Bon Iver
"Wash." is an instrumental-feeling piano ballad whose lyrics work almost entirely through sound and suggestion rather than…
thaw and emergence isolation shared with another difficulty of speech
The War on Drugs
A hazy meditation on emerging from isolation and self-doubt into something resembling love or clarity, built on Granduciel's…
emerging from depression tentative love self-doubt and paranoia
The Beatles
A solo acoustic miniature built on a single extended image: an injured bird urged to fly. McCartney has said it was inspired by…
resilience emancipation civil rights (coded)
Sonic Youth
A love-as-arson song that turns romantic devastation into a fire-and-rescue scenario, with the narrator both perpetrator and…
romantic destruction self-annihilation violence as intimacy
Daft Punk
A single fragmented phrase is chopped, looped, and reassembled through vocoder into a mantra about relentless productivity and…
labor and productivity machine identity repetition and ritual
Van Morrison
A song of emergence from suffering into light, built almost entirely on weather imagery and physical sensation rather than…
deliverance renewal suffering and endurance
Billy Joel
A comeback single that reads as both a reconciliation ballad and a piece of career autobiography, built around the plea of…
reconciliation neglect and regret time and lateness
Dr. Dre
A collaborative single built as a plea from Eminem to Dr. Dre, using the frame of medical crisis to dramatize creative and…
mentorship and debt creative block and self-doubt loyalty versus betrayal
The Clash
A blitzkrieg of apocalyptic headlines delivered as a radio broadcast, "London Calling" imagines a city besieged by nuclear…
nuclear anxiety urban decay disillusionment with youth culture