Results for “cowboy bravado and humiliation”

Songs

Rhinestone Cowboy

Madvillain

This is a boast track built on the tension between DOOM's mythologized mask persona and the grubby realities of the rap grind.…

masked identity/anonymity the rap grind vs. glamour boasting and self-mythology

Dayvan Cowboy

Boards of Canada

An instrumental piece from Boards of Canada's third album that unfolds in two distinct halves: a slow, warped guitar-and-drone…

nostalgia flight/ascent analog decay

Spaced Cowboy

Sly & Robbie

A short, riddling piece built almost entirely from a single accusatory refrain, this track watches someone run from something --…

self-deception escapism debt and compulsion

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

Waylon Jennings

A meditation on the gap between the mythic cowboy and the man who tried to live inside that myth. The song traces how a…

disillusionment with myth loneliness and rootlessness masculinity and emotional detachment

The Strawberry Roan

Marty Robbins

A traditional cowboy ballad in which a boastful bronc rider takes on a legendarily ugly, unrideable horse and gets thoroughly…

cowboy bravado and humiliation work and wages on the frontier man versus animal

13 and Good

Boogie Down Productions

This is a comedic-narrative shock track built around a single pun: the word "good" swings between sexual bravado and grim irony…

sexual bravado and its consequences statutory rape played for shock comedy reversal and poetic justice

Drop Dead Legs

Van Halen

A strutting party-rock throwaway built entirely around physical fixation, delivered with the band's trademark bravado and…

physical attraction sexual bravado hedonism

Down Is Up, Up Is Down

The Delfonics

A jilted lover insists he's fine, but the song's central paradox — that up and down, blue and brown, have swapped places —…

denial and bravado emotional disorientation wounded pride

Ever Fallen in Love?

Buzzcocks

A power-pop punk song about the humiliation of loving someone who treats you badly, built around a chorus whose grammar…

romantic humiliation self-recognition through a partner codependency

Back In Black

AC/DC

A swaggering, riff-driven declaration of return that turns absence into triumph through sheer bravado and repetition. The lyric…

defiance rebirth/return outlaw bravado

Feel Your Love Tonight

Van Halen

A straightforward party-rock come-on built around a single repeated plea, this track trades narrative complexity for swagger and…

seduction and impatience male bravado nightlife and escape from work

Girls

Beastie Boys

A cartoonishly juvenile chant dressed up as a party anthem, built on a nursery-rhyme hook and a rambling anecdote about a…

adolescent bravado misogyny as performance comic self-deprecation

She's Crafty

Beastie Boys

A boastful party-rap narrator recounts two encounters with a woman he casts as manipulative and dangerous, only for the joke to…

misplaced bravado gullibility and comeuppance urban hookup culture

Strawberry Wine

The Band

A rough-edged talking blues in which the narrator defends a beloved vice—loosely figured as 'strawberry wine'—against the…

addiction as loyalty outlaw bravado romantic substitution

Dear Madam Barnum

XTC

A wounded husband quits the role of comic fool in his own marriage, reframing infidelity as a circus act he refuses to keep…

betrayal and infidelity public humiliation loss of dignity

Smarter Than You

The Undertones

A two-minute blast of teenage bravado dressed up as intellectual boasting, where the narrator's claims to brains are undercut by…

adolescent bravado romantic pursuit self-mockery

Represent

Weezer

A brash sports-anthem pep talk built for the 2010 World Cup, 'Represent' trades Weezer's usual self-deprecation for…

competition and pride integrity versus winning family and reputation

It's My Life

The Animals

A defiant working-class hustler's manifesto, sung by a narrator who vows to claw his way out of poverty by any means, including…

class ambition and poverty defiance of authority exploitation and self-justification

Rhymin' & Stealin'

Beastie Boys

An opening track built entirely on cartoon-pirate bravado, splicing swashbuckler movie tropes with hip-hop boast rhetoric to…

outlaw bravado juvenile provocation pop-culture pastiche

56 Fury

Rodney Crowell

A rockabilly-style car song that celebrates a 1956 Plymouth Fury as an icon of speed, style, and small-town swagger from the…

