Goldfrapp
A hushed, atmospheric meditation on fascination with someone whose identity resists being pinned down. The song moves less…
gender ambiguity desire and obsession impermanence
Skip James
A spare, traditional-form blues built almost entirely from floating verses common to the genre, James reworks the stock imagery…
restlessness romantic ambivalence bodily paralysis/inaction
Foreigner
A straightforward arena-rock seduction song built around a femme fatale figure glimpsed across a room. The track trades…
seduction and surrender loss of control mystery/the unknowable other
Big Thief
A hazy address to an otherworldly presence that may be a lover, a hallucination, or an actual extraterrestrial, the song treats…
disappearance and loss altered perception vs. reality longing for transcendence
Fiona Apple
A young woman insists on her own unknowability, drawing a hard line between herself and a partner who claims to understand her…
emotional isolation incommunicability of inner life distrust of reassurance
Massive Attack
An almost-instrumental interlude built from a single repeated proverb about the unknowability of other people. The track…
opacity of others distrust and self-protection the gap between appearance and interior life
Bill Callahan
A short, incantatory piece built around a single image—a door that both conceals and contains someone or something unknowable.…
mystery of death or absence the limits of knowledge ritual and repetition