Interpol
Fables is a fractured, incantatory song about self-mythologizing and collapse, delivered by a narrator who oscillates between…
self-mythology and delusion instability and impermanence addiction and relapse
Laura Marling
This is Laura Marling's recording of Neil Young's 1972 song about heroin addiction, written after Young watched a bandmate…
addiction loss complicity of the witness
Joni Mitchell
A stark, allegorical account of heroin addiction told through personified figures: the needle, the drug's seductive pull, and…
addiction death as seduction urban decay
Steely Dan
A portrait of a man consumed by amphetamine addiction, told at a cool remove through a narrator warning a woman close to him to…
addiction denial warning/escape
Elliott Smith
A stark, minimally strummed song that follows a young addict on a bus and on foot toward a dealer, narrated with a flat,…
addiction dissociation self-erasure
Depeche Mode
A blues-electro stalker's chant built almost entirely around a single fixation: sexual compulsion framed as addiction and…
obsession addiction desire as compulsion
Uncle Tupelo
A breakup song built around a simple exchange-of-belongings conceit, where the speaker asks for his possessions back while…
heartbreak addiction blame and self-justification
Amy Winehouse
A defiant, retro-soul kiss-off to the people urging the narrator into treatment, delivered with a swagger that keeps curdling…
denial and self-mythology addiction autonomy vs. paternalism
Thin Lizzy
A gambler's monologue delivered as tense, driving hard rock, built around the physical sensation of nervous sweat rather than…
risk and compulsion masculine bravado poverty and escape fantasy
George Jones
A late-career George Jones confession set as a plainspoken moral ledger: a man looking back on a life of drink and lost…
regret addiction free will versus fate
Alice in Chains
Junkhead is a first-person monologue delivered from inside addiction, voiced with unsettling contentment rather than confession…
addiction as identity self-justification and denial alienation from mainstream values
New Order
A euphoric-sounding synth-pop anthem that turns out to be about addiction and the erosion of innocence, dressed in language so…
addiction and dependency loss of childhood innocence denial and self-deception
Jason Isbell
A recovering man takes stock of a life spent moving through places without anyone to share them with, and asks someone directly…
recovery from addiction loneliness and isolation vulnerability and asking for help
Florence + the Machine
An opening confession about adolescent anorexia expands into a wider meditation on addiction, performance, and the human need to…
eating disorders and body control addiction and substitution performance versus intimacy
Townes Van Zandt
An early, stripped-down Townes Van Zandt song told as a first-person litany of ruin — abandonment, drink, a bad romance, a…
fatalism cyclical poverty and violence addiction as companionship
Curtis Mayfield
This is Curtis Mayfield's origin story for the addict who becomes the film's tragic antihero -- a child raised in poverty and…
urban poverty childhood neglect addiction as inheritance
Kacey Musgraves
A small-town portrait built on nursery-rhyme wordplay, this song surveys the quiet addictions, forced marriages, and inherited…
small-town stagnation inherited expectation quiet addiction
Warren Zevon
A junkie in a rundown corner of Los Angeles narrates his own decline in a strangely tender, almost comic voice, addressing an…
addiction and withdrawal romantic longing as survival strategy poverty and bureaucracy
J. Cole
ATM stages the voice of money addiction itself, with Cole rapping in the boastful cadence of a hustler consumed by accumulation…
materialism and addiction spiritual emptiness self-destruction disguised as success
Danny Brown
Danny Brown turns his own addiction into dark comedy, stacking dense, cartoonish wordplay over a queasy hook that keeps asking…
addiction and dependency irony and dark humor wealth versus self-destruction
Fugazi
Repeater sketches a first-person portrait of someone reduced by drug dependency and social judgment to a statistic, then widens…
addiction and criminalization dehumanization media detachment
Mott the Hoople
This is Mott the Hoople's own epitaph and origin story rolled into one, a self-mythologizing autobiography written at the exact…
rock stardom as self-destruction nostalgia and regret band identity and mythology
A hushed, seductive address that turns out to be spoken in the voice of addiction itself, offering comfort, oblivion, and…
addiction as intimate voice self-destruction disguised as tenderness loss of potential
A breakup song built around one stark image: black as the color of mourning, addiction, and emotional shutdown all at once. Amy…
heartbreak and abandonment addiction as emotional metaphor self-destruction
A confessional first-person account of addiction, framed as a series of messages sent to family members from someone who knows…
addiction and substance abuse shame and family self-destruction
A relentless portrait of Detroit street violence set to a hyper-fast, footwork-inspired beat, where the manic tempo and…
urban poverty and survival violence and fatalism addiction as coping mechanism
The Band
A late-period Band track that dresses up desire as desperate need, using the language of addiction and salvation to describe…
romantic obsession as addiction powerlessness and surrender spiritual language repurposed for desire
De La Soul
De La Soul takes on the crack epidemic of the late 1980s not through gritty street reportage but through wordplay, sampling, and…
addiction and its generational cost complicity versus resistance community warning and moral instruction
Guided by Voices
A short, deceptively simple lo-fi anthem in which the narrator cycles through professional identities—scientist, journalist,…
self-examination addiction and escape art as self-medication
Steve Earle
A defiant survivor's anthem in which the narrator refuses to be pitied or contained, casting himself as a storyteller-outlaw…
survival and defiance inherited identity addiction and recovery
A eulogy and a warning delivered in the same breath, this song uses the death of a minor drug-trade casualty from the Superfly…
addiction and exploitation systemic racism/economic entrapment urban despair
Beck
A brief, spare breakup song built almost entirely around conditional 'if' clauses, where the narrator rehearses the small…
lingering attachment self-deception habit versus willpower
Gram Parsons
A honky-tonk lament about a gambler caught in the loop of losing, drinking, and going back for more, with Las Vegas cast as a…
addiction and compulsion poverty vs. glamour self-destruction
Mercury Rev
A woozy, fragmentary lyric that treats hope, love, and self-medication as nearly interchangeable sources of temporary relief.…
addiction and craving fleeting relief emotional withholding
The Cure
A pulsing invitation to a night of self-destructive escape, dressed as seduction but shot through with dread and disgust. The…
compulsion and addiction toxic intimacy escapism
Nirvana
A hazy invitation dissolves into contradiction as soon as it's offered: the singer welcomes you exactly as you are, then…
contradiction and self-cancellation false reassurance identity as unstable
The Rolling Stones
A brief, almost slight set of lyrics serves as launchpad for one of the Stones' longest and most instrumentally ambitious…
desperation and pursuit addiction and decadence desire as siege
A short, corrosive account of a relationship built on performance and self-deception, delivered in Elliott Smith's flat,…
self-deception toxic intimacy identity dissolution
Gillian Welch
Gillian Welch strings together a series of small-town obituaries and rumors — an overdose, a runaway, a breakdown, a possible…
mortality and fatalism small-town gossip and rumor addiction and ruin
Minnie Riperton
A single found photograph pulls the narrator involuntarily into a past relationship she thought she'd buried. What starts as…
involuntary memory grief over lost love loss of control