Results for “Violent Femmes”

Artists

Violent Femmes Violent Femmes are an American folk punk band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States.…

Songs

Crazy

Violent Femmes

This is Violent Femmes' version of a song widely known from its Gnarls Barkley original, reframed through the band's folk-punk,…

mental illness and self-perception identity versus control nostalgia for altered states

Please Do Not Go

Violent Femmes

A plainspoken account of unrequited love told almost entirely in repetition and plea, where the narrator's desperation is…

unrequited love jealousy powerlessness

Femme Fatale

Big Star

This is a Big Star cover of the Velvet Underground song, recast on Third amid an album otherwise steeped in fragility and…

seduction and manipulation warning/cautionary tale masculine vulnerability

La Femme Fetal

Digable Planets

Digable Planets narrate a friend's unplanned pregnancy and impending abortion as a small, intimate scene that opens onto a much…

reproductive rights bodily autonomy class and access to healthcare

La Femme d'argent

Air

An eight-minute instrumental that opens Air's debut album, built on a hypnotic bassline, layered analog keyboards, and a…

retro-futurism seduction and mystery nocturnal drift

Da Graveyard

Big L

A posse-cut style horrorcore showcase from Big L and affiliates, built almost entirely from boast-and-threat couplets rather…

violent braggadocio criminal mythology hip-hop supremacy battles

100%

Sonic Youth

A tribute song built from fragments of grief, aggression, and dark humor, written in memory of a scene figure lost to violence.…

violent death and its aftermath rock scene mythology and idolization gender and predation within a music subculture

Batting Practice

Souls of Mischief

A posse cut built around a single extended conceit: rapping as batting practice, with each Souls of Mischief member (plus…

braggadocio competition/skill display crew unity

America!

Bill Callahan

Bill Callahan turns the word "America" into a chant, a mantra, and eventually an indictment, roll-calling country singers who…

national identity military service and myth American exceptionalism vs. its violent history

Shotgun

Soccer Mommy

Soccer Mommy sketches a hazy, dependent relationship through small domestic and chemical details, wrapping devotion in violent,…

codependency self-erasure in love addiction imagery

Set It Off

Main Source

A posse cut built entirely on escalation, where five MCs trade increasingly violent boasts over a repeated command to 'set it…

street violence as performance masculine one-upmanship criminal bravado

Free

Florence + the Machine

A song about anxiety as a physical predator and dancing as the only available exit from it. Florence Welch frames mental illness…

anxiety and mental illness stigma and self-doubt catharsis through music/dance

My Little Town (with Art Garfunkel)

Paul Simon

A bitter recollection of a suffocating hometown, stripped of color and possibility, sung as a reunion piece by Simon and…

small-town claustrophobia loss of faith inherited identity

Here Today

The Chameleons

A disoriented narrator wakes into the aftermath of some violent, possibly fatal event, piecing together fragments of memory…

disorientation death or near-death experience loss of self

Pigs

Cypress Hill

A blistering catalog of grievances against police, delivered through the extended metaphor of cops as literal pigs. The song…

police brutality institutional corruption racial profiling

Ghost

Neutral Milk Hotel

A dazed elegy in which a spectral presence is addressed directly, then reimagined through two surreal, violent images of falling…

death and transcendence haunting and possession loss of a loved one

Dog Days Are Over

Florence + the Machine

A song about being ambushed by joy rather than sorrow, treating happiness itself as a violent, destabilizing force that a woman…

fear of happiness emotional avoidance release and surrender

Pumped Up Kicks

Foster the People

A breezy, major-key pop song turns out to be a first-person monologue from a disaffected teenager planning a school shooting.…

alienation and isolation gun violence suburban neglect

Banquet

Bloc Party

Banquet is a jittery, dance-punk burst of desire and self-consciousness, where appetite and anxiety are fused so tightly they…

sexual desire insecurity and reassurance self-transformation

Masquerade

Bananarama

Bananarama cast seduction and identity as a game of masks, where a femme-fatale figure invites a lover (or listener) to abandon…

identity and self-invention seduction as performance artifice versus authenticity

