Vince Staples
A deceptively bouncy, almost breezy track that lays out daily life inside Long Beach's Norfside gang culture with flat,…
gang loyalty and territory normalization of violence poverty and hustling
The Staple Singers
This is a plainspoken gospel-soul lament that doubles as civil-rights testimony, built on Roebuck Staples's original composition…
unjust suffering endurance and forbearance romantic betrayal as social allegory
A gospel-soul anthem written as a marching chant, tracking the Civil Rights Movement's literal and spiritual momentum. The…
civil rights and racial justice collective resolve gospel faith as political power
This is The Staple Singers' rendition of the traditional African American spiritual "Jacob's Ladder," a call-and-response hymn…
spiritual ascent perseverance communal faith
Mavis Staples
Written by Jeff Tweedy for Mavis Staples, this title track is a gospel-inflected message of solidarity addressed to someone in…
loneliness and companionship empathy across isolation comfort as active intervention
The Staple Singers rework a traditional gospel train song into a stark meditation on death, judgment, and family loss.…
salvation and judgment death and mourning exclusivity of grace
This is a traditional African American spiritual, reworked here as a Staple Singers vocal showcase, built almost entirely on a…
death as release suffering and endurance faith under strain
This is the Staples' take on an old African American spiritual, retelling the biblical Samson story as a folk ballad while a…
betrayal hidden strength divine retribution
This is the Staple Singers' cover of Buffalo Springfield's 1967 protest classic, recast through the group's gospel-soul vocal…
surveillance and fear generational conflict protest and its costs
This is the Staple Singers' rendition of a traditional African American spiritual, one long believed to have carried coded…
deliverance/salvation biblical exodus imagery collective faith
This is a communal exhortation song built almost entirely around a repeated collective refrain, using the language of civic…
racial unity collective responsibility social observation
Vince Gill
A funeral hymn in the form of a country ballad, addressed directly to someone who has died after a hard, struggle-filled life.…
grief and mourning death as release from suffering religious faith and afterlife
Gorillaz
A track that turns apocalyptic dread into a party anthem, pairing Vince Staples' verses about impending doom and social violence…
apocalypse as spectacle hedonism as coping mechanism police violence and surveillance
Cat Power
Cat Power's version of this Bacharach/David standard strips away the song's easy-listening polish and reframes it as a weary,…
scarcity of compassion universalism vs. tribalism prayer as protest
Merle Haggard
This is Merle Haggard's rendition of the Irving Berlin standard, a song of longing for an idealized, snow-covered Christmas from…
nostalgia longing for home idealized past
