Results for “collective guilt”

Songs

Street Flash

Animal Collective

A song about the paralysis of anxious self-consciousness and the small, almost accidental relief of stepping outside. It moves…

anxiety and self-criticism domestic clutter as psychological weight inertia versus movement

Lying in the Grass

Animal Collective

A tangled, riddling song about the effort of self-diagnosis — trying to name a discomfort that resists naming. Animal Collective…

self-examination communication breakdown instinct vs. denial

Seal Eyeing

Animal Collective

A short, quietly unsettling piece that starts as a simple pastoral scene of watching a seal in a half-frozen lake and slides…

environmental collapse tourism and spectacle of nature impermanence

Cobwebs

Animal Collective

A collage of surreal pastoral images and chanted refrains that circles around resistance to withdrawal—refusing to 'go…

entrapment vs. freedom embracing imperfection nature as omen

FloriDada

Animal Collective

A barrage of interrogative fragments and postcard-sized images collages the world into a single imaginary destination, half…

placelessness and utopian longing collage as method identity without borders

Prester John

Animal Collective

A meditation on decline and letting go, framed through the legendary figure of Prester John, a mythical Christian king whose…

decay and endings myth versus reality acceptance and release

Golden Gal

Animal Collective

A song built around a half-real, half-mediated female icon glimpsed through screens and reviews, with the narrator working out…

celebrity and mediated desire gender and sexuality fandom as devotion

Water Curses

Animal Collective

A dreamlike wish-song built around water as an image of fluidity, ease, and self-erasure, drifting through loosely connected…

desire for formlessness/transformation mortality and impermanence creativity and artistic longing

Forgotten Eyes

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

Surface Envy

Sleater‐Kinney

A song about clawing back from personal collapse through collective effort, built on an extended drowning-and-resurfacing…

collective resilience self-doubt and recovery reinvention

Funeral

Phoebe Bridgers

A young singer confronts grief secondhand—preparing to sing at a funeral for a peer—while narrating her own chronic depression…

depression grief and guilt dissociation

We'll Sweep Out the Ashes In the Morning

Gram Parsons

A duet-style country ballad about an affair both parties know is doomed, built entirely around a single fire-and-ashes metaphor.…

forbidden love self-deception temporary pleasure vs. consequence

The W.A.N.D.

The Flaming Lips

A funky, riff-driven anthem that dresses up a political fantasy of taking down authoritarian power in the language of magic…

power vs. greed collective resistance fantasy as political metaphor

DARE

Gorillaz

A dance-pop track built almost entirely on repetition and command, DARE trades narrative content for pure physical suggestion.…

collective euphoria surrender to impulse repetition as hypnosis

Freedom Highway

The Staple Singers

A gospel-soul anthem written as a marching chant, tracking the Civil Rights Movement's literal and spiritual momentum. The…

civil rights and racial justice collective resolve gospel faith as political power

Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)

Sturgill Simpson

A new father addresses his infant son directly, confessing both overwhelming love and guilt over the absences his work requires.…

fatherhood guilt over absence conversion/epiphany

Sludge Factory

Alice in Chains

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

Temptation

New Order

A dance-pop track built from disconnected emotional fragments rather than a linear story, this song stages the anxiety of desire…

romantic infatuation loss of self guilt and betrayal

I Felt Like a Gringo

Minutemen

A brief, jagged travel sketch in which an American narrator confronts his own privilege and alienation while vacationing in…

white guilt American privilege cultural alienation

Where's the Revolution

Depeche Mode

A blunt political provocation dressed as an arena anthem, aimed at a populace the singer accuses of complacency in the face of…

political apathy manipulation and propaganda religion and authority

It's Getting Late In the Evening

Talk Talk

A brief, hymn-like piece built around a single nautical metaphor: setting sail into an uncertain sky while insisting that a…

exile and displacement faith versus self-deception collective salvation

Shadowplay

Joy Division

A tense, dreamlike monologue in which the speaker searches an urban and psychic landscape for someone he seems to have already…

guilt and complicity urban alienation performance of identity

As

Stevie Wonder

A love song that scales up from natural cycles to cosmic impossibilities in order to make permanence tangible, then widens into…

eternal love natural law as metaphor spiritual/religious affirmation

Evil

Interpol

A murky, incantatory song built around two women's names -- Rosemary and Sandy -- that Interpol never fully reconciles into a…

complicity and denial seduction as manipulation guilt and judgment

You Know I'm No Good

Amy Winehouse

A confessional soul number in which the narrator catalogues her own infidelities and self-sabotage inside a volatile…

infidelity self-sabotage guilt and shame

Missed the Boat

Modest Mouse

A meandering, self-lacerating meditation on complacency and missed opportunity, delivered with Modest Mouse's trademark mix of…

missed opportunity self-deception complacency

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

Ascension Day

Talk Talk

Ascension Day is a fractured, almost liturgical piece of wordplay built from gambling terms and religious imagery, where the…

fate and predestination gambling as spiritual metaphor guilt and judgement

Next Time

Laura Marling

A meditation on ecological dread and personal complicity, built almost entirely from the phrase 'it feels like,' as the narrator…

environmental collapse complicity and denial self-reproach

People Get Ready

Seal

Seal's version of the Curtis Mayfield gospel-soul standard is a faithful, reverent cover that leans into the song's spiritual…

salvation and grace spiritual readiness judgment and mercy

Let It Be

Dolly Parton

This is a faithful cover of the Beatles standard, recorded by Dolly Parton for her Rockstar album, a collection built around…

surrender maternal comfort collective grief

It's a Sin

Pet Shop Boys

A confessional pop song built on the grinding logic of Catholic guilt, where every desire and action the narrator has ever had…

religious guilt internalized shame repression

He War

Cat Power

A driving, chant-like track built from fragments rather than a linear story, pairing an apology for causing harm with a…

complicity and guilt violence done in the name of loyalty or love self-assertion against being underestimated

Kevin's Heart

J. Cole

J. Cole builds a confessional about infidelity around a strained pun on actor Kevin Hart, whose public cheating scandal becomes…

infidelity and guilt addiction as metaphor for compulsive behavior self-loathing and identity fracture

The Rainbow

Talk Talk

An oblique meditation on justice, guilt, and the gap between legal verdicts and moral truth, built from fragments of courtroom…

justice and its failures guilt and repentance institutional power

Under Pressure

Queen

A collaboration between Queen and David Bowie built around a rolling bass riff, the song treats societal pressure as a physical…

collective anxiety urban alienation the erosion of love as a value

Body Movin'

Beastie Boys

A pure party track built on the Beastie Boys' trademark trick of layering absurdist boasting over a fitness-instructor cadence,…

dance and physical release collective euphoria playful self-mythologizing

Long Way Home

Tom Waits

A wandering, guilt-soaked ballad in which a restless narrator confesses his inability to settle down even as he pleads for…

restlessness and wanderlust guilt and self-forgiveness domestic responsibility vs freedom

Holding On

Gregory Porter

A meditation on a love the narrator can't will himself out of, even when guilt, fatigue, and a bruised past argue for release.…

involuntary devotion emotional exhaustion guilt and self-reproach

Bigmouth Strikes Again

The Smiths

A serial motormouth apologizes for cruel things he's said, then dramatically inflates his guilt by comparing himself to a martyr…

guilt and self-loathing comic martyrdom the damage of words