Queen
A ballad of direct, almost naked pleading, structured as a repeated appeal to a departing lover rather than a story with events.…
romantic loss pleading and supplication devotion despite rejection
Otis Redding
This is a plea rather than a declaration -- a direct, repeated invitation dressed up as a love song but functioning mostly as an…
loneliness supplication and vulnerability desire for companionship
Pearl Jam
A quiet acoustic meditation on mortality and gratitude, in which the narrator confronts the certainty of death by turning toward…
mortality and impermanence gratitude romantic devotion
Billie Holiday
A standard from the Kern-Fields songbook, delivered here as a hushed, intimate meditation rather than a big romantic…
romantic devotion memory as consolation vulnerability
Mariah Carey
A cover of the Journey power ballad, reworked as a hushed R&B slow jam about reconciliation after a period of separation. Mariah…
reconciliation vulnerability longing
Chet Baker
This is the Gershwin standard delivered as a late-career Chet Baker vocal, where the wistful search for a protector reads less…
longing for protection loneliness romantic idealization
Ella Fitzgerald
A Gershwin standard delivered as a quiet meditation on romantic longing, framed through the image of a lost lamb searching for a…
romantic longing vulnerability self-deprecating humor
Madonna
A slow-dance ballad built around a single moment: crossing a crowded room toward someone and closing the distance between…
infatuation vulnerability physical desire
Warren Zevon
A dying man asks, in the plainest possible language, for company through to the end. The song strips away Zevon's usual irony…
mortality dependence fear of abandonment
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
Sarah Vaughan
A standard by Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington, here rendered by Sarah Vaughan as an intimate meditation on physical presence…
desire and presence the inadequacy of romantic cliché vulnerability
Aretha Franklin
A late-career Aretha Franklin love song built almost entirely on the sensation of new romantic disbelief, sung as direct address…
new love disbelief and wonder vulnerability
Minnie Riperton
A love song built around the gap between feeling and expression, in which the narrator worries that her devotion isn't landing…
communication anxiety reassurance devotion
Curtis Mayfield
A slow-burning soul ballad built almost entirely around a single plea, this track works less through storytelling than through…
romantic devotion vulnerability refuge from hardship
Kacey Musgraves
Kacey Musgraves' rendition of this 1961 standard, recorded for the 2022 Elvis biopic soundtrack, strips the song down to its…
surrender to love fate versus choice vulnerability
Sarah Vaughan's 1986 reading of the Gershwin standard treats the lyric as a meditation on wanting a specific kind of protection…
Adele
A plainspoken devotional ballad in which the singer catalogs the hardships she'd endure to prove her love, building through…
unconditional devotion persuasion and reassurance vulnerability
Smokey Robinson
A late-career Smokey Robinson love song that turns a simple plea into a multilingual serenade, cycling through French, Spanish,…
romantic devotion universality of love gratitude
Gladys Knight
A plainspoken plea for reassurance, this song strips romantic anxiety down to one repeated question: is there enough love here…
romantic uncertainty need for validation fear of wasted devotion
Thin Lizzy
A tender, almost devotional love song built on simple repeated vows, addressed to someone named Sarah. Its plainness is the…
unconditional love parental/romantic tenderness devotion
Donny Hathaway
A ragged, largely improvised soul plea addressed to a departed lover, built less on narrative detail than on repeated questions…
abandonment and return domestic instability loneliness
The xx
A duet-style track built around the exhilaration and risk of falling into infatuation, with the two vocalists trading lines that…
infatuation vulnerability risk-taking in love
Lauryn Hill
This is Lauryn Hill's rendition of the 1967 Frankie Valli classic, placed on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as a brief,…
infatuation gratitude vulnerability
Prince
Prince's rendition strips Joni Mitchell's original down to its bare emotional core, treating a well-known confessional folk song…
romantic longing artistic devotion intoxication as metaphor for love
Florence + the Machine
This is Florence Welch's cover of the Ben E. King soul standard, recorded for a Final Fantasy XV tie-in. It strips the song back…
companionship fear of the unknown reassurance
Cat Power
Cat Power's stripped-down cover of the doo-wop standard turns a bright, buoyant 1959 hit into something hushed and fragile,…
devotion memory vulnerability
Kendrick Lamar
Built around a Luther Vandross/Cheryl Lynn duet sample, this GNX track finds Kendrick trading his usual combative persona for…
romantic devotion escapism through fantasy protection and provision
Roxy Music
A quiet plea for romantic risk-taking from a narrator who has been burned by love before. The song trades Roxy Music's earlier…
romantic vulnerability emotional fatigue hope after disappointment
Phoebe Bridgers
A song about emotional numbness cracking open under the pressure of new attachment. The narrator recites a list of fears she…
emotional detachment fear of intimacy vulnerability through love
Emmylou Harris
A quiet confession of dependence disguised as a love song: the speaker admits to instability and asks a steady partner to be an…
dependence and vulnerability emotional instability steadfastness vs. wandering
David Bowie
A dance-floor invitation built on a simple repeated command that gradually reveals an undertow of anxiety about impermanence and…
desire and vulnerability impermanence performance versus intimacy
Cassandra Wilson
A slow-burning soul-jazz meditation on physical intimacy, built almost entirely around a single sensation: being moved, bodily…
sensual intimacy vulnerability through touch memory and desire
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
Burial
A sparse vocal collage built from looped, pitch-shifted samples that repeat words of comfort and protection over what is…
protection and vulnerability isolation childhood
A standard-issue torch song from the Great American Songbook, "Misty" describes the disorientation of falling helplessly in…
helpless infatuation surrender of control sensory overwhelm
Betty Davis
A slow, confessional ballad in which Betty Davis strips away the funk-rock swagger of her usual persona to admit vulnerability…
emotional vulnerability the gap between maturity and desire dependency versus independence
Howlin’ Wolf
A raw, twelve-bar declaration of a man reaching his breaking point in a mistreatment relationship, moving from anguished threat…
romantic mistreatment pride and endurance desperation
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
A brief, incantatory song that uses the wolf as a figure for a hunger that is both predatory and vulnerable. Karen O's narrator…
desire as predation vulnerability disguised as ferocity spiritual longing
The Shins
A love song built on plain, almost naive declarations that gradually reveal a deeper argument about vulnerability and rescue.…
romantic gratitude vulnerability vs. toughness rescue and renewal
This is a 1926 Gershwin standard performed here by Gladys Knight for a Ella Fitzgerald tribute album, and the song itself is a…
romantic longing vulnerability and self-deprecation search for belonging