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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Nick Drake
A quiet catalog of unrealized selves, sung by someone who lists all the modest, useful things he might have become instead of…
unfulfilled potential self-doubt longing for ordinariness
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
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
A slow-dance ballad built around a single moment: crossing a crowded room toward someone and closing the distance between…
infatuation vulnerability physical desire
Beirut
A brief, deceptively cheerful pop song built almost entirely from a wordless vocal hook, with a single quatrain of lyric…
infatuation uncertainty urgency
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
Gang of Four
Gang of Four turn a love song inside out, treating romantic feeling as a disease vector rather than an emotion. The track is…
anti-romanticism alienation self-disgust
Richard Thompson
A meditation on paralysis dressed as a series of images of a figure stuck at the edge of decision — literally on a ledge, at a…
paralysis and indecision fear of change vs. longing for it risk and self-preservation
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
Smokey Robinson
A spare confession of regret builds around a single unanswered question: why didn't the narrator show up for someone waiting.…
regret emotional paralysis longing
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
OutKast
A spoken-sung vignette of Atlanta nightlife that dissolves midway into a tender, sobering account of falling in love and…
urban nightlife and ritual romantic infatuation fatherhood and responsibility
The Velvet Underground
A quiet, first-person portrait of alienation from one's own body and self, sung through the voice of a character named Candy,…
body dysphoria alienation from self longing for escape
Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy's reading of this Bill Withers standard turns a compact soul lament into a slow-burning blues confession, using…
absence and longing emotional paralysis domestic emptiness
Robyn
A teenage Robyn's breakout single is a straightforward Eurodance declaration of romantic surrender, built around a repeated plea…
romantic vulnerability independence versus surrender demand for reciprocity
Magazine
A first-person monologue delivered from a position of self-declared abjection, in which the speaker inventories his own…
self-loathing as identity perverse pride alienation
Sleater‐Kinney
A giddy, self-aware love song that keeps interrupting its own swooning with jolts of caution and self-mockery. Sleater-Kinney…
romantic infatuation self-control vs. surrender desire as destabilizing force
Elliott Smith
A brief, hushed love song that turns the innocent image of a snow angel into something colder and more melancholy. Smith uses…
romantic devotion self-diminishment emotional numbness
Spoon
A pulsing title track built almost entirely around a single obsessive phrase, tracking a mind hijacked by desire while it's set…
obsession and infatuation loss of control urban nightlife / travel
The Replacements
A scrappy, two-minute blast of teenage bravado that barely holds together as a song, which is the point: Westerberg sketches a…
adolescent defiance self-destructive pride desire disguised as indifference
Percy Sledge
A soul ballad that describes, almost clinically, the self-destructive logic of male devotion: a man surrenders judgment, money,…
obsessive devotion self-deception in love sacrifice and loss of self
Little Feat
A blues-rooted meditation on romantic rivalry, told through the extended image of two trains running on the same line. Little…
romantic rivalry jealousy and restraint uncertainty and waiting
Donny Hathaway
This is a live soul rendering of the Beatles standard, transformed from a chamber-pop miniature into an extended…
romantic loss nostalgia regret