Results for “frustration with stagnation”

Songs

Run, Run, Run

Ann Peebles

Ann Peebles delivers a frustrated ultimatum to a partner stuck in aimless repetition, warning that her patience is running out.…

frustration with stagnation failing communication ultimatum and impending departure

Quizás, Quizás, Quizás

Nat King Cole

A classic Cuban bolero of romantic frustration, in which a lover demands a straight answer about the future of the relationship…

romantic indecision frustration and waiting time slipping away

Another Saturday Night

Sam Cooke

A breezy, self-mocking complaint from a young man stuck in a new town with cash in his pocket and no date on a Saturday night.…

loneliness displacement romantic frustration

No Particular Place to Go

Mos Def

A breezy account of a teenage joyride that stalls on an absurd, deflating detail: a jammed seatbelt that thwarts the narrator's…

adolescent desire freedom and mobility comic frustration

That's When I Reach For My Revolver

Mission of Burma

A post-punk anthem about disillusionment and the impulse toward violent or drastic rupture as a response to betrayed idealism.…

disillusionment loss of innocence generational inheritance

Four Long Years

Wire

A short, elliptical piece built from fragmented statements about breakdown -- of attention, feeling, and communication. It reads…

mental exhaustion alienation failure of language

Now It's On

Grandaddy

A short, incantatory song about self-renewal that treats change as a kind of switch that, once flipped, can't be reversed.…

renewal and rebirth escape from stagnation transformation as irreversible

I'm Goin' Down

Bruce Springsteen

A breezy, almost bubblegum-pop arrangement carries a pretty deflating story about a relationship that's cooled into…

romantic frustration mismatched desire emotional deflation

Righteously

Lucinda Williams

A woman lays out terms for a lover who confuses aggression with masculinity, insisting that tenderness and respect are the real…

masculinity and its performance sexual respect and reciprocity desire coexisting with frustration

I Want Your Sex, Pts. 1 & 2

George Michael

George Michael turns a single, blunt demand into a sustained argument about desire, patience, and monogamy, dressing up a simple…

sexual desire and frustration persuasion and rhetoric monogamy versus promiscuity

Makes No Sense At All

Hüsker Dü

A pop-punk blast of exasperation aimed at someone whose contradictions and self-inflation have stopped registering as anything…

frustration with a partner's inconsistency emotional exhaustion refusal to engage further

Bad Mouth

Fugazi

A short, hammering post-hardcore sermon aimed at hypocrisy and inertia, built almost entirely on one refrain that refuses the…

hypocrisy authenticity stagnation vs. change

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Cat Power

Cat Power strips the Rolling Stones' garage-rock anthem of its swagger and turns it into something hushed, sad, and almost…

alienation commercial saturation exhaustion

Helplessness Blues

Fleet Foxes

A young narrator wrestles with the individualism he was raised on, wondering whether meaning comes from being special or from…

individualism vs. collectivism disillusionment with authority search for purpose

Settle

Gladys Knight

This is a direct-address motivational anthem, closer to a sermon set to music than a conventional narrative song. Gladys Knight…

self-empowerment faith and perseverance overcoming fear