Results for “need versus want”

Songs

All I Want

Joni Mitchell

A restless, searching love song that treats a relationship as a project of mutual self-improvement rather than a fixed…

ambivalence in love freedom versus attachment self-improvement through relationship

I Want

Chaka Khan

A straightforward declaration of romantic devotion and desire, built almost entirely on the call-and-response between the words…

desire devotion reassurance

You Can't Always Get What You Want

The Rolling Stones

A gospel-choir-backed anthem that stitches together disconnected scenes of desire, disillusionment, and death, all resolving…

disillusionment compromise the counterculture's limits

I Need You

Eurythmics

A stark, almost claustrophobic litany of need that keeps mistaking pain for intimacy. The song strips romantic longing down to…

desire and self-destruction performance of feeling control and submission

What You Need

The Fall

A repetitive call-and-response built around the phrase "what you need" turns consumerist advice-giving into an absurdist litany,…

consumerism and commodification absurdist list-making working-class drudgery

I Want You (Vocal)

Marvin Gaye

A slow-burning plea for mutual desire, built almost entirely on repetition of a single wish stated and restated until it becomes…

unreciprocated desire longing for mutuality vulnerability in seduction

I Want You

Tom Waits

This piece reads less like a finished lyric than a raw studio artifact: a repetitive, formulaic love song built almost entirely…

longing distance repetition as devotion

How I Wanted To

Richard Thompson

A short, circling song built almost entirely around one unspoken sentence: the narrator never told a former lover he loved her,…

emotional inarticulacy regret unfinished endings

You Need To Calm Down

Taylor Swift

A bright, bubblegum pop track that pivots halfway through from scolding online trolls to a broader plea for LGBTQ acceptance.…

online harassment LGBTQ solidarity celebrity feuds

I Need a Doctor

Dr. Dre

A collaborative single built as a plea from Eminem to Dr. Dre, using the frame of medical crisis to dramatize creative and…

mentorship and debt creative block and self-doubt loyalty versus betrayal

The Want of a Nail

Todd Rundgren

Rundgren takes an old proverb about a chain of small failures leading to catastrophe and grafts it onto a personal confession…

loneliness cause and effect personal responsibility

I Want to Be Loved #2

Muddy Waters

A blues plea built on a familiar Chicago blues formula: the narrator lavishes praise on a woman who barely acknowledges him, and…

unrequited desire romantic frustration adoration versus neglect

You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want To Do It)

Patsy Cline

This is a classic Tin Pan Alley standard reworked through Patsy Cline's country-pop phrasing, built almost entirely around a…

reluctant surrender desire versus resistance emotional vulnerability

Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

Loretta Lynn

A gospel-tinged novelty hymn that turns a folk saying into a meditation on the human fear of death, even among the faithful.…

fear of death faith versus human nature salvation

I Need My Girl

The National

A song about insisting you're fine while every detail undercuts the claim. Over spare, insistent guitar figures, a narrator…

self-doubt masked as composure dependency and love instability beneath normalcy

I Take What I Want

Ann Peebles

A declaration of sexual and emotional appetite delivered without apology, this song is Ann Peebles claiming the traditionally…

female desire and agency self-possession pursuit and conquest

I Don't Want to Know

Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight delivers a hard-edged breakup address to a partner who is leaving for someone else, refusing to grant him the…

betrayal and infidelity emotional exhaustion self-respect after sacrifice

I Want Your Sex, Pts. 1 & 2

George Michael

George Michael turns a single, blunt demand into a sustained argument about desire, patience, and monogamy, dressing up a simple…

sexual desire and frustration persuasion and rhetoric monogamy versus promiscuity

We Want the Airwaves

Ramones

A blunt manifesto-as-anthem in which the Ramones demand radio play for rock 'n' roll, framing corporate gatekeeping as an enemy…

media gatekeeping artistic frustration working-class impatience

I Don't Want to Know

Fleetwood Mac

A folk-rock kiss-off built on willful avoidance: the narrator insists they won't ask why a relationship is ending, framing that…

denial as self-protection romantic exhaustion emotional withholding

Money (That's What I Want)

