Fleetwood Mac
A drifting, unhurried meditation on the pleasure of unexplained phenomena, built from a series of loosely connected anecdotes…
the appeal of the unexplained imagination versus proof folklore and hearsay
Mississippi John Hurt
A rollicking Piedmont blues built entirely on a single, transparent sexual double entendre. Mississippi John Hurt uses the…
sexual innuendo folk humor itinerant male desirability
Talib Kweli
A breezy, radio-ready love-and-lust song built around a repeated hook praising a woman's heat and appeal. Talib Kweli trades his…
desire and attraction romantic idealization pop culture reference as flattery
Weezer
A deliberately simple escapist fantasy, built almost entirely from stock vacation imagery and a chant-like hook, that trades…
escapism forgetting the past idealized love
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
Donny Hathaway
This is Donny Hathaway's live cover of Marvin Gaye's landmark 1971 protest song, delivered in the intimate, vamping style of his…
social unrest police brutality generational conflict
Nat King Cole
A jilted lover appeals past his unfaithful partner to God and the sea as witnesses to his grief, then trails off into…
betrayal in love unanswered devotion isolation and distance
Grandaddy
This is a cover of the Beatles' 1968 track, not a Grandaddy original, recorded for the I Am Sam soundtrack, which reimagined…
political skepticism individual vs collective change distrust of ideology