Willie Nelson
A heartbroken man addresses whiskey itself as a kind of substitute lover or guardian, begging it to erase the memory of the…
heartbreak addiction as refuge self-erasure
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
Alice in Chains
A first-person spiral through self-loathing and addiction, where the speaker names himself diseased and watches control slip…
addiction self-disgust loss of control
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
John Prine
A veteran returns from war addicted to the morphine that once numbed his wounds, and the song traces his decline into heroin…
war trauma addiction domestic collateral damage
A brutal, drug-fogged monologue that treats addiction and codependency as an abusive relationship, with the addicted narrator…
addiction and dependency codependent relationships self-destruction
A hazy, half-lucid appeal to an ambiguous figure called Doctor Wu, who could be a physician, a drug, or a rival, sung by a…
addiction and withdrawal unreliable devotion romantic betrayal
Bob Dylan
A wandering, half-mythic narrator recalls a woman who offered him refuge from a hostile, almost apocalyptic world, then traces…
displacement and exile refuge and its loss betrayal and gratitude
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
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
The Replacements
A shambling tour-van confessional in which The Replacements narrate their own dysfunction with wry resignation, treating…
self-sabotage touring exhaustion anti-professionalism
Eurythmics
A blues-rock stomper built on a single blunt paradox: love as bondage that still feels good. The lyric never resolves the…
obsessive love addiction loss of self
Big Thief
A meditation on collective neglect—of the homeless, the addicted, the discarded—that refuses to let the singer stand outside the…
homelessness and addiction collective guilt memory and erasure
The Clash
A short, jittery song built as a call-and-response addiction narrative, where the speaker's supplier is addressed with the…
addiction and dependency self-deception isolation
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
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
George Michael
A pop-funk plea from a partner watching a lover slide back into a destructive habit, with the habit personified as a rival for…
addiction as rival codependency frustrated love
Mott the Hoople
A plea addressed directly to darkness as a kind of shelter, this song turns night into both refuge and threat. Mott the Hoople's…
fear and refuge insomnia and dread longing for oblivion
Emmylou Harris
A weary but tender address to someone caught in addiction or self-destruction, sung by a speaker who is part parent, part…
addiction and consequence parental love and its limits endurance
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
Sturgill Simpson
A retro-soul come-on built around a single, overworked double entendre, this theme song for HBO's Vinyl trades on 1970s funk…
desire as addiction performance of seduction decay behind glamour
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
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
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
Carole King
A song about finding sanctuary in a small, unglamorous piece of urban space -- a tenement rooftop -- as an escape from the noise…
urban alienation escape and refuge working-class endurance
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
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
Maxwell
Maxwell casts desire as an addiction that the singer both craves and cannot escape, framing love as a compulsion with real costs…
addiction as metaphor for love loss of control guilt and self-awareness
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