Results for “aspiration and patience”

Songs

Mushaboom

Feist

Mushaboom is a domestic daydream sung from the gap between a cramped present and an imagined rural future. Feist narrates a life…

domestic fantasy vs. present reality aspiration and patience rural retreat

I Want Your Sex, Pts. 1 & 2

George Michael

George Michael turns a single, blunt demand into a sustained argument about desire, patience, and monogamy, dressing up a simple…

sexual desire and frustration persuasion and rhetoric monogamy versus promiscuity

Shady Lane

Pavement

A wry, deadpan tour through the small humiliations of dating, class anxiety, and suburban aspiration, filtered through Malkmus's…

class and status anxiety suburban aspiration irony and detachment

Vienna

Billy Joel

A weary older voice counsels a driven young person to ease off the throttle, arguing that ambition pursued without patience…

ambition versus patience fear of mortality burnout

Faith

George Michael

A dance-pop declaration of self-preservation dressed up as a love song: the narrator is attracted to someone but refuses to hand…

romantic self-protection distrust of surface attraction patience versus desire

Waiting In Vain

Annie Lennox

This is Annie Lennox's reading of the Bob Marley & the Wailers song, retooled from reggae original into a slower,…

unrequited devotion patience versus self-respect power imbalance in courtship

Royals

Lorde

A teenager from an unglamorous town catalogs the luxury clichés of contemporary pop and mass media, then refuses them, proposing…

class and aspiration media saturation and celebrity excess authenticity versus performance

Beverly Hills

Weezer

A self-described nobody fantasizes about the glamour of Beverly Hills while admitting, almost in the same breath, that the class…

class envy celebrity worship self-deprecation

Lay Lady Lay

Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes takes Dylan's spare, folk-country invitation and rebuilds it as a slow-burning soul seduction, stretching the…

seduction and invitation patience and waiting domestic intimacy

Sexy Boy

Air

A woozy, vocoder-warped taunt built almost entirely out of one phrase, "Sexy Boy" pokes at masculine vanity and celebrity…

vanity and self-image celebrity and consumerism irony versus seduction

Gold Digger

Kanye West Tribute Band

A Ray Charles sample and a party-ready hook frame a much darker set of verses about money, sex, race, and resentment between men…

gender and money distrust and betrayal black masculinity and provider anxiety

Lay, Lady, Lay

Bob Dylan

A gentle, direct invitation to a lover to stay the night, sung in a warm, unhurried voice that marks a sharp turn from Dylan's…

seduction and invitation domesticity urgency vs. patience

Waiting Room

Fugazi

Fugazi's signature opener frames stasis as a political and personal condition, staging a narrator stuck in a metaphorical…

patience versus action media disengagement self-discipline

Run, Run, Run

Ann Peebles

Ann Peebles delivers a frustrated ultimatum to a partner stuck in aimless repetition, warning that her patience is running out.…

frustration with stagnation failing communication ultimatum and impending departure

St. Judy's Comet

Paul Simon

A gentle lullaby in which a father tries, with dwindling patience and self-deprecating humor, to coax his son to sleep. Beneath…

parental love domesticity sleep and childhood

Quizás, Quizás, Quizás

Nat King Cole

A classic Cuban bolero of romantic frustration, in which a lover demands a straight answer about the future of the relationship…

romantic indecision frustration and waiting time slipping away

The Ballad of Billy the Kid

Billy Joel

Billy Joel builds a mock-heroic Wild West ballad complete with outlaw legend and hanging, then in the final verse reveals it as…

mythmaking self-deprecation Americana pastiche

Father and Son

Cat Stevens

A two-voice dialogue between an aging father urging patience and a son desperate to leave home and forge his own path. Cat…

generational conflict the ache of leaving home paternal love versus control

Work

Gang Starr

A boastful street-level anthem built around the double meaning of 'work' as both hustle/grind and criminal labor, delivered with…

hustler ethic street surveillance and paranoia status and reputation