Americana nostalgia masculinity and status regional pride (Texas)

Oh My Darling Don't Cry

Run the Jewels

A two-verse trade-off between El-P and Killer Mike that functions as pure sonic swagger and threat display, dressed up in…

defiance of authority hypermasculine bravado self-mythologizing

Thunder and Lightning

Thin Lizzy

This is Thin Lizzy in full riff-driven bravado mode, a Saturday-night anthem that fuses schoolyard aggression, romantic…

masculine bravado violence as ritual working-class nightlife

The Eton Rifles

The Jam

A savage class-conflict narrative disguised as a sports report: a ragtag group of protesters or strikers clashes with the Eton…

class conflict failed solidarity British class system

Here I Come

The Roots

A siege scenario becomes an extended metaphor for defiant self-presentation: the speaker is cornered by an unnamed authority…

defiance under pressure vanity and self-fashioning as armor street mythology and survival

Feathered Indians

Tyler Childers

A hazy, sensory account of a night of intoxicated intimacy that keeps circling back to a plea for reassurance and permanence.…

desire and intoxication vulnerability beneath bravado longing for stability

Like a Rolling Stone

Bob Dylan

A six-minute takedown song that watches a once-privileged woman lose every social prop that made her feel untouchable. Dylan…

fall from privilege social exposure and humiliation freedom through loss

Talkin Trash

Betty Davis

Betty Davis turns dirty talk into a call-and-response ritual, offering total sexual and emotional surrender in exchange for…

sexual liberation dominance and submission performance of desire

Arrest the President

Ice Cube

Ice Cube stitches together a barrage of boasts, sci-fi imagery, and political fury into a chant demanding Donald Trump's removal…

political corruption distrust of institutions black survival and defiance

F**k Wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')

Dr. Dre

This is a genre-defining diss track in which Dr. Dre, joined by Snoop Doggy Dogg, uses the launch of Death Row Records to…

betrayal and loyalty dominance and territory label rivalry

Close Your Eyes (And Count to F**k)

Run the Jewels

A high-velocity posse cut where El-P and Killer Mike trade verses of violent bravado, prison-abolitionist rage, and sexual…

mass incarceration and prison abolition institutional hypocrisy (church, courts, police) hypermasculine bravado and sexual conquest

Hive

Earl Sweatshirt

This is a dense, technically showcasing posse cut built around interlocking internal rhyme and layered ad-libs, moving from pure…

technical bravado and lyrical dominance poverty and urban decay violence and gun culture

Spit Your Game

The Notorious B.I.G.

A posthumous posse cut built around a chanted, list-like hook that reduces street life to a sequence of imperatives: talk tough,…

bravado and reputation violence as ritual material excess

Do It Clean

Echo & the Bunnymen

A post-punk chant built on almost no semantic content, this song works by repetition and rhythmic insistence rather than…

repetition and ritual evasive bravado identity through motion rather than meaning

All Right Now (Single)

Free

A blues-rock pickup story stripped to its essentials: a street encounter, a home invitation, a moment of resistance, and a…

seduction and courtship male bravado reassurance versus persuasion

Rev On the Red Line

Foreigner

A straightforward car-racing anthem that uses drag-strip mechanics as a vehicle for macho self-definition. The song's pleasures…

speed and risk masculine bravado rebellion against authority

Rockin' Daddy

Howlin’ Wolf

A boastful, sexually charged blues in which the singer claims mastery over both the physical act of "rocking" a partner and the…

sexual bravado transactional relationships masculine reputation

Cold Sweat

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

Alpha Beta Gaga

Air

A synth-pop instrumental duo's track gets hijacked by hip-hop guest verses, turning a woozy French electronic groove into a…

status and exclusivity clubland escapism playful bravado

My Black Mama, Pt. 1

Son House

This is a Delta blues built from the traditional AAB stanza form, stringing together loosely connected verses about a woman,…

desire and dissatisfaction mortality and religious doubt masculine bravado

What's on Your Mind?

Eric B.

A New York subway pickup evolves into a slow-building courtship narrative, told from the perspective of a smooth-talking…

courtship and seduction urban geography as narrative backdrop mind versus body