The Kinks
A naive young man recounts his disorienting, thrilling encounter with Lola, a nightclub companion whose gender identity…
gender fluidity and identity sexual awakening innocence versus experience
Betty Davis
Betty Davis takes a lover's insults—bitch, witch, alley cat, dirty dog—and turns them into a badge of honor, staging a…
sexual autonomy and shame reclaiming derogatory language power reversal in a relationship
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin's 1967 reworking of Otis Redding's song turns a man's plea for domestic deference into a woman's non-negotiable…
demanding respect sexual and economic bargaining power gender and domestic power
Roberta Flack
A slow, hymn-like ballad that traces one relationship's progress through three ascending intimacies: first sight, first kiss,…
awakening love cosmic/natural imagery as emotional scale vulnerability and surrender
Fairport Convention
This is the Fairport Convention arrangement of the old English/Scottish murder ballad about an adulterous tryst between a…
class transgression sexual desire and consequence honor and violence
This is a driving-metaphor party song: sex and romance recast as a joyride down an open highway in a pink Cadillac. It's…
romantic/sexual liberation escape and momentum playfulness and flirtation
Yes
A three-part suite that moves from pastoral invocation through cosmic address to a mantra-like affirmation of shared awakening.…
cosmic consciousness nature as spiritual messenger transmission of hidden knowledge
The Rolling Stones
An apocalyptic weather report that turns into a plea for cover. Over a coiling, tremolo'd guitar figure and a hammering rhythm,…
apocalyptic dread violence as imminent, not distant the need for refuge