Big Star
A gratitude anthem that plays like a mock-showbiz thank-you speech, thanking unnamed collaborators in language so formal it…
gratitude and its limits dependency vs. self-sufficiency showbiz artifice
R.E.M.
A bubblegum-bright chorus of togetherness repeated to the point of hollowness, this is R.E.M. at its most deliberately…
manufactured happiness conformity propaganda and slogans
Pixies
A deliberately dumb, bubblegum-pop pastiche sung by drummer David Lovering, this is Pixies parodying the sincerity of teenage…
parody of pop convention adolescent sexuality irony vs sincerity
John Prine
A soldier's chance encounter with a bar dancer turns into an unlikely origin story for a whole philosophy of life. Prine uses a…
rural simplicity vs. modern noise chance and fate counterculture retreat
Father John Misty
A deadpan hymn to middle-class malaise, delivered as if it were a sincere confessional ballad. Tillman lays out the rituals of…
consumerism and materialism marital disillusionment the American Dream's failure
Manic Street Preachers
This is a cover of the theme song written for the film and TV series M*A*S*H, originally penned as a deliberately bad, deadpan…
fatalism detachment from mortality irony versus sincerity
Richard Thompson
Richard Thompson's version strips a bubblegum pop hit down to voice and guitar, exposing lyrics about romantic manipulation that…
manipulation dressed as innocence performance versus sincerity gender and blame
Louis Armstrong
Armstrong's version turns Brecht and Weill's ballad of a genteel serial killer into a genial swing number, letting the horror of…
moral hypocrisy charm masking violence urban crime as folklore
Pavement
A loose, digressive song built from non-sequiturs and internal rhyme games that only occasionally resolves into something like…
evasion of intimacy irony versus sincerity pop-cultural detritus
The Cure
A jittery funk-pop novelty from The Cure's most eclectic album, built on a repeated image of lightning strikes that destroy…
destruction as pleasure compulsive repetition escape and displacement
Elvis Costello
This is Elvis Costello's reading of the 1937 Rodgers and Hart standard, a love song built on backhanded compliments that somehow…
backhanded affection imperfection as intimacy permanence amid doubt
Loudon Wainwright III
A breezy catalogue of summer swimming exploits doubles as a compact meditation on survival and self-endangerment. Beneath the…
survival as effort self-destruction masked by levity seasonal transience
Minutemen
A song so short it barely qualifies as one, this Minutemen miniature parodies the mechanics of the top-40 love song by stringing…
parody of pop convention commercialism in music brevity as critique
Peter Gabriel
This is a cover of the Magnetic Fields song, and Gabriel's version strips away Stephin Merritt's deadpan irony in favor of a…
romantic convention vs. lived intimacy tedium redeemed by love marriage and commitment
Billy Joel
Billy Joel builds a mock-heroic Wild West ballad complete with outlaw legend and hanging, then in the final verse reveals it as…
mythmaking self-deprecation Americana pastiche
The Temptations
A holiday standard built on a simple, almost sermon-like premise: material gifts are fine, but love is the only present that…
generosity versus materialism universal love seasonal community
Mick Jenkins
Mick Jenkins sketches a beach hangout with friends and a lover as a fragile idyll, then keeps interrupting it with reminders…
racial surveillance the impossibility of leisure friendship and loyalty
Vince Staples
Vince Staples opens FM! with a track that titles itself irony: verses recite violence and gang life in flat, matter-of-fact…
normalized violence irony and denial materialism as armor
Frank Sinatra
A Rodgers and Hart standard in which every socially disreputable trait ascribed to the title character turns out, on inspection,…
class satire nonconformity irony of reputation
Nirvana
A grunge anthem built almost entirely out of non-sequiturs and slogans, the song channels teenage apathy and irony rather than…
apathy and irony alienation consumerism and spectacle
Simon & Garfunkel
Paul Simon's adaptation of Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem sets a factory worker's envious refrain against the public glamour of…
class envy the gap between appearance and inner life alienation of labor
Angel Olsen
A darkly comic take on loneliness, this song frames connection as a transactional consolation prize between two isolated people…
loneliness irony of connection emotional guardedness
The Divine Comedy
A brisk, sardonic pop song that uses the stock British phrase for avoiding awkward history with Germans to comment on a country…
historical amnesia national identity and Europe cyclical repetition
MF DOOM
MF DOOM turns a satirical eye on rap's tough-guy posturing, mocking MCs whose lyrics function as confessions that could be used…
hip-hop authenticity and posturing self-incrimination and surveillance street credibility vs. performance
Willie Nelson
A heartbroken man leans on a friend to keep him from falling apart after a breakup, using the friend's company as a shield…
heartbreak male friendship as emotional support denial through distraction
St. Vincent
A woman proposes marriage to a man named John while openly admitting she plans to be emotionally absent and unfaithful the…
commitment vs. self-interest emotional unavailability performance of domesticity
Madvillain
This is a boast track built on the tension between DOOM's mythologized mask persona and the grubby realities of the rap grind.…
masked identity/anonymity the rap grind vs. glamour boasting and self-mythology
Tori Amos
This is Tori Amos's live piano cover of the Jim Steinman-penned Bonnie Tyler power ballad, stripped of its 1980s bombast and…
dependency and need loss of light/hope romantic obsession
Judee Sill
A short, dense allegory in which cosmic and mythological imagery (a phoenix, dragons, an implied battle with the Devil) stands…
spiritual struggle self-doubt and sincerity transformation and rebirth
Air
A woozy, vocoder-warped taunt built almost entirely out of one phrase, "Sexy Boy" pokes at masculine vanity and celebrity…
vanity and self-image celebrity and consumerism irony versus seduction
A dense, aphoristic protest fragment from the Minutemen's live-and-studio patchwork album, this piece takes its title's irony…
militarism and indoctrination the inadequacy of language against violence pop culture versus political urgency
A Christmas song that undercuts its own cheer: a street vendor selling gift-wrap and pencils becomes a fixture the holiday crowd…
isolation amid crowds commercialism vs. compassion invisibility of the poor
Tom Petty
Tom Petty turns a chorus of romantic devotion into a punchline by surrounding it with a comic gallery of failed relationships.…
romantic complacency divorce and dysfunction irony as affection
Randy Newman
Randy Newman puts on the voice of a bigot ranting about short people, using the absurdity of the target to expose how prejudice…
prejudice and bigotry satire of hatred's logic unreliable narration
Modest Mouse
A meandering, self-lacerating meditation on complacency and missed opportunity, delivered with Modest Mouse's trademark mix of…
missed opportunity self-deception complacency
A Cole Porter standard in which a jaded sophisticate catalogs every conventional pleasure that fails to move him, only to admit…
ennui and sophistication unrequited or unequal love irony of excess
Rilo Kiley
A breakup song dressed as a triumphant chant, in which the narrator recasts herself from a supporting emotional resource into…
self-worth after breakup transformation and upgrade emotional detachment
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
Wire
Wire recast the nativity story as a satire of digital-age commerce and self-promotion, splicing biblical imagery with the…
technology and faith commodification of belief surveillance and self-branding
Carole King
A late-career Carole King love song built as a simple statement of faith, using the language of belief to describe an…
steadfast devotion faith and belief as metaphor for love emotional generosity