Without your love
Billie Holiday|Lester Young Lyrics

The lyrics of Billie Holiday & Lester Young's song Without Your Love is about the feeling of emptiness and despair that one feels when they are without the love of their significant other. The opening lines "Without your love, I'm like a song without words, just like a nest without birds" emphasizes the inability to express oneself and feeling incomplete without their partner. The lyrics continue to express the feelings of darkness and lack of purpose without the sun shining at their door and holding nothing in store for them which are all metaphors for love's meaning in their life.

The second stanza reinforces the feeling of loss, as the singer recalls the joyous times that they shared with their partner in the past when they rode a crest of a wave. They feel the absence of their partner's presence and guidance, which makes them feel lost at sea. The final lines are a metaphor for being unable to function, as they feel like a plane without wings, and a violin with no strings. The song's overall message is that love is the anchor that keeps us grounded, and without it, we are lost and incomplete.