Results for “longing for control”

Songs

Tomorrow Is a Long Time

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

Long Way Home

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

Distant Lover

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

It's Good to Be King

Tom Petty

Tom Petty builds a wistful daydream around the fantasy of kingship, using royal imagery as a stand-in for escape from ordinary…

escapism fantasy vs. reality longing for control

The Kiss

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

Love, Reign O'er Me

The Who

This is the climactic closing statement of Quadrophenia, a plea for emotional deliverance disguised as a weather report. The…

spiritual longing emotional exhaustion love as elemental force

The Midnight Special

Creedence Clearwater Revival

CCR's version of this traditional folk-blues song reworks a prison-labor lament into swampy rock, keeping the old imagery of…

incarceration and forced labor longing for deliverance folk mythology / superstition

Between the Bars

Elliott Smith

A quiet, almost lullaby-like address to someone (or something) that promises comfort while actually describing a kind of…

addiction and dependency seduction and control erased identity

Beast Of Burden

The Rolling Stones

A weary plea for tenderness dressed up as a refusal to keep serving as someone's workhorse. The narrator insists he's given…

exhaustion in relationships emotional labor vs desire masculinity and self-worth

Back Up Train

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

Blues Run the Game

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

Boogie Street

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

Flagship

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

Tear-Stained Letter

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

Cranes in the Sky

Solange

Solange catalogs a long list of failed coping mechanisms for an unnamed sorrow, building an inventory of avoidance that…

avoidance and denial depression/emotional exhaustion consumerism as false comfort

Katie Cruel

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