Angel Olsen
A short, incantatory song built almost entirely from repeated questions, pressing someone to let light and movement back into a…
emotional withdrawal depression or shutdown persistence and pleading
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
Soundgarden
A song about the futility of trying to change or improve oneself, told through a narrator whose every attempt at effort or…
self-doubt futility of effort inversion of moral action
A meditation on depression arriving without warning, framed as a reversal of fortune the speaker can neither explain nor escape.…
depression and inertia loss of self-trust reversal of fortune
Etta James
Etta James takes the 1933 Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler standard and strips it down to raw, aching testimony, using weather as an…
heartbreak and abandonment weather as emotional metaphor spiritual longing
Portishead
A slow, dread-soaked meditation on despair that borrows apocalyptic language to describe private, unrelenting psychic pain. The…
despair and depression isolation biblical/apocalyptic imagery
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
Gang Starr
Gang Starr's title track is a meditation on accountability and betrayal dressed as street philosophy, moving from meditative…
betrayal and loyalty accountability/karma paranoia at success
Deerhunter
A short, motorik-driven track that circles a single image of internal winter, using repetition rather than narrative development…
emotional paralysis escape and its failure depression/inner winter
Peter Gabriel
A duet built as an argument between despair and consolation: one voice details the humiliation of joblessness and displacement,…
unemployment and economic shame loss of identity and belonging depression and suicidal ideation
Amy Winehouse
A breakup song built around one stark image: black as the color of mourning, addiction, and emotional shutdown all at once. Amy…
heartbreak and abandonment addiction as emotional metaphor self-destruction
Big Star
A deceptively simple slice of teenage boredom set to a chiming, anthemic riff, this song turns the aimlessness of small-town…
teenage boredom small-town aimlessness friendship
Abbey Lincoln
Abbey Lincoln's 1991 reading of the Depression-era standard strips the song back to its bare, bitter arithmetic: a man who built…
economic betrayal labor and disposability war and its aftermath
Jason Isbell
A working-class narrator describes his days through the rhythm of manual labor, framing exhaustion and diminished expectation as…
labor and class faith as consolation resignation vs. dignity
Aesop Rock
A song built entirely around addressing a cat named Kirby, whose small, absurd domestic behaviors become a lens for talking…
companionship as coping mechanism mental illness and medication domesticity