Sandy Denny
A cover of Dylan's early ballad, rendered here as a hushed meditation on longing and self-erasure in absence. Sandy Denny's…
longing and absence loss of self idealized love
Tom Waits
A wandering man confesses to a lover that he's constitutionally unable to take the straight path home, in love or in life. Waits…
restlessness and wanderlust romantic unreliability the tension between domesticity and freedom
Marvin Gaye
A slow-burning soul lament in which the narrator addresses an absent lover across an unspecified distance, moving from tender…
romantic longing separation and absence memory and nostalgia
Al Green
A young man addresses a train conductor directly, pleading for the impossible: reverse the train's direction so he can return to…
regret and reversal longing/separation loneliness
Judee Sill
Judee Sill's 'The Kiss' fuses erotic and devotional language until they become indistinguishable, imagining spiritual union as a…
sacred and profane love transcendence death as release
Fleetwood Mac
A breakup song delivered as calm prophecy rather than complaint. The singer grants her departing partner the freedom he asked…
romantic separation loneliness as consequence foresight and prophecy
Laura Marling
This is a cover of a mid-1960s folk standard, sung here in Laura Marling's plainspoken, weary register, about the impossibility…
itinerancy and escape addiction as self-medication romantic longing and loss
Leonard Cohen
A meditation on the pull between transcendence and the grinding routine of ordinary commerce and appetite, imagined as a street…
sacred vs. profane mortality and impermanence spiritual longing amid worldly routine
Richard Thompson
A wry, uptempo account of a breakup told from the battered-but-wisecracking side, where physical comedy stands in for emotional…
romantic aftermath toxic love masculine bravado as deflection
Jason Isbell
Isbell uses a fading hotel as an extended metaphor for a long marriage at risk of going stale, watching an older couple's silent…
marital complacency the labor of sustaining love aging and decline
Bert Jansch
This is a traditional Appalachian song (with roots in older British/American folk balladry) about a woman driven out of a…
exile and social rejection itinerancy gendered outsider status