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
Chet Baker
This is Chet Baker's reading of Irving Berlin's 1924 standard, a spare lament built almost entirely around a single repeated…
separation and longing romantic insecurity jealousy
Carly Simon
A woman confronts a partner who has just confessed some flirtation or infidelity, and instead of collapsing into jealousy she…
possessiveness disguised as devotion jealousy and self-assurance confession and its fallout
The Zombies
A minor-key plea in which the narrator warns a friend against a woman he already suspects is unfaithful. The song's tension…
jealousy and insecurity preemptive heartbreak possessiveness disguised as love
Souls of Mischief
A posse-cut brag track built around a single scenario: other men hitting on the narrators' girlfriends, and each rapper…
jealousy and possessiveness masculine status competition hypervigilance/insecurity masked as confidence
Sebadoh
A confessional song about the damage careless speech does, sung by a narrator who admits to gossip, betrayal, and self-serving…
guilt and self-justification unreliable speech/gossip jealousy
The Beach Boys
A jilted-then-vindicated narrator watches a woman he loves get mistreated by another man, and uses her heartbreak as an opening…
jealousy romantic rivalry self-vindication
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
Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox's reading of this Screamin' Jay Hawkins standard, cut for her covers album Nostalgia, strips the song down to its…
possessive love jealousy desperation
The Louvin Brothers
A plain, pleading country ballad built entirely around a single conditional wish: to win the love of someone who remains just…
unrequited love longing devotion
Ann Peebles
A stark relationship ultimatum built almost entirely on a single conditional refrain, this song treats mutual suspicion as a…
trust and suspicion jealousy relationship ultimatums
Mariah Carey
A holiday novelty song that recasts Santa Claus as a matchmaker rather than a gift-giver, with the narrator petitioning him to…
romantic longing holiday nostalgia wish-fulfillment
Japanese Breakfast
A bruised, self-aware account of wanting someone who has already made clear they want someone else, or something else entirely.…
unrequited desire self-loathing jealousy
Slowdive
A hazy account of a relationship winding down, where tenderness and resentment are hard to separate. The song relies on…
fading love resignation jealousy
Fugazi
A tense, elliptical piece built around the image of a man walking a psychological margin, caught between admiration and violence…
obsession and surveillance jealousy self-destruction
Massive Attack
A hushed, circling meditation on romantic ambivalence, sung from the position of someone who claims to wish an ex-lover well…
ambivalence possessiveness disguised as tenderness jealousy
My Morning Jacket
This is a live cover of the Mark James song made famous by Elvis Presley, performed by My Morning Jacket. The lyric itself is a…
romantic entrapment jealousy and distrust pleading for reconciliation
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
Muddy Waters
A slow, grinding blues in which Muddy Waters uses a strange, oversized cat as a comic stand-in for suspicion and sexual…
jealousy and suspicion infidelity domestic surveillance
Lucy Dacus
A breakup song built around a final, awkward meeting with an ex, where the narrator moves from raw jealousy and anger toward a…
breakup and closure jealousy and comparison self-respect
Robert Johnson
This is a twelve-bar blues built on a familiar contradiction: the singer praises a devoted woman while simultaneously suspecting…
romantic devotion undercut by suspicion jealousy and possessiveness self-pity
Rodney Crowell
A road-worn narrator, hungover and rattled by a bar-room bigot, turns to his partner and demands verbal reassurance rather than…
insecurity and reassurance aging and mortality bigotry and disgust
Cream
This is Cream's electrified cover of a pre-war country blues (originally by Blind Joe Reynolds), turned into a slow-burning…
sexual jealousy infidelity folk wisdom/proverb
Nilüfer Yanya
A song built around compulsive avoidance and the fear of losing control in a relationship that seems to be dissolving in real…
avoidance and flight fear of losing control romantic insecurity
A hazy, reverb-soaked ballad built almost entirely from a handful of repeated questions and pleas, this song uses the sparest…
jealousy and suspicion infidelity or fear of it isolation and longing
Thin Lizzy
This is Thin Lizzy in full riff-driven bravado mode, a Saturday-night anthem that fuses schoolyard aggression, romantic…
masculine bravado violence as ritual working-class nightlife
Kate Bush
Kate Bush tells a compact fable of a wife who sets a trap for her own marriage by inventing a mysterious alter ego, only to…
jealousy and self-sabotage disguise and identity the decay of romantic feeling
Kanye West Tribute Band
A meditation on materialism and insecurity in Black American life, built around a fictional college dropout in the first verse…
consumerism as compensation racial economic inequality self-consciousness and insecurity
David Bowie
A voyeuristic narrator watches a street-corner seduction unfold from a hotel window, alternately mocking and envying the…
voyeurism and surveillance queer desire and rivalry gender performance and camp
A stripped-down plea built almost entirely on repetition, "Maps" strips romantic longing down to a handful of phrases repeated…
romantic insecurity possessiveness disguised as devotion fear of abandonment
Michael Jackson
A frantic, groove-driven complaint disguised as a love song: the narrator is exhausted not by manual labor but by the endless…
overwork as metaphor for unreciprocated effort suspicion and jealousy exhaustion
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
Tears for Fears
A song about emotional withholding, built as a plea disguised as a diagnosis. The narrator keeps demanding certainty and love…
emotional neglect need for control insecurity in relationships
Snail Mail
A teenage confession of romantic exclusivity that curdles into obsession, "Pristine" tracks a narrator insisting on…
obsessive first love self-erasure in relationships adolescent insecurity
Blondie
A slight, doo-wop-inflected pop song about physical longing dressed up as teenage romantic melodrama. Blondie plays it as a…
desire and physical longing romantic jealousy performance of innocence vs. sexuality
Sam Cooke
A deceptively simple reassurance song built almost entirely on a single repeated phrase, in which the narrator talks himself…
romantic insecurity self-persuasion trust versus doubt
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
Steve Miller Band
This is a cover of an old blues standard about wanting a car, dressed up as a loose, groove-driven jam. Miller keeps the…
material desire masculine status infidelity and jealousy
Little Feat
A blues-rooted meditation on romantic rivalry, told through the extended image of two trains running on the same line. Little…
romantic rivalry jealousy and restraint uncertainty and waiting
John Lee Hooker
A slow, brooding solo blues meditation built almost entirely on repetition and a single fixed image: a man alone at a window,…
abandonment jealousy and suspicion loneliness