Results for “urgency and impermanence”

Songs

Come On

The Jesus and Mary Chain

A stripped-down come-on dressed in the band's usual apocalyptic language, this track trades the Mary Chain's noise for acoustic…

desire versus faith poverty as freedom urgency and impermanence

To Live Is to Fly

Townes Van Zandt

A traveling songwriter's meditation on impermanence, love without possession, and the necessity of moving on, framed as both a…

impermanence itinerant life love without attachment

Meet Me In the Bottom

John Lee Hooker

A traditional Delta blues theme reworked by Hooker into a hypnotic, one-chord chant about flight and urgency. The song strips…

flight and pursuit urgency displacement

You Are My Sunshine

Carly Simon

Carly Simon's version of this old folk standard strips it down to a hushed, almost prayer-like lullaby, trading the song's usual…

fragile love fear of loss comfort and vulnerability

Everything Must Change

Nina Simone

A meditation on impermanence set as a slow, incantatory song rather than a story. Simone (performing a standard she didn't…

impermanence time and aging acceptance

Oh Very Young

Cat Stevens

A meditation on mortality and inheritance addressed to a child, using the wearing-out of a pair of jeans as an emblem for how…

mortality impermanence legacy and inheritance

4 Minutes

Madonna

What's presented here is a single looping stanza built entirely on conditional logic — want, got, feel, say — that circles back…

desire and consent urgency circular logic

Let's Dance

David Bowie

A dance-floor invitation built on a simple repeated command that gradually reveals an undertow of anxiety about impermanence and…

desire and vulnerability impermanence performance versus intimacy

Leaves That Are Green

Simon Jäger

A young songwriter watches a single year of his life pass and turns that small span of time into a meditation on mortality and…

impermanence aging and time lost love

Red Guitar

Cassandra Wilson

This is a meditative, almost devotional song built around a simple ritual: each day's mundane and sensory acts are catalogued by…

impermanence ritual and routine art as anchor

Who Scared You (Recorded at Elektra Studios, 1969)

The Doors

A loose, blues-inflected fragment that circles a single question—what happened to you before I met you—without ever answering…

damage and its origins seduction as consolation escape through intoxication

Summer, Highland Falls

Billy Joel

A meditative, almost philosophical ballad about the instability of emotional life, framed through a strained relationship.…

emotional polarity resignation and acceptance the limits of communication

2/2

Brian Eno

2/2 is the second, more abstract piece on Ambient 1: Music for Airports, built from slow synthesizer drones and processed…

waiting and suspension impermanence technology mediating the human voice

Rather Be

The Verve

A late-period Verve track that trades the band's earlier cosmic yearning for something more grounded: a declaration of…

contentment versus fear love as refuge disillusionment with fame and modern life

April Fool

Patti Smith

A buoyant invitation-song built almost entirely from the word 'come,' Patti Smith casts romance as a shared adventure into…

romantic invitation artistic freedom embracing folly

Help Me Make It Through the Night

Tammy Wynette

This is a cover of Kris Kristofferson's classic plea for physical and emotional comfort, sung here from a woman's point of view.…

loneliness impermanence physical comfort as solace

Boogie Street

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

Never Grow Up

Taylor Swift

A song that moves through three distinct vantage points on childhood — a parent watching an infant sleep, an older sibling or…

the passage of time loss of innocence parental protectiveness

Her Disappearing Theme

Broken Social Scene

An instrumental from Broken Social Scene's self-titled 2005 album, built as a churning wall-of-sound piece rather than a song…

absence and erasure memory collective vs. individual voice

Take on Me

Weezer

This is Weezer's faithful cover of a-ha's 1985 synth-pop classic, rendered here with the band's signature guitar-driven…

romantic pursuit fear of commitment fleeting connection

Revelator

Gillian Welch

A slow, self-implicating meditation on identity and honesty, where the singer confesses to being a fraud even as she performs…

self-deception authenticity vs performance impermanence

Eden

Talk Talk

"Eden" opens Spirit of Eden with a fragmentary, hymn-like meditation on loss and belief, using biblical imagery of Eden and…

loss of innocence religious doubt and faith death and rebirth

Perpetual Change

Yes

A meditation on perception and control dressed in nature imagery, "Perpetual Change" argues that human certainty about mastering…

illusion vs. perception hubris and control impermanence

You Can Close Your Eyes

James Taylor

A quiet, unadorned lullaby that doubles as a farewell, offering reassurance through simple natural imagery rather than grand…

reassurance impermanence simplicity as sincerity

2/1

Brian Eno

"2/1" is the second piece on Ambient 1: Music for Airports, built from a small set of slowly looping piano phrases and wordless…

stasis and drift impermanence non-intrusive listening

Third of May / Ōdaigahara

Fleet Foxes

A sprawling, suite-like meditation on friendship, fracture, and reconciliation within Fleet Foxes, built around the real-life…

reconciliation after estrangement time and memory collective identity vs. individual selfhood

That Girl Could Sing

Jackson Browne

A meditation on an elusive woman remembered less for who she was than for what her voice could do -- a song that turns the…

idealization vs reality impermanence the consolations of art

Bookends Theme

Simon Jäger

A brief solo acoustic guitar instrumental that opens Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends album, built around a simple, wistful…

memory time passing nostalgia

Nothing, Not Nearly

Laura Marling

A brief, elegiac song about a fading connection remembered mostly through fragments of landscape and season, arriving at a…

impermanence memory and forgetting depression and emotional numbness

Pink + White

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

Broken Halos

Chris Stapleton

A meditation on loss framed through the image of angels who appear briefly in our lives, help us, and then vanish. Stapleton…

grief and mourning impermanence faith and doubt

Not

Big Thief

"Not" is a song built entirely out of negation, circling an unnamed thing by naming everything it isn't. Lenker piles up sensory…

negation and unnameability impermanence desire and its objects

Gold Rush

Death Cab for Cutie

A meditation on urban development as a form of grief, using construction and demolition in a gentrifying neighborhood as a…

gentrification memory and loss impermanence

24 Frames

Jason Isbell

A meditation on the fragility of everything a person builds—relationships, careers, a sense of stability—delivered through a…

impermanence mortality self-deception

Life's a Gas

T. Rex

A short, mantra-like ballad in which grandiose romantic promises are raised only to be waved off with a shrug. Bolan's…

romantic grandiosity vs. resignation impermanence cosmic/mystical imagery

As You Said

Cream

An acoustic, largely unamplified Cream track built around a Jack Bruce/Pete Brown lyric that reads like a fractured elegy for…

loss of time impermanence departure and finality

Run Honey Run

John Martyn

A quiet, early Martyn ballad about a breakup that the narrator can't or won't dress up in comforting words. Rather than explain…

parting and avoidance emotional honesty vs. comforting lies escape into instinct

Kinda Bonkers

Animal Collective

A woozy meditation on connection and the strangeness of being alive, delivered with the giddy, slightly overwhelmed voice of…

interconnectedness altered perception wonder and overwhelm

Certainty

Big Thief

A quiet meditation on romantic uncertainty that refuses to resolve into either commitment or departure. Lenker circles the…

ambivalence in love impermanence faith versus doubt

When We Were Young

Adele

A chance reunion at a party becomes the occasion for Adele to measure the distance between who she was and who she's become. The…

nostalgia aging and mortality lost love