Results for “questioning faith”

Songs

Faith

George Michael

A dance-pop declaration of self-preservation dressed up as a love song: the narrator is attracted to someone but refuses to hand…

romantic self-protection distrust of surface attraction patience versus desire

True Faith

New Order

A euphoric-sounding synth-pop anthem that turns out to be about addiction and the erosion of innocence, dressed in language so…

addiction and dependency loss of childhood innocence denial and self-deception

Every Mother's Son

Traffic

A weary spiritual traveler heads north along the edge of land and sea, framing his journey as both literal and cosmic. The song…

spiritual searching exhaustion and endurance universality of struggle

Why? (Am I Treated So Bad)

The Staple Singers

This is a plainspoken gospel-soul lament that doubles as civil-rights testimony, built on Roebuck Staples's original composition…

unjust suffering endurance and forbearance romantic betrayal as social allegory

Reasons for Waiting

Jethro Tull

A gentle, hushed love song built on the image of watching a sleeping partner and holding onto quiet, private moments. It moves…

tender devotion distance and longing the fragility of romantic idealism

Hymn 43

Jethro Tull

A caustic broadside against the American co-option of Christianity, pairing frontier violence and cowboy mythology with the…

religious hypocrisy American mythology and violence colonialism

Casimir Pulaski Day

Sufjan Stevens

A young narrator recounts the slow death of a girl he loves from bone cancer, intercutting scenes of adolescent intimacy with…

mortality and illness adolescent love faith and doubt

Down By the Riverside

Etta James

Etta James reworks the spiritual tradition of the riverside as a site of release and communion, turning a familiar gospel image…

spiritual longing surrender and trust peace after suffering

Angel

Eurythmics

A meditation on death and disillusioned faith framed as a lullaby for someone who has died, with the singer caught between grief…

mortality loss of faith idolatry and celebrity

Amazing Grace

Loretta Lynn

This is Loretta Lynn's rendition of the eighteenth-century hymn 'Amazing Grace,' one of the most recorded pieces of…

redemption divine mercy mortality and eternity

Will the Circle Be Unbroken

Mississippi John Hurt

This is Mississippi John Hurt's spare, guitar-picked reading of the Carter Family standard, stripping the hymn down to a single…

grief and mourning death and the afterlife family loss

Jesus & Gravity

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton builds a simple physics-and-faith conceit into a testimony song: gravity is the force that keeps her humble and…

faith and humility gratitude versus entitlement balance between grounding and transcendence

Jesus Walks

Kanye West Tribute Band

Kanye West stages a war between street survival and spiritual longing, using a marching-drum gospel choir to frame hustling,…

faith under duress racial profiling and criminalization survivor's guilt

Jesus Is Calling

Hank Williams

A plain-spoken gospel invitation built almost entirely on a single repeated refrain, this is Hank Williams working in the…

religious faith spiritual weariness redemption

Clockwork Angels

Rush

The title track of Rush's final studio album stages a public spectacle of mechanical seraphim presiding over a city square, and…

manufactured faith spectacle and control surrender of reason

Three Little Birds (Bob Marley: One Love - Music Inspired By The Film)

Kacey Musgraves

This is a faithful, largely unadorned cover of Bob Marley's reggae standard, recorded for a soundtrack tribute. Musgraves…

reassurance gratitude simple faith in the future

The Cape

Guy Clark

Guy Clark takes a childhood game of playing superhero and stretches it across a whole life, turning a boy jumping off a garage…

faith versus caution refusal to grow up conventionally risk and self-belief

Rainbow Connection

Willie Nelson

A cover of the Muppet Movie standard, rendered here by Willie Nelson as an unhurried, weathered meditation on faith and longing…

longing for meaning faith versus doubt the pull of the unseen

Trust

Prince

Written for the Batman soundtrack, this track uses seduction as camouflage for a darker interrogation of manipulation and…

seduction as manipulation power and control faith versus flattery

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1

The Flaming Lips

A bubblegum-sounding sci-fi fable about a karate-fighting hero named Yoshimi doubles as an oblique meditation on fear, faith,…

fear of death/destruction faith in another person childlike wonder vs. adult dread

Heaven

Depeche Mode

A slow-burning devotional track that blurs the line between spiritual ecstasy and self-annihilation, using the imagery of…

surrender and self-dissolution transcendence through love or faith mortality

Let It Be

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin's 1970 reading of the Beatles standard transforms a hymn-like pop meditation into full-throated gospel…

consolation in crisis faith and maternal comfort surrender versus struggle

Eden

Talk Talk

"Eden" opens Spirit of Eden with a fragmentary, hymn-like meditation on loss and belief, using biblical imagery of Eden and…

loss of innocence religious doubt and faith death and rebirth

People Get Ready

Seal

Seal's version of the Curtis Mayfield gospel-soul standard is a faithful, reverent cover that leans into the song's spiritual…

salvation and grace spiritual readiness judgment and mercy

She

Gram Parsons

A hymn-like tribute to an unnamed Southern Black woman, built around the recurring refrain of her singing voice as the one…

Southern history and labor faith and gospel devotion admiration across difference

Soldier of the Heart

Judee Sill

Judee Sill builds an extended military allegory around a mysterious, idealized rescuer figure who is part lover, part guardian…

spiritual rescue romantic devotion as surrender suffering and redemption

Unbelievers

Vampire Weekend

A song about living without religious certainty while still wanting the comforts faith supposedly offers. It frames doubt not as…

religious doubt mortality secular loneliness

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 Believe In You and Me

Whitney Houston

A devotional love ballad built almost entirely on a single act of assertion: repeated declarations of faith in a partner rather…

romantic devotion faith and belief as metaphor for love surrender/vulnerability

Personal Jesus

Johnny Cash

A Depeche Mode cover reworked through Johnny Cash's late-life persona, this version strips the original's synth seduction down…

false idols and substitute faith loneliness and isolation seduction and manipulation

Wind-Up

Jethro Tull

Wind-Up closes Aqualung's second-side critique of institutional religion with a direct autobiographical account of a schoolboy…

institutional religion vs personal faith education as indoctrination inherited belief

Lay Me Down

Loretta Lynn

A late-career meditation on mortality that treats death not as an ending to fear but as the final release from a hard life.…

mortality faith and afterlife weariness and endurance

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

The Staple Singers

This is a traditional African American spiritual, reworked here as a Staple Singers vocal showcase, built almost entirely on a…

death as release suffering and endurance faith under strain

One Sweet Day

Mariah Carey

A grief ballad built around unspoken regret and deferred reunion, where the singer addresses a dead loved one directly,…

grief and mourning regret over words left unsaid faith and the afterlife

Jesus Is Waiting

Al Green

A soul plea that blurs the line between religious testimony and romantic confession, closing out Call Me's arc from carnal…

faith as refuge vulnerability and brokenness love as salvation

I Love the Lord

Whitney Houston

A gospel testimony built almost entirely from a single scriptural refrain, this recording turns a short devotional statement…

divine refuge suffering and lament faith as action

Let It Be

Bill Withers

This is Bill Withers's reading of the Beatles standard, taken from his 1971 debut album. Rather than write new lyrics, Withers…

surrender and acceptance comfort in crisis maternal/spiritual guidance

Broken Halos

Chris Stapleton

A meditation on loss framed through the image of angels who appear briefly in our lives, help us, and then vanish. Stapleton…

grief and mourning impermanence faith and doubt

Oh Santa!

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

Blogging

Wire

Wire recast the nativity story as a satire of digital-age commerce and self-promotion, splicing biblical imagery with the…

technology and faith commodification of belief surveillance and self-branding