Results for “place and belonging”

Songs

You Belong To Me

Patsy Cline

A wistful farewell that sends a traveling lover off around the globe while quietly staking a claim on his heart. Cline's reading…

longing and separation possession within love travel as distance

You Belong to Me

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

You Belong To Me

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

Place to Be

Nick Drake

An opening-track confession that traces a single life arc—innocence, vitality, and eventual depletion—in four spare stanzas. The…

decline and aging loss of innocence spiritual exhaustion

That Place

Smokey Robinson

This is a late-career Smokey Robinson track built on a single conceit: a lover's body, or more precisely an intimate…

sexual exclusivity possessiveness as devotion intimacy as sanctuary

Loud Places

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

We Belong Together

Mariah Carey

A breakup confession sung after the fact, where the narrator admits her own foolishness cost her a relationship she now realizes…

regret and self-recognition dependency and loneliness denial giving way to clarity

Everything In Its Right Place

Radiohead

An almost mantra-like opening track that trades verse-chorus songwriting for repetition and disorientation, using a handful of…

disorientation control versus chaos communication breakdown

No Particular Place to Go

Mos Def

A breezy account of a teenage joyride that stalls on an absurd, deflating detail: a jammed seatbelt that thwarts the narrator's…

adolescent desire freedom and mobility comic frustration

Jettin'

Digable Planets

A loose, groove-driven travelogue through Brooklyn, built more on atmosphere and rhythm than narrative, where the trio's verses…

place and belonging Brooklyn/borough pride Black cultural memory

Got to Be There

Chaka Khan

A devotional, almost ceremonial love song built on a single vow of presence: to be there at the first light of a relationship,…

devotion presence and belonging new beginnings

On My Way to Harlem

Gregory Porter

Gregory Porter narrates a pilgrimage to Harlem that turns into a meditation on cultural inheritance and gentrification—the icons…

cultural memory gentrification and displacement artistic lineage

Car Wheels On a Gravel Road

Lucinda Williams

A childhood memory of restless traveling through the rural South, told from inside a car and a kitchen at once, where domestic…

childhood memory displacement and rootlessness the unreliability of home

Caravan

Van Morrison

A rhapsodic, almost plotless celebration of communal joy, music, and firelight, built around a rolling gypsy caravan as an image…

communal belonging music as transcendence romantic longing

When I Loved Her

Kris Kristofferson

A plainspoken elegy for a lost relationship, built on unglamorous, specific praise rather than romantic cliché. The narrator…

loss and regret the ordinary made sacred restlessness vs. belonging

Weary

Solange

A slow, hymn-like meditation on exhaustion and self-possession, "Weary" opens the emotional register of A Seat at the Table by…

exhaustion and endurance Black womanhood and dignity mortality of power

5:15

The Who

A disoriented young man rides a commuter train while his mind fractures into fragments of memory, sexual anxiety, and social…

dissociation and identity collapse adolescent sexuality and shame class and Englishness

Belfast

Orbital

An instrumental electronic piece built around a slowly unfurling synth melody and a wordless, choir-like vocal pad, 'Belfast'…

reconciliation memory place and naming

Someone To Watch Over Me

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan's 1986 reading of the Gershwin standard treats the lyric as a meditation on wanting a specific kind of protection…

romantic longing vulnerability self-deprecating humor

F.U.B.U.

Solange

F.U.B.U. is a direct address to Black listeners, reclaiming the phrase 'for us, by us' as a statement of cultural ownership. The…

Black solidarity cultural ownership racial profiling

Starting Over

Chris Stapleton

A road-trip song about leaving a stale life behind for the sake of a relationship, built on plainspoken folk-country imagery of…

renewal and reinvention risk and commitment partnership over place

Secret

Seal

Seal builds this track almost entirely from a single confession — that the speaker is a hidden part of someone else's life —…

secrecy and concealment possessive love mutual belonging

Orphan Girl

Gillian Welch

A solitary traveler addresses an unnamed companion and, implicitly, God, laying out a life stripped of family ties. The song…

orphanhood and isolation religious faith as substitute family longing for belonging

My City Was Gone

The Pretenders

Chrissie Hynde returns to her hometown and finds it erased -- the train station, the neighborhood, even her own family's house…

loss of place deindustrialization nostalgia

Peace Train

Cat Stevens

A buoyant early-70s anthem that turns hope for global reconciliation into a literal vehicle, imagined as a train that anyone can…

utopian hope collective longing for peace spiritual/religious undertones

Archangel

Burial

Built almost entirely from pitch-shifted vocal samples looping a handful of phrases, this track uses repetition and vocal…

isolation longing for belonging fragile intimacy

Whenever, Wherever

Minnie Riperton

A dreamy love lyric that treats devotion as a force capable of transforming any physical setting into paradise. Minnie Riperton…

transcendent love devotion and fidelity transformation of place

Pacifics (From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack “N.Y. Is Red Hot")

Digable Planets

Digable Planets turn a Sunday in New York into an extended meditation on rest, community, and creative replenishment, moving…

urban leisure and rest Black cultural inheritance (jazz, literature, hip-hop lineage) community and belonging

Black Sands

Bonobo

Black Sands is the title track of Bonobo's 2010 album, an instrumental built from slow-accumulating strings, breakbeats, and…

landscape and place tension between organic and electronic textures gradual transformation

Holocene

Bon Iver

A song built from disconnected fragments of memory — a Halloween mishap, a burnt-down bar, a Christmas night with a brother —…

memory and its unreliability humility versus self-importance nostalgia for place

Earth Intruders

Björk

A relentless, drum-heavy chant that casts a collective 'we' as an invading army of natural forces, half-tribal ritual and…

collective identity vs. individual doubt militarism and ritual violence nature reclaiming or overwhelming order

Philadelphia

Neil Young

A spare, hymn-like address to fear and mortality, written for Jonathan Demme's film about a man dying of AIDS-related illness…

mortality stigma and shame need for belonging

The Ghetto

Donny Hathaway

This is less a lyric than a groove built around a single word, repeated until it becomes a chant, a claim, and an invitation.…

community and belonging reclamation of a stigmatized word celebration amid hardship

California Roll

Snoop Dogg

A breezy, sun-drenched ode to Los Angeles life that runs its title's double meaning -- rolling a joint and 'going with the flow'…

California/L.A. mythology cannabis culture seduction and courtship

Doin' Time

Lana Del Rey

This is Lana Del Rey's faithful, lightly reworked cover of Sublime's 1996 track, itself a reggae-inflected reimagining of the…

betrayal and possessiveness local pride and belonging romantic disillusionment

Mean Street

Van Halen

Mean Street is a portrait of urban confinement rendered as both trap and identity, opening Fair Warning with a bleak,…

urban poverty desperation and survival belonging despite hardship

Jambalaya

Hank Williams

A breathless invitation to a Cajun celebration, this song strings together food, music, and a woman's name into a single rushing…

celebration regional identity and place romantic anticipation

Window Seat

Erykah Badu

A meditation on wanting to disappear and be missed at the same time, built around the image of flying solo on a plane. Badu…

individuality vs. belonging fame and exposure emotional withdrawal

Oh, Atlanta

Little Feat

A road-weary travel song built around a single fixed point of longing: Atlanta, and a woman there. Bill Payne's lyric stages the…

longing and distance travel and restlessness romantic fixation

Don't Give Up

Peter Gabriel

A duet built as an argument between despair and consolation: one voice details the humiliation of joblessness and displacement,…

unemployment and economic shame loss of identity and belonging depression and suicidal ideation