Category Archives: 2010s songs

The best 500 songs from the 2010s. Lyrics, meanings and interpretations from your favorite musicians. Adele, Halsey, Sara Bareilles, Grouplove, Sia, The 1975, Harry Styles. Find out our highest ranked music acts of the 2010 decade. It was a great decade for music.

2010s songs, toxic relationship

#277 Cherry Wine (live)- Hozier

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The way she shows me I’m hers and she is mine/
Open hand or closed fist would be fine.

Hozier’s “Cherry Wine” is about an intimate topic that doesn’t get discussed often–a woman physically abusing her male partner.  The thoughts and lessons are universal enough to just say that the song is about physical abuse. The stripped down mood is appropriate and we feel almost uncomfortable with the vulnerable and intimate story.

Cherry Wine Meaning

HozierTheir relationship is sometimes like a normal one, and that makes him look forward to those times even more. However, the rest of the time he walks on eggshells because he is afraid he will catch her eye when she is in a bad mood. This will often lead to him receiving a beating that leads to blood being spilled. It hurts but he wants it.

He (and she) justify this because she does it because she loves him. So, he “wants” more beatings because he wants more of her love. If that weren’t enough, the girlfriend is also cheating on him and is very suspicious of his actions…which leads to more beatings.

“Cherry Wine” does not wrap up tidily; he is still justifying her beatings because her love is divine and that is how she shows it. Her love is like cherry wine- both good and bad for him. But mostly bad. And of course,  Cherry Wine is the color of the blood that spills during their arguments.

Cherry Wine Lyrics

Her eyes and words are so icy
Oh but she burns
Like rum on the fire
Hot and fast and angry as she can be
I walk my days on a wire.

It looks ugly, but it’s clean,
Oh momma, don’t fuss over me.

The way she tells me I’m hers and she is mine
Open hand or closed fist would be fine
The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine.

Calls of guilty thrown at me
All while she stains
The sheets of some other
Thrown at me so powerfully
Just like she throws with the arm of her brother.

But I want it
It’s a crime
That she’s not around most of the time.

The way she shows me I’m hers and she is mine
Open hand or closed fist would be fine
Blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine.

Her fight and fury is fiery
Oh but she loves
Like sleep to the freezing
Sweet and right and merciful
I’m all but washed
In the tide of her breathing.

And it’s worth it, it’s divine
I have this some of the time.

The way she shows me I’m hers and she is mine
Open hand or closed fist would be fine
The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine.

Songwriters: Andrew Hozier Byrne

2010s songs, breakup songs

#261 Bird Set Free- Sia

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Clipped wings, I was a broken thing/
Had a voice, had a voice but I could not sing.

Sia knocks out the anthem songs like no other. Sia’s regular mixes are amazing, but I enjoy her acoustic performances more in almost every instance. Perhaps the dance mixes sell better and to a wider audience. I really enjoy just hearing her on a piano. Her voice is one of the most unique in modern music. Perhaps there is a place for each in your playlist.

Bird Set Free Meaning
Sia

In “Bird Set Free”, Sia celebrates the freedom from a dysfunctional relationship. She was held back…and she still struggles to fly even though she is free from the cage of the relationship. She is realizing that being in a bad relationship eats you up inside.  You begin to question your self-worth. Perhaps you even want to die. But now she is free! And she wants to live. And sing. She doesn’t care if it is offkey—at least she is singing, and she is singing for herself.

Sia’s piano work in “Bird Set Free” is simple, unique and very recognizable in the intro and verses. It changes into a more standard rhythm during the chorus. Her vocal improvisations sound like a bird excitedly singing after being set free from a cage.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Sia is that she is the only musical artist—male or female—who is more prolific in her late thirties and forties than her teens and twenties. Almost every artist is done with writing new songs at forty…relevant songs anyways. There really is no comparison to her in this regard. The closest comparison I can come up with is Elton John, but even he did his best work when he was younger.

