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
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
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
Free
A blues-rock warning shot aimed at a rival encroaching on the narrator's relationship. It's less a fully worked lyric than a…
jealousy and possessiveness masculine pride confrontation
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
Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson builds an entire song out of a single dirty joke, using a 1930s automobile as an extended stand-in for a woman's…
sexual jealousy infidelity and possession mechanical/automotive metaphor
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
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
Johnny Cash
A first-person murder ballad narrated by a man who kills his lover in a drug-fueled instant and then walks through his own…
addiction and its consequences violence against women masculine possessiveness/jealousy
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
My Morning Jacket
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
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
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
Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli turns a chorus that sounds like devotional pop-soul into a verse-by-verse dissection of a toxic, addictive…
addiction to volatile love masculine bravado vs. vulnerability cycles of conflict and reconciliation
Madvillain
A jealous, wounded rant against a cheating lover and her new partner, delivered as a broken phone call full of accusation, petty…
betrayal and infidelity masculine pride and possessiveness petty revenge
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
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 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
Jamie xx
A dance-floor breakup song built around a single wounded question: how can the person you loved find transcendence with…
loss and jealousy nightlife as substitute intimacy memory attached to place
Japanese Breakfast
A song written in the voice of a wealthy, self-justifying man who frames his hoarding and moral compromises as acts of devotion.…
late capitalism and wealth hoarding toxic masculinity and possessiveness climate apocalypse
PJ Harvey
A jealous, obsessive lover refuses to let go, oscillating between pleading vulnerability and menacing possessiveness. The song…
obsession codependency possessiveness
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
Nat King Cole
This is Nat King Cole's rendition of "La Adelita," one of the best-known corridos of the Mexican Revolution, sung from the…
devotion and possessiveness war and mortality folk heroism
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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