“Good Intent” by Kimbra

"Good Intent" comes from Vows, the 2011 debut album by New Zealand singer Kimbra, and it went out as the record's third single in New Zealand and Australia that August. She wrote it with François Tétaz, who produced it, and Phil Tan mixed. It's a slinky, restless thing in E-flat minor at 122 beats a minute, borrowing from jazz, scat and ska and landing somewhere between soul, blues and indie pop.

The song turns a familiar idea around: it's about good intentions that go wrong and dent someone's name, except that here the singer is the one wielding that good intent against the other person. The video, which reached YouTube later that month, opens on Kimbra at a vanity mirror, split into black, white and red versions of herself, while a man dressed in white, black and gray appears in a red-tinted alley.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.