Stevie Wonder
A new father's unguarded celebration of his infant daughter's birth, structured as a series of rhetorical questions that answer…
fatherhood and new life gratitude love as creative force
Mitski
A brief, hymn-like address to the moon in which the speaker asks that their love outlive their body. It works less as narrative…
mortality possession and dispossession love as legacy
The Who
A single, almost liturgical plea builds around one pun -- love as both sovereign force and literal downpour -- to dramatize a…
spiritual thirst emotional exhaustion love as redemptive force
Minnie Riperton
A love song built around the gap between feeling and expression, in which the narrator worries that her devotion isn't landing…
communication anxiety reassurance devotion
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
Marvin Gaye
A slow-burning soul lament built almost entirely on repetition and vocal ad-lib, in which the narrator addresses a lover who has…
longing and absence romantic betrayal memory versus present loss
Aretha Franklin
A joyous, motorized courtship song built around a single sustained conceit: romance as a drive on an open highway. Aretha…
romance as motion/escape freedom and self-determination playful flirtation
Bon Iver
A raw, fragmentary breakup address built from accusation and self-recrimination in equal measure, sung to a fading relationship…
dissolution of a relationship emotional exhaustion blame and self-blame
Pixies
A deliberately dumb, bubblegum-pop pastiche sung by drummer David Lovering, this is Pixies parodying the sincerity of teenage…
parody of pop convention adolescent sexuality irony vs sincerity
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
New Order
A synth-pop anthem built on emotional gridlock: the narrator is caught between joy and dread in a relationship he can't name or…
emotional paralysis unspoken feelings fear of vulnerability
Angel Olsen
A short, driving song that circles a single unresolved feeling: the narrator loves someone who is present in her thoughts but…
unrequited or distant love self-doubt forgiveness as an open question
Broken Social Scene
This is Broken Social Scene's rendition of Joy Division's 1980 classic, recorded for the soundtrack of The Time Traveler's Wife,…
romantic disintegration emotional stasis guilt and self-recrimination
Ann Peebles
A gratitude-soaked soul ballad in which the narrator credits a lover with rescuing her from despair and teaching her what love…
redemption through love gratitude rebirth/renewal
Ethan Whitney
A straightforward pop declaration of romantic devotion dressed up in comic-book imagery. The narrator pledges protective,…
devoted love self-sufficiency vs. support escapism
Sufjan Stevens
A quiet domestic carol that strips Christmas of all its commercial and decorative trappings and relocates the holiday's meaning…
domestic intimacy anti-consumerism presence versus decoration
Frank Ocean
A soft, wandering meditation on maternal love and mortality, built around the image of a hurricane and the small acts of…
maternal love survival and resilience impermanence
Warren Zevon
A dying man's direct address to the people he loves, written and recorded as Warren Zevon faced terminal cancer. The song trades…
mortality memory and legacy love as continuity
The Replacements
A quietly tender ballad from a famously loud punk band, this song imagines two gender-nonconforming lovers with a gentleness…
gender nonconformity acceptance and tolerance love as constancy
Roberta Flack
A slow, hymn-like meditation on falling in love, told through three escalating 'first times' — seeing, kissing, and lying with a…
romantic awakening the sacredness of intimacy time and permanence
Judee Sill
Judee Sill turns a love song into a devotional hymn, blurring the line between romantic union and religious ecstasy until the…
sacred and profane love transcendence mortality
The Beach Boys
A love song built on an admission rather than a boast: the singer refuses to promise eternal devotion outright, instead…
dependence and self-erasure in love uncertainty as a form of honesty devotion expressed through negation
The Shins
A hushed, melodically sweet song about romantic regret and a wish to shed adult disappointment carries lyrics that are far more…
regret and self-recrimination longing for innocence small-town disillusionment
Sharon Van Etten
A quietly seething breakup song in which the narrator sees through a partner's self-serving reassurances and names the pattern…
emotional self-protection disillusionment in love fading intimacy
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
Beck
A hazy breakup meditation built on repetition and stasis, where time itself seems to have stopped moving. Beck uses flat,…
emotional numbness the end of love stalled time
Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan addresses a fragile, self-sabotaging figure imagined as a wounded angel, urging her toward emotional openness and…
emotional vulnerability self-acceptance healing through love
Free
A blues-rock warning shot aimed at a rival encroaching on the narrator's relationship. It's less a fully worked lyric than a…
jealousy and possessiveness masculine pride confrontation
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
Vashti Bunyan
A short pastoral hymn that treats an ordinary day of rural labor as something precious, using plain agricultural imagery to…
rural simplicity contentment the sacred ordinary
The Cure
A grief-drenched meditation on a lost relationship, told entirely through the act of staring at photographs and the memories…
grief and loss memory versus reality obsessive love
Radiohead
A song of self-loathing built around a single obsessive comparison: the speaker idolizes someone he sees as flawless while…
self-loathing unrequited desire alienation
Japanese Breakfast
A synth-pop breakup plea dressed up as a demand rather than a lament: the narrator wants proof of good faith from an unreliable…
conditional love self-deception desire versus doubt
Bill Withers
A quiet plea for a fresh start in a relationship that both partners know is damaged. Withers doesn't argue that the past didn't…
emotional avoidance fragile intimacy hope against evidence
Gang of Four
Gang of Four fuse the language of romantic breakup with the language of consumer transactions, treating a relationship like a…
commodification of relationships alienation desire vs. disgust
St. Vincent
A breakup song built almost entirely out of blunt, escalating metaphors, each one recasting the addressee as some kind of prop…
toxic attachment self-deception performance vs. authenticity
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
Tom Waits
A wandering, guilt-soaked ballad in which a restless narrator confesses his inability to settle down even as he pleads for…
restlessness and wanderlust guilt and self-forgiveness domestic responsibility vs freedom
Leonard Cohen
A meditation on the pull between transcendent, near-mystical intimacy and the noisy, transactional churn of ordinary life. The…
sacred vs. profane transience of ecstasy spiritual longing
Curtis Mayfield
A eulogy and a warning delivered in the same breath, this song uses the death of a minor drug-trade casualty from the Superfly…
addiction and exploitation systemic racism/economic entrapment urban despair