Results for “alienation from community”

Songs

Bushes and Briars

Sandy Denny

A meditation on empty churches and forgotten faith, framed as a solitary walker's observation of a Sunday service she stands…

religious doubt rural isolation decay of tradition

Creep

Radiohead

A song of self-loathing built around a single obsessive comparison: the speaker idolizes someone he sees as flawless while…

self-loathing unrequited desire alienation

Somewhere

Jimi Hendrix

A hallucinatory vision of social collapse filtered through a drinker's blurred perception, where reaching hands never quite…

social unrest spiritual longing alienation

Breakdown

Buzzcocks

A jittery first-person monologue about mental and physical disintegration, delivered with the manic energy of a nervous…

mental collapse alienation sensory overload

What Ever Happened?

The Strokes

An opening-track statement of exhaustion and detachment, "What Ever Happened?" pairs a jittery, almost panicked vocal delivery…

desire for erasure/anonymity romantic withdrawal cultural anxiety and authenticity

The Seeker

The Who

A restless, half-comic confession of spiritual searching that name-drops the counterculture's gurus only to find them useless.…

spiritual seeking disillusionment with counterculture idols self-knowledge as impossible task

I Talk to the Wind

King Crimson

A quiet, flute-laced meditation on isolation and futile communication, framed by a cryptic exchange between two figures and a…

alienation failed communication disillusionment

Academy Fight Song

Mission of Burma

A defiant refusal-of-conformity anthem that curdles into self-doubt by its final lines. The song sets up an adversarial…

conformity vs individuality institutional control self-doubt

Disorder

Joy Division

Disorder opens Unknown Pleasures as a portrait of emotional numbness accelerating into panic, sung by a narrator who wants to…

emotional numbness loss of control alienation

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Cat Power

Cat Power strips the Rolling Stones' garage-rock anthem of its swagger and turns it into something hushed, sad, and almost…

alienation commercial saturation exhaustion

The Light Pours Out of Me

Magazine

A song about psychic exposure and depletion, built around a single, obsessively repeated image of light being expelled from a…

self-exposure alienation bodily/psychic collapse

Bring On the Dancing Horses

Echo & the Bunnymen

A moody, image-driven piece built more from atmosphere than narrative, cataloguing a set of broken or hollow figures before…

emotional guardedness disillusionment longing for redemption

Four Long Years

Wire

A short, elliptical piece built from fragmented statements about breakdown -- of attention, feeling, and communication. It reads…

mental exhaustion alienation failure of language

Analyse

Thom Yorke

A meditation on modern overload, "Analyse" pairs images of endless data and abstraction with a numbing sense of exhaustion. It…

information overload alienation exhaustion

A Song from Under the Floorboards

Magazine

A first-person monologue delivered from a position of self-declared abjection, in which the speaker inventories his own…

self-loathing as identity perverse pride alienation

Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time)

Elton John

A spaceman narrates the mundane dread of leaving home for another routine off-world shift, and finds the glamour of space travel…

alienation the gap between public and private self domestic loss

Everybody's Talkin'

Harry Nilsson

A song about tuning out the noise of other people in favor of an interior fantasy of motion and escape. Written by Fred Neil and…

alienation escape/wanderlust isolation amid crowds

Start!

The Jam

A brief, almost accidental human connection is offered as a small act of resistance against isolation and cynicism. The song…

fleeting connection alienation reciprocity

The Real Me

The Who

An opening track that functions as a diagnostic scream: a young man cycles through the authority figures meant to know him —…

identity and authenticity institutional failure (medicine, family, religion) alienation

