Category Archives: 2000s songs

The top 500 songs from the 2000s. Lyrics, interpretations and meanings from your favorite bands. Coldplay, Christina Perri, Christina Aguilera, Death Cab for Cutie, Greenday, Arcade Fire, and all your favorite bands from the 2000s ranked.

2000s songs, secular hymn

#436 I Look to You- Whitney Houston

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And every road that I’ve taken/
Led to my regret.
And I don’t know if I’m gonna make it/
Nothing to do but lift my head.

“I Look To You” is off Whitney Houston’s last studio release. It was not a hit, but it is one of her best songs. She puts aside some of the more pretentious vocal runs she had in her youth and delivers a somber performance about finding strength after losing it all.

This is a different Whitney Houston song. Her voice is equally strong, it is just more mature. The lyrics are hopeful, but the delivery is sad. Perhaps her premature death adds a bit to the emotion of this song.

“I Look to You” could be interpreted in several ways-if you were so inclined- but the “You” Whitney Houston is looking to is clearly God. That makes “I Look to You” a religious song hidden in a love song. However, it works equally well as a love song. There are only three others on this list that are overtly religious. We’ll hear “Every Grain of Sand” by Bob Dylan. It just shows that rock and pop music can find inspiration in any and everything.

I Look To You Lyrics

As I lay me down
Heaven hear me now
I’m lost without a cause
After giving it my all

Winter storms have come
And darkened my sun
After all that I’ve been through
Who on earth can I turn to

I look to you
I look to you

After all my strength is gone
In you I can be strong

I look to you
I look to you
Yeah
And when melodies are gone
In you I hear a song
I look to you

After losing my breath
There’s no more fighting left
Sinking to rise no more
Searching for that open door

And every road that I’ve taken
Led to my regret
And I don’t know if I’m gonna make it
Nothing to do but lift my head

I look to you
I look to you
Yeah
And when all my strength is gone
In you I can be strong

I look to you
I look to you
Oh yeah
And when melodies are gone
In you I hear a song
I look to you

Coming down on me
All the rain is falling
Set me free
Take me far away from the battle
I need you
Shine on me

I look to you
I look to you
After all my strength has gone
In you I can be strong
I look to you
I look to you
And when melodies are gone
In you I hear a song
I look to you
Yeah
I look to you
I look to you

Songwriters: Robert S. Kelly

2000s songs, love is gone

#428 Crown of Love- Arcade Fire

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If you still want me, please forgive me/
The crown of love is falling from me.

Arcade Fire’s “Crown of Love” is a conversation between a guy and a girl as their relationship is ending. The guy is clearly still in love and the girl is not. He understands intellectually that time will heal his wounds, but she is all he can think about and he finds himself crying in his room.

He tries explaining this to her…perhaps if she knows his feelings she will change her mind. However, she has lost that spark. She says “The crown of love has fallen from me”. She says if you really love me, forgive me and move on with your life.

The outro to “Crown of Love” is the best part. The song goes into double-time as the guy just keeps obsessively repeating (perhaps to himself): you’re the only one, there’s got to be a way. It sounds like he is kind of losing it.

I wonder if it would sound better if the girl’s lines were sung by one of the girls in the band, or if at least his lines were doubled with a female voice. It might help convey the meaning a little better; they experiment with this a bit, but they are not consistent with it. Conveying the meaning of a song isn’t everything, but I find that it is often rewarding to the listener when they understand what is being said.

Crown of Love Lyrics

They say it fades if you let it
Love was made to forget it
I carved your name across my eyelids
You pray for rain, I pray for blindness

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love has fallen from me
If you still want me, please forgive me
Because the spark is not within me

I snuffed it out before my mom walked in my bedroom

The only thing that you keep changin’
Is your name, my love keeps growin’
Still the same, just like a cancer
And you won’t give me a straight answer

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love has fallen from me
If you still want me, please forgive me
Because your hands are not upon me

I shrugged them off before my mom walked in my bedroom

The pains of love, and they keep blowin’
In my heart, there’s flowers growin’
On the grave of our old love
Since you gave me a straight answer

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love is not upon me
If you still want me, please forgive me
‘Cause the spark is not within me
It’s not within me, it’s not within me

You gotta be the one
You gotta be the way
Your name is the only word that I can say

You gotta be the one
You gotta be the way
Your name is the only word
The only word that I can say
Only word that I can say

No, no, no, no, no
No, no, no, no

Songwriters: Regine Chassagne / Richard R Parry / Tim Kingsbury / William Butler / Win Butler

2000s songs, couples songs

#419 Melody of You – Sixpense None-the-Richer

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You’re the scent of an unfound bloom/
A simple tune I only write variations to.

“Melody of You” is a beautiful song that not many people have heard of. I am not sure it ever got any radio play. Sixpense None-the-Richer had one hit in “Kiss Me”, but this was their true masterpiece. The theme of the song is familiar: “My love is special, let me count the ways.” These songs can often go from good to great based up the lyrics.

We want specifics, or at least descriptions we haven’t heard before. The quote above is a great example. The narrator is comparing her love to an undiscovered scent of a flower and saying he is her muse in everything she does. That is romantic stuff!

Lead singer Leigh Nash delivers a solid vocal but the arrangement is what is really impressive. It starts with the light finger-picking of an acoustic guitar and all of the sudden we are almost into a full-blown symphony. In the background the snare drum plays a central part. It is an interesting choice that I don’t think everyone would have made. You usually don’t hear a snare with strings, perhaps that is why it stands out.

Melody of You Lyrics

You’re a painting with symbols deep,
Symphony soft as it shifts from dark beneath
A poem that flows, caressing my skin
In all of these things you reside
And I want you to flow from the pen, bow and brush
With paper and string, and canvas tight
With ink in the air, to dust your light?
From morning to the black of night

This is my call
I belong to you
This is my call
To sing the melodies of you
This is my call
I can do nothing else
I can do nothing else

You’re the scent of an unfound bloom
A simple tune
I only write variations to sooth the mood
A drink that will knock me down to the floor
A key that will unlock the door
Where I hear a voice sing familiar themes
Then beckons me weaves notes in between
A tap and a string, a bow and a glass
You pour me ’till the day has passed

Songwriters: Matthew Preston Slocum

Top 500 Greatest Rock Songs of All-time