In the Beginning

The Slits

A terse, elliptical meditation on origins and endings, where cosmic imagery of creation collides with personal regret and…

disillusionment cosmic origin vs personal history loyalty and betrayal

THE REV3NGE

Joey Bada$$

A comeback anthem built on the old adage that success is the sweetest payback, though the track spends most of its energy on…

comeback/vindication violence as metaphor for competition wealth as proof of victory

Some Heads Are Gonna Roll

Judas Priest

A straight-ahead early-80s Priest anthem built around a single threat image: unchecked power will eventually get violent. The…

abuse of power paranoia and surveillance retribution/violence

My War

Black Flag

A paranoid, accusatory rant built on a single betrayal narrative: everyone who claims friendship is secretly an enemy. The song…

paranoia betrayal alienation

Live Oak

Jason Isbell

A murder ballad disguised as a confession of self-improvement, in which the narrator's claim to have left his violent past…

duality of self violence and love intertwined addiction as haunting past self

Blockbuster Night Pt. 1

Run the Jewels

This is a pure boast-and-battle track built on braggadocio, wordplay, and violent cartoon imagery, with the duo trading verses…

braggadocio and lyrical dominance violence as performance hypocrisy of the powerful

Frankie and Johnnie

Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke retells the classic American murder ballad about Frankie and Johnny, reworking the folk standard into a soul…

betrayal and jealousy infidelity folk balladry reimagined

Duel of the Iron Mic

Gza

This is a battle-rap verse built almost entirely out of violent imagery and scientific metaphor, where the act of rhyming is…

lyrical combat as violence chemistry and alchemy as metaphor for skill authenticity versus trend-chasing

Third Uncle

Brian Eno

A frantic, propulsive art-rock song built almost entirely out of disjointed inventory lists that refuse to cohere into a story.…

disorientation and non-sequitur domestic violence undertones ritual and destruction

Woman In Black

Foreigner

A straightforward arena-rock seduction song built around a femme fatale figure glimpsed across a room. The track trades…

seduction and surrender loss of control mystery/the unknowable other

Gambler's Roll

The Allman Brothers Band

A slow blues-rock ballad built around the metaphor of gambling as a stand-in for lives lived on risk, loss, and the illusion of…

fatalism and luck risk and ruin loss of innocence

Please Take

Wire

A blunt, almost domestic-scale confrontation song built around one sustained image of betrayal-as-stabbing, delivered with a…

betrayal complicity disgust with manipulation

Impostas

MF DOOM

A dense, boastful verse cycle in which Doom's supervillain persona sizes up the rap game's phonies while indulging in menacing,…

authenticity vs. imposture supervillain persona misogyny and control

Step to My Girl

Souls of Mischief

A posse-cut brag track built around a single scenario: other men hitting on the narrators' girlfriends, and each rapper…

jealousy and possessiveness masculine status competition hypervigilance/insecurity masked as confidence

Dead

Pixies

A compressed, violent retelling of the biblical David and Bathsheba story, sung from something like David's own fevered…

adultery and guilt biblical allegory lust versus spiritual deadness

King of Carrot Flowers, Pts. 2 & 3

Neutral Milk Hotel

This two-part suite opens with a plainspoken, almost liturgical declaration of love to Jesus Christ before erupting into a…

religious devotion and doubt birth and rebirth language and inarticulacy

That's When I Reach For My Revolver

Mission of Burma

A post-punk anthem about disillusionment and the impulse toward violent or drastic rupture as a response to betrayed idealism.…

disillusionment loss of innocence generational inheritance

Girlfriend In a Coma

The Smiths

A miniature comic-tragic monologue in which a narrator processes the possible death of a partner while confessing, almost…

guilt and ambivalence in intimate relationships mortality treated with dark comedy emotional repression and denial

See See Rider Blues

Ma Rainey

This classic blues standard, here in Ma Rainey's foundational version, is a wronged lover's address to an unfaithful partner,…

betrayal and heartbreak female agency and retaliation travel as escape

Digging In the Dirt

Peter Gabriel

A song about excavating buried psychic damage, staged as a confrontation between a wounded self and an internal accuser. Peter…

psychological excavation self-recrimination control and coercion