Results for “the gap between demand and desire”

Songs

One Way Trigger

The Strokes

A breakup song dressed in a falsetto so bright it almost disguises the exhaustion underneath. The Strokes borrow an A-ha style…

romantic ambivalence conformity vs. escape emotional exhaustion

Money (That's What I Want)

The Supremes

This is a cover of Barrett Strong's 1959 Motown founding single, redone by the Supremes as a driving, chant-heavy dance number.…

materialism vs. sentiment economic realism desire and demand

Restless

New Order

Restless opens New Order's Music Complete with a bright, synth-driven track that masks a fairly bleak inventory of consumer…

consumerism and desire emotional exhaustion alienation in modern life

Just Like Water

Lauryn Hill

Performed live and introduced almost as an experiment in vulnerability after the confrontational 'Rebel', this song builds an…

surrender spiritual longing conflated with romantic desire purification

Honey

Robyn

"Honey" is a slow-burning dance track that turns sensual invitation into a philosophy of pleasure and self-repair. Built from…

desire and surrender self-care as sensuality the gap between want and need

Mad

Solange

"Mad" is a meditation on the exhaustion of having to justify one's own anger, built around a call-and-response between a…

the right to anger versus the demand for composure respectability and emotional policing of Black people survival and trauma disguised as success

You and I

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

Faith

George Michael

A dance-pop declaration of self-preservation dressed up as a love song: the narrator is attracted to someone but refuses to hand…

romantic self-protection distrust of surface attraction patience versus desire

Cousin Dupree

Steely Dan

A slack, aging drifter moves onto his aunt's couch and develops an unseemly fixation on his young cousin, pitching her a…

arrested development delusional self-image taboo desire played for laughs

Rockin' After Midnight

Marvin Gaye

A late-night dance-floor come-on built almost entirely from repeated affirmations of desire, this track functions less as a…

desire nightlife/escapism romantic pursuit

Dreams

Brandi Carlile

A hushed confession about desire that can only surface in sleep, this song is built around the gap between what the narrator…

repressed desire unrequited longing self-restraint

On Hold

The xx

A breakup song built on the gap between assumed permanence and sudden loss, where the narrator realizes too late that…

complacency in love loss of control desire versus resentment

I Want Your Sex, Pts. 1 & 2

George Michael

George Michael turns a single, blunt demand into a sustained argument about desire, patience, and monogamy, dressing up a simple…

sexual desire and frustration persuasion and rhetoric monogamy versus promiscuity

Bull In the Heather

Sonic Youth

A slippery, almost mantra-like track built from a numeric countdown and a cycling list of demands, where desire and commerce…

desire vs. commodification repetition and ritual unpredictability/chance

Never Be Mine

Angel Olsen

A torch song built on the gap between wanting and having, sung to someone who will never be fully possessed. Angel Olsen stages…

unrequited longing jealousy and triangulated desire self-deception and resignation

Tie Your Mother Down

Queen

A hard-rock stomper about sneaking past disapproving parents to get to a girl, played entirely for comic, cartoonish swagger.…

teenage rebellion forbidden romance comic machismo

Like Sugar

Chaka Khan

A pure dancefloor invitation built on a single sensory equation: funk equals sugar equals irresistible pull. Chaka Khan spends…

physical pleasure dance as surrender desire

Give Me Your Love (Love Song)

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

Fortunate

Maxwell

A neo-soul love song built almost entirely from negation and comparison: the singer catalogs firsts and never-had-befores to…

gratitude romantic awe transformation through love

In the Sun

Blondie

A breezy, almost novelty-pop daydream in which the singer imagines escaping gray urban New York for a sunlit, surf-and-luau…

escapism urban alienation fantasy vs. reality

Cabin Down Below

Tom Petty

A stripped-down invitation song built almost entirely on repetition and a single image: a secluded cabin as the destination for…

seduction escape desire

Surgeon

St. Vincent

A woman narrates a summer of collapse—medication, isolation, avoidance of family and mail—while a chorus repeats a request to be…

depression and isolation medicalization of the self desire for external repair

Right In Time

Lucinda Williams

A slow-building meditation on desire built from small domestic gestures rather than declarations. Williams narrates a private…

longing memory and its physical trace solitary desire

Feel Like Makin' Love

Roberta Flack

A slow-building meditation on desire that treats ordinary moments — a walk, a candlelit dinner, a touch — as triggers for…

desire and intimacy the sensuality of the ordinary seasonal renewal as metaphor

Human Nature

Michael Jackson

A nocturnal meditation on urban restlessness and desire, framed as a defense against unnamed accusers who question the…

urban alienation desire and impulse self-justification

I'm On Fire

Bruce Springsteen

A minimal, hushed blues built on obsessive desire, where the narrator's want curdles into something closer to torment than…

obsessive desire sleeplessness and mental anguish transgressive attraction

Rid of Me

PJ Harvey

A jealous, obsessive lover refuses to let go, oscillating between pleading vulnerability and menacing possessiveness. The song…

obsession codependency possessiveness

Boyish

Japanese Breakfast

A bruised, self-aware account of wanting someone who has already made clear they want someone else, or something else entirely.…

unrequited desire self-loathing jealousy

Bad Habits (Uncut)

Maxwell

Maxwell casts desire as an addiction that the singer both craves and cannot escape, framing love as a compulsion with real costs…

addiction as metaphor for love loss of control guilt and self-awareness

The Nearness of You

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

Little Girl

Muddy Waters

A raw, low-slung blues courtship number in which the narrator badgers a woman with flirtatious questions, building desire…

flirtation and pursuit sensual desire Southern imagery

By the Rivers Dark

Leonard Cohen

A short, incantatory prayer-song in which the speaker surrenders the illusion of being the one who loves and comes to see love…

surrender of ego divine or transcendent love exile and punishment

This Charming Man

The Smiths

A stranded young man with a broken bicycle is picked up by an older, wealthier stranger, and the encounter becomes a charged,…

class anxiety closeted desire vanity and self-consciousness

No Particular Place to Go

Mos Def

A breezy account of a teenage joyride that stalls on an absurd, deflating detail: a jammed seatbelt that thwarts the narrator's…

adolescent desire freedom and mobility comic frustration

T.V. Eye

The Stooges

This is a song built almost entirely on repetition, groove, and physical grunt rather than narrative or wordplay. It circles a…

voyeurism and being watched sexual desire primal/animal imagery

Barely Legal

The Strokes

A slack, half-confessional monologue about a lopsided romance where guilt, desire, and self-sabotage tangle together without…

failed responsibility desire and control guilt and self-justification

You Keep Me Hanging On

The Supremes

A woman demands release from a relationship that has already died in everything but name, pleading with an ex to stop stringing…

emotional limbo demand for closure toxic attachment

Kanga Roo

Big Star

A woozy, half-collapsed love song built from disconnected snapshots rather than a story, drifting through washes of noise and…

fractured attention desire as disorientation voyeurism and observation

Because the Night

Patti Smith

A co-write between Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen, this song turns nighttime into a sanctuary where desire overrides doubt…

desire as sustenance night as refuge doubt versus surrender

Jeepster

T. Rex

A glam-rock come-on that fuses car culture, cosmic imagery, and vampire slang into a single boastful seduction. Marc Bolan…

desire and objectification glamour of consumer culture (cars) seduction as performance