Results for “generational inheritance”

Songs

That's When I Reach For My Revolver

Mission of Burma

A litany of disillusionment — with inherited heroes, parental teaching, and a friend's hollow ambition — builds toward a chorus…

disillusionment loss of faith/idealism generational inheritance

Changes

David Bowie

A song about self-reinvention that treats identity as something perpetually in motion rather than a fixed achievement. Bowie…

self-reinvention generational conflict identity instability

In the City

The Jam

A brisk punk-era manifesto that frames the city as both battleground and stage for youthful self-assertion. The narrator speaks…

generational conflict youthful defiance urban alienation

Corona

Minutemen

A terse, two-minute sketch that moves from a blunt political indictment of poverty and inherited injustice to a single, almost…

economic inequality inherited injustice the US-Mexico border region

All the Young Dudes (David Bowie & Ian Hunter Vocal)

Mott the Hoople

A glam-rock anthem that assembles a cast of disaffected, gender-bending teenagers and hands them a vague, urgent 'news' to…

generational rupture glam identity and androgyny disaffection with 60s idealism

What's Going On

Marvin Gaye

A returning-soldier's-eye plea addressed to family members in turn — mother, brother, father — asking why grief and violence…

war and its cost at home generational misunderstanding police brutality and protest

Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 1

Pink Floyd

This short piece establishes the loss of Pink's father as the first foundational trauma in the album's central metaphor, framing…

absence and abandonment childhood trauma war's domestic aftermath

Treat Her Like a Lady

The Temptations

A mid-80s Temptations single that pitches courtly-gentleman romance as a self-help pitch, with the narrator cataloguing small…

traditional courtship gender roles nostalgia for inherited values

Androgynous

The Replacements

A plainspoken piano ballad from a band better known for noise, this song sketches two gender-nonconforming characters and treats…

gender nonconformity tolerance vs. prejudice time and generational change

Róisín Dubh (Black Rose): A Rock Legend

Thin Lizzy

This is Thin Lizzy's suite-like tribute to Irish identity, stitching together folk balladry, mythic invocation, and a rapid-fire…

Irish cultural inheritance myth and storytelling exile and longing for home

Isn't She Lovely

Stevie Wonder

A new father's unfiltered, almost breathless reaction to the birth of his daughter, rendered as a series of rhetorical questions…

fatherhood and new birth gratitude love as creative/generative force

The Midnight Special

Creedence Clearwater Revival

CCR's version of this traditional folk-blues song reworks a prison-labor lament into swampy rock, keeping the old imagery of…

incarceration and forced labor longing for deliverance folk mythology / superstition

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Nirvana

Nirvana's 1991 breakthrough single is a rock anthem built on refusing to say anything anthemic. Over a four-chord riff that…

adolescent apathy and boredom the demand to be entertained self-loathing and self-sabotage

Cousin Dupree

Steely Dan

A slick, self-satisfied loser moves onto his aunt's couch and develops a leering fixation on his younger cousin, pitching his…

arrested development delusional self-regard taboo desire treated as comedy