating between pleading vulnerability and menacing possessiveness. The song…
obsession codependency possessiveness
The Animals
The Animals' version of this Screamin' Jay Hawkins standard turns a theatrical curse into a raw, garage-blues confession of…
obsessive love possessiveness jealousy
Chaka Khan
A meditation on jealousy and reassurance, sung by a partner who has just been told about some flirtation or attention from an…
jealousy possessiveness self-assurance
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
A hazy, incantatory track that trades narrative clarity for mood and repetition, circling around loss, jealousy, and a loss of…
loss of control jealousy and betrayal naivety/self-deception
The O’Jays
A straightforward love song built almost entirely around light-as-devotion imagery, with the singer repeatedly affirming that…
devotion possessiveness light as metaphor for love
Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker's version of this Screamin' Jay Hawkins standard strips away the original's theatrical horror-show menace and…
George Michael
A pop-funk plea from a partner watching a lover slide back into a destructive habit, with the habit personified as a rival for…
addiction as rival codependency frustrated love
Descendents
A brief, blunt hardcore-punk song in which the narrator waits out a romantic rival, convinced that patience and possessiveness…
jealousy possessiveness unrequited love
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
SZA
SZA turns a breakup confession into a deadpan murder fantasy, using the exaggerated violence of the title as a vehicle for…
obsessive love jealousy denial and self-deception
Harry Nilsson
Nilsson's reading of the Pomus-Shuman standard takes a song already built on a tension between generosity and possessiveness and…
jealousy disguised as devotion possessiveness trust and its limits
Memphis Minnie
A woman sings about desire, control, and jealousy using the figure of a chauffeur as a thinly veiled sexual metaphor. The song…
female sexual agency jealousy and possessiveness double entendre and innuendo
50 Cent
A seduction track built around a jealous ultimatum: the narrator wants to be named the woman's real partner instead of her…
jealousy and possessiveness seduction as negotiation material generosity as proof of devotion
Taking Back Sunday
A jealous, self-pitying narrator confronts a partner he believes is cheating, oscillating between accusation and melodramatic…
jealousy and possessiveness emotional manipulation unreliable narration
Pet Shop Boys
A jealous lover watches a partner flirt and toy with a string of admirers, using the image of dominoes toppling one after…
jealousy and possessiveness romantic betrayal seduction as a game
The Band
A blues-rooted warning song built almost entirely on one refrain: the woman you love will mistreat you, and that mistreatment is…
romantic mistrust resignation and complicity double standards in love
Ghostface Killah
"Wildflower" is a vicious, sexually explicit diss track in which Ghostface Killah berates a former partner for cheating on him…
infidelity and betrayal masculine ego and sexual dominance revenge through humiliation
B.B. King
A straightforward blues-soul declaration built almost entirely on the repeated phrase of devotion, this track trades narrative…
devotion fear of abandonment reassurance
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
Bee Gees
A disco-funk plea from a narrator stuck loving a partner who's cheating and staying anyway, caught between accusation and…
jealousy and infidelity codependency sexual desire vs self-respect
The Allman Brothers Band
A straight-ahead blues complaint built around a borrowed car, a vanished lover, and a narrator who keeps catching her out. It's…
betrayal and infidelity possessiveness wounded masculine pride
The Rolling Stones
A blunt first-person account of having subdued a former partner into total compliance, delivered with a swagger that never…
domination and control gendered power imbalance possessiveness
The Triffids
A meditation on memory's unreliability, built around a man clutching physical relics of a lost woman while admitting each…
memory and distortion obsession idealization vs reality
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
Jodeci
A straightforward early-90s new jack swing seduction song in which the narrator clears every obstacle—child, friends,…
seduction and desire domestic privacy vs. outside world possessiveness
Stone Temple Pilots
A breakup song told through a reversal of expectation: the woman starts out sour and ends up happy, while the narrator's…
relationship decay self-deception possessiveness
Loretta Lynn
A wronged woman confronts her partner's infidelity by dismantling the appeal of the other woman, insisting the rival's power is…
betrayal and infidelity female rivalry possessiveness
Sinéad O’Connor
A declaration of independence from romantic possession, framed as a refusal rather than a lament. O'Connor sets up conventional…
autonomy versus possession distrust of romantic ownership spiritual love as refuge
Martina McBride
A straightforward love song built on a simple contrast: the world sees the beloved as remarkable, even public property, but the…
romantic devotion public perception vs private intimacy gratitude
Slayer
A straightforward early-Slayer horror piece in which the narrator is possessed and ultimately destroyed by an occult curse. It…
demonic possession loss of control occult horror
Elliott Smith
A hushed, seductive address that turns out to be spoken in the voice of addiction itself, offering comfort, oblivion, and…
addiction as intimate voice self-destruction disguised as tenderness loss of potential
The Hollies
This is a cover of the Motown standard originally made famous by The Supremes, here rendered by The Hollies as part of a…
jealousy and possessiveness infidelity pleading and self-justification
The Stylistics
A slow-burning declaration of romantic longing built almost entirely around one possessive phrase, repeated until it becomes an…
romantic longing possessiveness as devotion escape/private world
Neutral Milk Hotel
A distorted, obsessive love song that swings between tenderness and revulsion, built around the fixation of a narrator who both…
obsessive desire idealization vs. disgust possession and control
Marty Robbins
A condemned man narrates his last night alive, replaying the jealous rage that led him to kill his ex-lover and her new partner.…
jealousy and possessiveness crime and punishment regret