Natalie Merchant
A spoken-sung interrogation of a former lover's new partner, built almost entirely out of pointed questions rather than…
jealousy and rivalry self-doubt after a breakup comparison and insecurity
The Cars
A new wave love song built almost entirely around longing and withholding: the narrator admires a partner who keeps emotional…
unrequited longing emotional distance obsession/insomnia
Noname
An early Noname track that circles the idea of opportunity—artistic breakthrough, fame, the Grammys, Yale, a dying aunt's…
ambivalence about success inherited trauma and ancestry self-doubt vs. self-worth
Kathleen Edwards
A plainspoken love song built around the tension between inarticulacy and devotion, where crude phrasing becomes the proof of…
domestic intimacy inarticulate devotion separation and waiting
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
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
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
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
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
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
Koko Taylor
A straightforward blues lament built around a single admission: the narrator is still in love with someone who has moved on.…
unrequited love jealousy public heartbreak
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
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
Squeeze
Squeeze turn a wrong-number joke into a small comedy of anxious devotion, as a man keeps dialing an answering machine and slowly…
romantic obsession urban distance technology as barrier
The Slits
This is The Slits' early, dub-inflected run at the Motown standard made famous by Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye, keeping the…
betrayal and rumor jealousy emotional paralysis
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Hop Along
A fractured travelogue-as-breakup song, where surreal imagery of distant places and imagined infidelities stands in for…
jealousy and possessiveness self-deception distance and separation
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
Snail Mail
A bruised, possessive love song that swings between desperate devotion and barely suppressed jealousy, built on the title's…
obsessive love jealousy and rivalry fame and surveillance
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
Olivia Rodrigo
A newly licensed teenage narrator turns a mundane rite of passage into the occasion for a breakup elegy, driving aimless loops…
heartbreak and abandonment jealousy and comparison loss of innocence/coming of age
Buck Owens
A breathless rockabilly novelty song about a man proud of his girlfriend's job slinging hot dogs and her magnetic pull on the…
young love teenage nightlife culture pride and mild 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
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
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
Arab Strap
A long-term couple narrates the intimacy and friction of their open relationship, moving from private rituals of knowing each…
non-monogamy and compersion aging bodies and long familiarity jealousy versus chosen openness
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