Results for “denial and self-justification”

Songs

Self Control

Frank Ocean

A wistful, fragmented account of a fading summer romance that never quite resolved into anything permanent, sung from the…

unrequited or asymmetrical desire nostalgia for a shared past that never fully existed self-restraint and its collapse

Borderline (An Ode to Self Care)

Solange

A hushed, weary meditation on withdrawal as an act of love, this A Seat at the Table track frames stepping back from public and…

burnout and self-care solidarity under pressure the personal as political

Automatic Stop

The Strokes

A brisk breakup song built around a love triangle, where the narrator's dismissiveness curdles into something closer to guilt…

romantic betrayal denial emotional detachment

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

The Smiths

A breakneck, self-aware confession that treats romantic disappointment as a repeating accident nobody can prevent. The title's…

self-repeating heartbreak denial and accusation masochism and self-punishment

That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate

Mission of Burma

A terse post-punk breakup song built around the logic of self-preservation dressed up as generosity. The narrator frames pushing…

self-justification guilt and denial independence vs. abandonment

Miss Misery

Elliott Smith

A stripped-down confession of failed self-repair, written for the film Good Will Hunting but functioning as a self-contained…

self-medication and denial romantic abandonment performed resilience

I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)

Chet Baker

A standard from 1939 (words and music by Jane Brown Thompson, published as a discovery by Hoagy Carmichael) becomes, in Baker's…

denial as self-protection involuntary memory seasonal association with loss

Nobody

Mitski

A disco groove wraps around one of Mitski's bleakest lyrics, turning isolation into something you can dance to. The song tracks…

loneliness self-erasure longing for touch over love

All for Leyna

Billy Joel

A young narrator describes a destructive, one-sided infatuation using imagery of physical danger — electrified rails, hidden…

obsessive infatuation self-destruction adolescent isolation

Junkhead

Alice in Chains

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

Frankie and Johnnie

Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke retells the classic American murder ballad about Frankie and Johnny, reworking the folk standard into a soul…

betrayal and jealousy infidelity folk balladry reimagined

Inside and Out

Feist

A cover of the Odyssey disco hit, reworked by Feist into a slower, torch-song lament about loving someone unfaithful and…

infidelity obsessive devotion self-erasure in love

Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 3

Pink Floyd

This is the moment PinkInk's protagonist Pink completes his self-imposed isolation, rejecting comfort, chemical or human, as a…

emotional withdrawal self-destruction disguised as independence accumulated trauma

Jack of Speed

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

Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely

Hüsker Dü

A breakup song built on a contradiction: the narrator claims he wants distance from an ex-partner but keeps monitoring her…

ambivalence after a breakup emotional self-protection denial

Bird On a Wire

Leonard Cohen

A confession and an apology run together as the speaker compares himself to a series of unstable, straining images to explain…

freedom versus commitment guilt and self-forgiveness instability of the self

I Am a Scientist

Guided by Voices

A short, deceptively simple lo-fi anthem in which the narrator cycles through professional identities—scientist, journalist,…

self-examination addiction and escape art as self-medication

Every Time the Sun Comes Up

Sharon Van Etten

This is Sharon Van Etten at her loosest and most winking, a track built on a single sardonic refrain about self-sabotage rather…

self-sabotage domestic disorder irony and deflection

All My Favorite Songs

Weezer

A catalog of small self-contradictions strung together into a chorus of self-diagnosis, this song treats confusion about one's…

self-contradiction anxiety and self-diagnosis ambivalence toward pleasure

Barely Legal

The Strokes

A slack, half-confessional monologue about a lopsided romance where guilt, desire, and self-sabotage tangle together without…

failed responsibility desire and control guilt and self-justification

Gone for Good

The Shins

A breakup song built as a farewell letter from someone who has already decided to leave, delivered with a mix of relief,…

disillusionment with commitment self-justification after leaving emotional withdrawal

Me and My Husband

Mitski

A brief, waltz-like song that frames marriage not as romance but as a bulwark against mortality and self-loathing. The…

mortality and impermanence self-erasure marriage as survival strategy

The Eraser

Thom Yorke

A fractured, glitchy meditation on trying to erase someone from consciousness only to find them multiplying under the pressure…

denial and obsession the futility of erasure suspicion and manipulation

All Apologies

Nirvana

A closing statement of exhaustion dressed as a lullaby, where the singer offers blanket apology and self-erasure instead of…

self-effacement marriage and domesticity guilt and blame

Ain't Got No Haters

Ice Cube

A boast track built entirely around denial and inversion: the narrator insists he has no enemies while spending every verse…

self-mythologizing wealth as armor longevity and legacy

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

Up to Me

Jethro Tull

A jaunty, loosely-plotted romp through post-war British working-class social life, sketched in vignettes of dance halls,…

class and working-class identity masculine bravado casual cruelty dressed as charm

Lost

Frank Ocean

Told from the perspective of a drug-trafficking boyfriend, "Lost" dresses a story of exploitation and denial in the glossy sound…

complicity and denial glamorized crime exploitation disguised as love

Live Oak

Jason Isbell

A murder ballad disguised as a confession of self-improvement, in which the narrator's claim to have left his violent past…

duality of self violence and love intertwined addiction as haunting past self

Kill Bill

SZA

SZA turns a breakup confession into a deadpan murder fantasy, using the exaggerated violence of the title as a vehicle for…

obsessive love jealousy denial and self-deception

Boats to Build

Guy Clark

Guy Clark turns the craft of boatbuilding into a meditation on making a life with your own hands and getting on with it before…

mortality and urgency craftsmanship as self-definition self-reliance

Coming Up Roses

Elliott Smith

A hallucinatory address to a self or double, tracking a slow poisoning that the speaker frames as a kind of blooming. The song…

addiction and self-destruction dissociation from the self toxic inheritance

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

Everything Is Everything

Lauryn Hill

A meditation on cyclical change and self-determination that doubles as a virtuosic display of rap craft, this track pairs a…

cyclical change and renewal self-empowerment spiritual/religious syncretism

Chasing a Bee

Mercury Rev

A hazy, druggy fable about pursuit and containment, where sunlit imagery of seduction and pleasure keeps curdling into images of…

intoxication and altered perception freedom versus entrapment instability of the self

Don't Follow

Alice in Chains

A stripped-down acoustic confession from a narrator who insists on leaving while quietly begging to be brought back. The song…

addiction and self-destruction isolation vs. longing for home guilt and self-recrimination

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

Miss You

The Rolling Stones

A disco-inflected blues about romantic obsession, where a narrator's loneliness is undercut by the party noise and distraction…

obsessive longing denial and self-deception urban loneliness

Lithium

Nirvana

A song built entirely out of a mantra of self-reassurance, in which a narrator on the edge of suicide talks himself into staying…

suicidal ideation and survival religious substitution for mental illness isolation and imagined companionship

Careful

Television

"Careful" stages a nervy standoff between protest and confession: a narrator insists he doesn't care about anything while the…

denial and self-deception paranoia emotional withdrawal