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Nirvana

A grunge anthem built almost entirely out of non-sequiturs and slogans, the song channels teenage apathy and irony rather than…

apathy and irony alienation consumerism and spectacle

Damaged Goods

Gang of Four

Gang of Four fuse the language of romantic breakup with the language of consumer transactions, treating a relationship like a…

commodification of relationships alienation desire vs. disgust

Mistaken for Strangers

The National

A song about the numbing conformity of adult professional life, addressed in second person to someone (and by extension…

conformity self-alienation loss of innocence

Is It Love

Gang of Four

A fractured meditation on desire and alienation, this song asks whether what passes for love is really love at all, or just…

alienation under capitalism commodification of intimacy loss of language/memory

Give Love On Christmas Day

The Temptations

A holiday standard built on a simple, almost sermon-like premise: material gifts are fine, but love is the only present that…

generosity versus materialism universal love seasonal community

Pacifics (From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack “N.Y. Is Red Hot")

Digable Planets

Digable Planets turn a Sunday in New York into an extended meditation on rest, community, and creative replenishment, moving…

urban leisure and rest Black cultural inheritance (jazz, literature, hip-hop lineage) community and belonging

Only You

Portishead

A brooding trip-hop meditation on emotional dependency and self-alienation, built around a hypnotic vocal sample and a chorus…

emotional dependency numbness and self-alienation disillusionment

Rocket Man

My Morning Jacket

This is My Morning Jacket's reading of the Elton John/Bernie Taupin standard, not an original composition, so the analysis…

alienation from ordinary life the gap between public image and private self routine work stripped of glamour

The Ghetto

Donny Hathaway

This is less a lyric than a groove built around a single word, repeated until it becomes a chant, a claim, and an invitation.…

community and belonging reclamation of a stigmatized word celebration amid hardship

This Mess We're In

PJ Harvey

A duet-style meditation on a fleeting New York encounter, sung against a backdrop of helicopters, sunsets and skyscrapers that…

transience of connection urban alienation desire versus impermanence

Underneath the Radar

Underworld

This early, pre-techno Underworld track is a nervy pop-funk song about living small and invisible under the threat of…

Cold War anxiety surveillance and invisibility smallness/powerlessness

Who Are You

The Who

A drink-and-punch-soaked night in London becomes the occasion for a much larger identity crisis, as the narrator wakes…

identity crisis self-destruction and burnout urban alienation

Surgeon

St. Vincent

A woman narrates a summer of collapse—medication, isolation, avoidance of family and mail—while a chorus repeats a request to be…

depression and isolation medicalization of the self desire for external repair

In Every Dream Home a Heartache

Roxy Music

A deadpan monologue delivered by a consumer trapped inside his own showroom lifestyle, who eventually confesses to owning an…

consumerism and alienation artificiality vs intimacy suburban/domestic satire

In the City

The Jam

A debut single that doubles as a manifesto, announcing a generational voice against the backdrop of late-70s urban Britain. It's…

generational conflict youth identity urban alienation

Who Loves the Sun

The Velvet Underground

A breakup song disguised as a sunny pop singalong, where the narrator lists ordinary sources of joy — sun, wind, rain — only to…

heartbreak emotional numbness irony between form and content

Slippery People

Talking Heads

Talking Heads build a call-and-response gospel workout out of fragmented, almost nonsensical verses and a reassuring chorus that…

religious ecstasy vs. skepticism surrender of rational control community and reassurance

Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl

Broken Social Scene

A brief, mantra-like lament for someone who has traded rebellious authenticity for polish and distance, sung by a narrator who…

nostalgia for authenticity loss of innocence desire and longing

Sixteen Blue

The Replacements

A quiet, unglamorous portrait of teenage isolation, framed around confusion about sexuality and identity. Instead of anthemic…

adolescent alienation sexual confusion loneliness

This City Never Sleeps

Eurythmics

A hypnotic, almost droning meditation on urban anonymity, built from a handful of repeated fragments rather than a conventional…

urban alienation anonymity insomnia/restlessness

To Hell With Poverty!

Gang of Four

A tightly wound post-punk anthem that turns economic hardship into a rallying cry, pairing a jagged, funk-inflected groove with…

economic hardship class solidarity escapism as resistance