Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner turns a sexual-romantic high into an amusement-park ride, using the roller coaster as a single sustained conceit…
erotic euphoria loss of control sustained infatuation
Jefferson Airplane
A breezy, repetitive love-at-first-sight song built almost entirely around a single question addressed to a companion as both…
infatuation shared observation inarticulacy
Laura Nyro
An early Laura Nyro composition built almost entirely on sensation rather than narrative, this song uses the image of fire and…
infatuation loss of control transcendence through desire
Michael Jackson
A buoyant, physically driven declaration of infatuation built almost entirely around a single hook that gets repeated, echoed,…
infatuation desire and pursuit possessiveness
X
This is X's version of the garage-rock standard, stripped down and repeated almost to the point of incantation. Rather than…
infatuation desire uncertainty about love
Blondie
A cover of a 1963 girl-group style bubblegum tune, reworked by Blondie into a knowing new wave valentine that trades on…
infatuation surface pleasure and artifice girl-group nostalgia
Ride
A straightforward infatuation song built almost entirely from one refrain, tracking the dizzy, repetitive logic of early…
infatuation loss of control idealized future
Mariah Carey
A buoyant celebration of infatuation that lives entirely in the space between attraction and consummation, where the pleasure…
infatuation escapism desire and daydream
The Stooges
Little Doll is a two-minute blues-punk grind built on a simple crush and a raw, repeated command to move. Its lyric barely…
infatuation objectification desire vs. distance
Anita O’Day
This is Anita O'Day's vocal-jazz treatment of the Fats Waller standard, a breezy declaration of infatuation built entirely on…
infatuation sweetness as metaphor public admiration
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
Lupe Fiasco
A straightforward pop-rap infatuation song in which Lupe Fiasco uses the language of songcraft itself—hooks, choruses, verses—as…
infatuation obsession music as metaphor for love
Billie Eilish
A hushed debut single built around a single extended metaphor: a pair of eyes compared to the ocean, standing in for the…
infatuation vulnerability fear of intimacy
Madonna
A buoyant early-80s dance-pop confection that turns a childhood wishing-star rhyme into an adult love song, celebrating…
infatuation luck and fate celestial imagery
Luna
"Indian Summer" is a stripped-down declaration of infatuation built almost entirely from repetition, where a simple want…
infatuation desire as affliction irony toward pop romance
Jamiroquai
A breezy declaration of infatuation built around a single repeated hook, this track trades narrative complexity for pure…
infatuation the ineffability of attraction romantic devotion
A slow-dance ballad built around a single moment: crossing a crowded room toward someone and closing the distance between…
infatuation vulnerability physical desire
Joan Armatrading
A love song built almost entirely on declaration rather than incident: a narrator confesses an all-consuming attachment, admits…
infatuation self-aware sentimentality gratitude/luck
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
Queen
A slight, groove-driven vignette about attraction to someone effortlessly stylish and self-possessed, filtered through…
infatuation cool detachment vs. desire surface style over substance
Humble Pie
A short, almost skeletal love song built around the old rock-and-roll conceit of the heart skipping a beat, borrowed and…
infatuation the body as evidence of love repetition and ritual
Disclosure
Tenderly is an early, largely instrumental-minded Disclosure track where a handful of vocal phrases are looped and reconfigured…
infatuation obsession as repetition minimalism
Beirut
A brief, deceptively cheerful pop song built almost entirely from a wordless vocal hook, with a single quatrain of lyric…
infatuation uncertainty urgency
Vince Gill
A country love song built around the physical panic of infatuation rather than its resolution. The narrator never gets to…
unrequited longing vulnerability idealization
Deep Purple
This is a straightforward garage-pop cover turned hard-rock workout, built almost entirely from nonsense syllables and a simple…
obsessive infatuation powerlessness in love physical desire
James Blake
A hazy meditation on romantic infatuation so intense it blurs into hallucination, James Blake's song treats intimacy as…
infatuation and disbelief dissolution of time psychedelic imagery of love
The Pretenders
A giddy, slightly defensive love song built around a single repeated plea: don't misread my erratic behavior as indifference.…
infatuation and its contradictions fear of being misunderstood impermanence versus commitment
Wet Leg
CPR turns the disorienting rush of new infatuation into a mock medical emergency, treating falling in love as a near-death…
infatuation as peril loss of control love versus self-destruction
Tears for Fears
A love song that keeps interrupting itself, veering between romantic infatuation and anxious social commentary before dissolving…
infatuation and vulnerability fear of loss social conscience amid personal desire
The Divine Comedy
A playful, slightly starstruck pop sketch of the eighteenth-century Russian empress, delivered with Neil Hannon's trademark mix…
hero worship power and intellect historical pastiche
Dirty Projectors
A giddy, cluttered love song that treats romantic infatuation as a problem of reference and image-making, stacking pop-culture…
infatuation and idealization pop culture as vocabulary for love authenticity amid artifice
Dire Straits
A giddy, London-after-dark infatuation song that treats desire as a kind of caffeine rush -- intense, quickly brewed, maybe not…
infatuation and obsession urban nightlife doubt beneath euphoria
Ella Fitzgerald
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
Björk
Björk's cover reworks a 1951 Betty Hutton novelty tune into a dynamic set piece where hushed, orchestral verses collapse into…
the volatility of infatuation quiet vs. chaos as emotional states the absurdity of romantic obsession
Curtis Mayfield
A late-70s disco-soul love song built almost entirely around physical and emotional surrender, with Curtis Mayfield trading his…
romantic and sexual devotion surrender of control obsession/infatuation
Black Sheep
"Shorty" is a smooth-talking infatuation song built around a contradiction the narrator keeps pointing out himself: he's…
infatuation from a distance seduction through wordplay love as gamble/chance
Billy Joel
A young narrator describes a destructive, one-sided infatuation using imagery of physical danger — electrified rails, hidden…
obsessive infatuation self-destruction adolescent isolation
Creedence Clearwater Revival
A cover of the Gene Pitney-penned, Ricky Nelson-popularized 1961 pop-rock standard, this Mardi Gras rendition is CCR playing it…
love at first sight teenage infatuation nostalgia for early rock and roll
XTC
A giddy, image-drunk love song that describes a single overwhelming encounter through a barrage of unrelated historical and…
sudden infatuation the inadequacy of language before wonder celestial imagery displaced onto a person
Conway Twitty
A mid-80s Conway Twitty ballad about a long, committed relationship that still looks and feels like a new romance to outsiders.…
enduring passion misperception vs. reality domestic intimacy