The Supremes

This is a cover of Barrett Strong's 1959 Motown founding single, redone by the Supremes as a driving, chant-heavy dance number.…

materialism vs. sentiment economic realism desire and demand

If You Needed Somebody

Bad Company

A late-period Bad Company track built around a simple, almost adolescent premise: a narrator paralyzed by unspoken feelings for…

unrequited longing fear of rejection romantic timidity

The More I Get, the More I Want

Teddy Pendergrass

This is a slow-building declaration of romantic dependency, structured around a title phrase that works like a mantra rather…

romantic obsession addiction as metaphor for desire fear of abandonment

Think I Need It Too

Echo & the Bunnymen

A late-period Echo & the Bunnymen track built on fragmented self-address, where the narrator drifts through amnesia, addiction…

memory loss/dissociation addiction and self-medication emotional numbness

I'll Be There for You / You're All I Need to Get By

Method Man

Working only from the title and artist credit, this appears to be a hip-hop love song built around a soul-era chorus hook,…

romantic devotion loyalty amid hardship nostalgia via sampling

Why Would I Want to Die

Grandaddy

A narrator processes the disappearance of someone close by insisting she isn't actually dead, just gone and hiding in plain…

disappearance and denial isolation unreliable information

Do Anything You Want to Do

Thin Lizzy

An anthem of defiant self-assertion built almost entirely from imperative pep-talk and repeated affirmation, warning the…

self-empowerment social pressure and gossip autonomy vs. conformity

You Need Loving

Small Faces

A blues-rock strut built almost entirely around one insistent claim -- that the woman being addressed lacks something the singer…

sexual bravado dance-craze nostalgia repetition as persuasion

I Need Your Love So Bad

Irma Thomas

A slow-burning blues-soul plea built almost entirely around a single confession of need. Thomas takes a well-worn blues standard…

romantic longing vulnerability desperation

I Need a Forest Fire

James Blake

A minimalist meditation on emotional stagnation, where the speaker asks for destruction as a form of renewal. Blake uses the…

emotional numbness renewal through destruction self-isolation

Baby I Need Your Loving

The Supremes

This is a Motown reading of the Four Tops' own hit, recast as a plea from a woman who admits her desire has tipped into…

romantic longing emotional dependency vulnerability as strength

Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely

Hüsker Dü

A breakup song built on a contradiction: the narrator claims he wants distance from an ex-partner but keeps monitoring her…

ambivalence after a breakup emotional self-protection denial

I Just Want To Make Love To You

Etta James

Etta James takes a Willie Dixon blues lyric written for a male singer and, sung from a woman's voice, turns a checklist of…

desire and domesticity gender role reversal possessiveness dressed as devotion

I Want to Break Free

Queen

A deceptively simple breakup anthem built on repetition and plain declarative statements, John Deacon's song uses the language…

liberation romantic disillusionment self-assertion

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Kacey Musgraves

This is a cover of the 1953 novelty Christmas standard, performed straight rather than reinvented, letting a child's absurd,…

childhood wish-fulfillment comic absurdity holiday tradition

What the World Needs Now

Cat Power

Cat Power's version of this Bacharach/David standard strips away the song's easy-listening polish and reframes it as a weary,…

scarcity of compassion universalism vs. tribalism prayer as protest

I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair

George Jones

A defiant novelty-tinged honky-tonk anthem in which an aging performer refuses the trappings of old age, insisting his body may…

aging and mortality defiance of retirement identity tied to performance

Do You Really Want Me (Show Respect)

Robyn

A teenage-pop relationship anthem from Robyn's mid-90s debut era that frames romantic worth as a transaction of effort and…

respect in relationships gender expectations conditional love

I Want to Come Home for Christmas

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye reframes a holiday standard as a POW's lament, layering familiar Christmas imagery over a desperate plea for peace…

war and captivity longing for home family separation

Everybody Wants To Rule the World

Lorde

Lorde's cover strips Tears for Fears' 1985 synth-pop anthem down to something colder and more brittle, turning a wry commentary…

power and control surveillance complicity