Results for “domestic labor and its imbalance”

Songs

Four Years of Chances

Margo Price

A classic country kiss-off built on a simple ledger metaphor: four years of a failing marriage tallied down to the exact number…

infidelity and neglect domestic labor and its imbalance vindication after heartbreak

Superwoman

Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight catalogs the domestic labor of a woman keeping a household running while her partner grows cold and indifferent,…

emotional labor and domestic care withheld affection self-respect and pride

Diamond Day

Vashti Bunyan

A short pastoral hymn that treats an ordinary day of rural labor as something precious, using plain agricultural imagery to…

rural simplicity contentment the sacred ordinary

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

Kirby

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

Breathe (In the Air)

Pink Floyd

An opening address that sounds like gentle life-advice slowly reveals itself as a warning about the trap of compulsive labor and…

existential dread conformity and labor the passage of time

Angel From Montgomery

John Prine

A young man's ventriloquized portrait of an aging woman worn down by a marriage and a life that never became what she imagined.…

aging and disillusionment domestic entrapment lost youth

Christmas In the Room

Sufjan Stevens

A quiet domestic carol that strips Christmas of all its commercial and decorative trappings and relocates the holiday's meaning…

domestic intimacy anti-consumerism presence versus decoration

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Ella Fitzgerald

A cozy standard about wanting bad weather to keep two people indoors together, sung by Fitzgerald with light swing rather than…

domestic coziness reluctant departure desire disguised as weather talk

Stay Up Late

Talking Heads

A household turns a newborn into a novelty toy, with siblings and cooing relatives conspiring to keep him awake past his bedtime…

family and domesticity possession and objectification innocence versus adult impulse

Lover

Taylor Swift

A wedding-vow of a love song built around domestic imagery and a slow-waltz tenderness, where the small details of shared life…

domestic intimacy commitment and permanence vulnerability through plainness

This Ain't No Picnic

Minutemen

A short, blunt punk song about wage labor as a form of daily indignity. The narrator describes clocking in and out for a boss he…

wage labor and exploitation class resentment dignity versus survival

Fake Empire

The National

A quiet, waltz-time song that uses childlike, storybook imagery to describe willful escapism, both personal and political. Its…

escapism denial numbness

In Every Dream Home a Heartache

Roxy Music

A deadpan monologue delivered by a consumer trapped inside his own showroom lifestyle, who eventually confesses to owning an…

consumerism and alienation artificiality vs intimacy suburban/domestic satire

That's the Way the World Goes Round

John Prine

A shaggy-dog folk tune that shrugs at life's absurdity and cruelty in the same breath, moving from a domestic-violence vignette…

cyclical dysfunction absurdism resignation and acceptance

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Kris Kristofferson

A hungover drifter walks through a quiet Sunday city, and every ordinary domestic sound he passes -- frying chicken, children…

loneliness addiction and self-medication nostalgia for domestic normalcy

Where You Lead I Will Follow

Carole King

A devotional pledge song built almost entirely around one refrain, this track reworks King's own earlier hit into a mature,…

romantic loyalty compromise and partnership domesticity vs. adventure

Unknown Legend

Neil Young

A middle-aged narrator recalls a woman he once admired for her restlessness and beauty, now settled into domestic life but still…

nostalgia freedom versus domesticity female mythology/idealization

Black Coffee

Sarah Vaughan

A torch song built entirely around one confined domestic scene: a woman drinking coffee alone through the small hours, waiting…

romantic waiting and vigilance gendered domestic roles insomnia and time distortion

Flower

Moby

This track isn't really a Moby lyric at all but a looped field-recording-style sample of an African American work/children's…

labor and repetition folk memory loss

Champagne & Reefer

Muddy Waters

A late-career Muddy Waters treats indulgence as gospel, cataloguing champagne, marijuana, and a devoted lover as the plain…

hedonism and comfort bodily pleasure personal autonomy versus law

When We Get By

D'Angelo

A slow-groove love song built almost entirely from a single circling phrase, promising that romantic devotion is enough to…

romantic devotion as survival domestic intimacy sensuality

This Charming Man

The Smiths

A stranded young man with a broken bicycle is picked up by an older, wealthier stranger, and the encounter becomes a charged,…

class anxiety closeted desire vanity and self-consciousness

Obstacle 1

Interpol

A fractured, obsessive address to a woman who dominates the narrator's inner life, built from disjointed images of intimacy,…

obsessive desire emotional damage decay and aging

Harder Better Faster Stronger

Daft Punk

A single fragmented phrase is chopped, looped, and reassembled through vocoder into a mantra about relentless productivity and…

labor and productivity machine identity repetition and ritual

One of Us

Wire

A terse breakup-or-betrayal song built around a single ominous refrain, in which the speaker recalibrates a failed alliance and…

broken partnership recrimination doubt and self-justification

Cover Me Up

Jason Isbell

A recovery ballad disguised as a love song, in which the narrator counts the cost of his old chaotic life and credits a specific…

addiction and sobriety redemption through love domesticity as safety

Keep Me in Your Heart

Warren Zevon

A dying man's direct address to the people he loves, written and recorded as Warren Zevon faced terminal cancer. The song trades…

mortality memory and legacy love as continuity

Odessa

Caribou

A narrator watches a woman in an unhappy marriage build toward the moment she finally leaves, the story told through fragments…

domestic unhappiness female agency anticipation and delay

Sandusky

Uncle Tupelo

A grim, working-class dirge about exhaustion and dead ends, delivered in the voice of someone addressing a person on the verge…

industrial despair class fatigue futility versus endurance

Everything Is Alright

Four Tet

An instrumental piece from Four Tet's early folktronica period, built from looped acoustic textures, hand percussion, and warm…

reassurance domestic calm organic texture vs electronic process

Gloria

Bonnie “Prince” Billy

A quiet, hymn-like meditation built around a wandering figure who walks alone through open landscape while a companion goes…

solitude and companionship pilgrimage/journey spiritual surrender

My Babe

Spoon

A song about staying put — emotionally and literally — inside a routine that has worn thin, and choosing devotion anyway. The…

endurance of routine devotion as choice stasis versus escape

The Weekend

SZA

SZA casts herself as the mistress in a triangle and refuses the shame the role usually carries, framing her position as a…

infidelity and complicity self-worth versus desire possession and comparison

24 Frames

Jason Isbell

A meditation on the fragility of everything a person builds—relationships, careers, a sense of stability—delivered through a…

impermanence mortality self-deception

Ms. Fat Booty

Mos Def

A narrative rap unfolding like a short film in three scenes, tracking a pursuit-and-fallout romance with a woman the narrator…

desire versus discernment the performance of masculinity and vulnerability cynicism eroded by intimacy

Motion Sickness

Phoebe Bridgers

A breakup song built on the whiplash of contradictory feelings toward an ex who wronged her, mixing bitterness, residual…

emotional ambivalence power imbalance in relationships toxic nostalgia

The Midnight Special

Creedence Clearwater Revival

CCR's take on this traditional American folk-blues song reworks a prison-camp lament into a swampy rock anthem, keeping its cast…

incarceration and forced labor folk tradition and inheritance longing for deliverance

Beast Of Burden

The Rolling Stones

A weary declaration of devotion dressed up as a refusal: the singer insists he won't be exploited or taken for granted, even as…

emotional labor in relationships self-worth and insecurity devotion disguised as protest

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