Bird Set Free Lyrics

Clipped wings, I was a broken thing
Had a voice, had a voice but I could not sing
You would wind me down
I struggled on the ground, oh
So lost, the line had been crossed
Had a voice, had a voice but I could not talk
You held me down
I struggle to fly now, oh

But there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide
We hold on so tight, we cannot deny
Eats us alive, oh it eats us alive, oh
Yes, there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide
We hold on so tight, but I don’t wanna die, no
I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, yeah

And I don’t care if I sing off key
I find myself in my melodies
I sing for love, I sing for me
I shout it out like a bird set free
No, I don’t care if I sing off key
I find myself in my melodies
I sing for love, I sing for me
I’ll shout it out like a bird set free

I’ll shout it out like a bird set free
I’ll shout it out like a bird set free
Now I fly, hit the high notes
I have a voice, have a voice, hear me roar tonight
You held me down
But I fought back loud, oh

There’s a scream inside that we all try to hide
We hold on so tight, we cannot deny
Eats us alive, oh it eats us alive, oh
Yes, there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide
We hold on so tight, but I don’t wanna die, no
I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, yeah

And I don’t care if I sing off key
I find myself in my melodies
I sing for love, I sing for me
I shout it out like a bird set free
No, I don’t care if I sing off key
I find myself in my melodies
I sing for love, I sing for me
I’ll shout it out like a bird set free

written by Sia

2010s songs, songs about exes

#221 When We Were Young- Adele

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We were sad of getting old it made me restless/
Oh I’m so mad I’m getting old it makes me reckless.

“When We Were Young” is one of Adele’s newer songs, but it is one of her best. It is hard for a newer song to make this list. You (I) feel unsure if the song is truly great or if it is just good because It hasn’t grown stale from hearing it a thousand times. But I am confident with this pick and placement.

When We Were Young Meaning
Adele

Adele’s “When We Were Young” tells a great story of the narrator at a party and she sees an old boyfriend who seems to have aged well. She pulls him away at the end of the party and begins to talk to him. Interestingly, she asks if she could take his picture. The light is just perfect, and she knows both of them will never be this young and good-looking again. More so, she wants to capture the moment of this happy time…before they do something stupid like hookup.

In her mind this is only a possibility because she is sad–she’s getting old and wants a fling and a memory. She knows this won’t last as she’s been with him before.

The chorus is amazing—both the melody and the lyrics. And of course, Adele has one of the best female (or male) voices in the past twenty years. Her voice manages to convey the (almost) ineffable emotion as she ponders her own mortality while lusting for a new experience.

When We Were Young Lyrics
Everybody loves the things you do-
From the way you talk
To the way you move.
Everybody here is watching you-
‘Cause you feel like home;
You’re like a dream come true.
But if by chance you’re here alone,
Can I have a moment
Before I go?
‘Cause I’ve been by myself all night long,
Hoping you’re someone I used to know.

You look like a movie,
You sound like a song;
My God, this reminds me
Of when we were young.

Let me photograph you in this light,
In case it is the last time
That we might be exactly like we were
Before we realized-
We were sad of getting old
It made us restless.
It was just like a movie,
It was just like a song.

I was so scared to face my fears.
Nobody told me that you’d be here.
And I swear you’d moved overseas,
That’s what you said, when you left me.

You still look like a movie,
You still sound like a song;
My God, this reminds me,
Of when we were young…

Let me photograph you in this light,
In case it is the last time
That we might be exactly like we were
Before we realized-
We were sad of getting old
It made us restless.
It was just like a movie,
It was just like a song.

When we were young.
When we were young.
When we were young.
When we were young.

It’s hard to admit that
Everything just takes me back
To when you were there.
To when you were there.
And a part of me keeps holding on
Just in case it hasn’t gone,
‘Cause I still care.
Do you still care?
It was just like a movie.
It was just like a song.
My God, this reminds me
Of when we were young.

When we were young.
When we were young.
When we were young.
When we were young.

Let me photograph you in this light,
In case it is the last time
That we might be exactly like we were
Before we realized-
We were sad of getting old
It made us restless.
Oh, I’m so mad I’m getting old
It makes me reckless.
It was just like a movie.
It was just like a song.
When we were young.

Songwriters: Adele Laurie Blue Adkins / Tobias MacDonald Jesso