Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton uses her own famously exaggerated image as the subject of a plainspoken self-defense, arguing that artifice and…
appearance vs. substance class and self-invention self-defense against stereotype
Pearl Jam
A quiet acoustic meditation on mortality and gratitude, in which the narrator confronts the certainty of death by turning toward…
mortality and impermanence gratitude romantic devotion
Roxy Music
A quiet plea for romantic risk-taking from a narrator who has been burned by love before. The song trades Roxy Music's earlier…
romantic vulnerability emotional fatigue hope after disappointment
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
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
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
Kacey Musgraves
Kacey Musgraves' rendition of this 1961 standard, recorded for the 2022 Elvis biopic soundtrack, strips the song down to its…
surrender to love fate versus choice vulnerability
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
Marvin Gaye
A slow-burning plea for mutual desire, built almost entirely on repetition of a single wish stated and restated until it becomes…
unreciprocated desire longing for mutuality vulnerability in seduction
Cassandra Wilson
A slow-burning soul-jazz meditation on physical intimacy, built almost entirely around a single sensation: being moved, bodily…
sensual intimacy vulnerability through touch memory and desire
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
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
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
Maxwell
A quiet devotional love song built almost entirely from offers and conditionals, in which the narrator surrenders control to a…
devotion and self-surrender vulnerability in love unconditional availability
Feist
Feist builds a woozy, circling meditation on emotional instability out of a single central image: an unreliable moon that…
cyclical instability dependency and vulnerability emotional weather/lunar imagery
Pixies
A disorienting, fragmentary meditation on bodily and psychic dissolution, built almost entirely around a repeated confession of…
bodily vulnerability existential confusion dream and sleep as escape
Whitney Houston
A devotional love ballad built almost entirely on a single act of assertion: repeated declarations of faith in a partner rather…
romantic devotion faith and belief as metaphor for love surrender/vulnerability
Gregory Porter
Gregory Porter builds an extended allegory of romantic self-diminishment around the image of a caged lion taming itself for a…
self-suppression for love power and taming unrequited or unequal affection
Bonnie “Prince” Billy
A quiet, hymn-like meditation built around a wandering figure who walks alone through open landscape while a companion goes…
solitude and companionship pilgrimage/journey spiritual surrender
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
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
Taylor Swift
A wedding-vow of a love song built around domestic imagery and a slow-waltz tenderness, where the small details of shared life…
domestic intimacy commitment and permanence vulnerability through plainness
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
Nick Drake
A quiet love song built almost entirely from negation and plea, in which the speaker describes a lifetime of numbness suddenly…
awakening through love isolation and wandering doubt and vulnerability
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
Bert Jansch
A quiet song of apology and remembrance, addressed to someone the narrator once let down and now recalls through fragments of…
regret and apology memory and nostalgia aging and loss of connection
Elton John
A shy, broke narrator confesses he has nothing to offer a loved one but a plainly written love song, and the song's own modesty…
romantic devotion inadequacy and humility the inability to articulate feeling
Paul Simon
Written with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, this track from Graceland fuses Zulu isicathamiya vocal tradition with a spare…
homelessness and displacement cross-cultural collaboration communal grief and endurance
Peter Gabriel
A love song that treats romantic devotion as a form of spiritual salvation, where another person's gaze becomes the only stable…
romantic devotion as salvation spiritual longing expressed through eros restlessness and escape
Gram Parsons
A honky-tonk lament about a gambler caught in the loop of losing, drinking, and going back for more, with Las Vegas cast as a…
addiction and compulsion poverty vs. glamour self-destruction
Guy Clark
Guy Clark builds a heartbroken travelogue out of restlessness, cataloguing cities and cultural landmarks as a way of avoiding…
heartbreak and longing restlessness and travel as avoidance pride versus vulnerability
Mos Def
A narrative rap unfolding like a short film in three scenes, tracking a pursuit-and-fallout romance with a woman the narrator…
desire versus discernment the performance of masculinity and vulnerability cynicism eroded by intimacy
Angel Olsen
A driving, garage-pop declaration of romantic persistence, in which the narrator refuses to let a faltering relationship end…
romantic persistence refusal to quit desire versus communication
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
Alison Krauss
A young narrator rehearses her own exit from a doomed relationship, arguing herself into leaving before she can be hurt again.…
self-protection versus vulnerability romantic disillusionment pride as armor
Brandi Carlile
Brandi Carlile's title track builds a life's worth of scars and travels into a single argument: experience is meaningless…
intimacy as validation hidden suffering behind a public self devotion and destiny
PJ Harvey
A jealous, obsessive lover refuses to let go, oscillating between pleading vulnerability and menacing possessiveness. The song…
obsession codependency possessiveness
The Shins
A woozy, image-dense monologue about self-protection and emotional avoidance dressed up in surreal, almost dreamlike language.…
emotional avoidance self-deception aging and inertia
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
Patsy Cline
A wistful farewell that sends a traveling lover off around the globe while quietly staking a claim on his heart. Cline's reading…
longing and separation possession within love travel as distance