Results for “moral transgression”

Songs

Be Careful of Stones That You Throw

Hank Williams

This Luke The Drifter recitation-style song tells a small parable about a gossiping neighbor and the woman she condemns,…

hypocrisy gossip and reputation moral judgment

Desperado Love

Conway Twitty

Conway Twitty builds this ballad around an outlaw metaphor: the narrator casts himself as a desperado planning to steal a woman…

forbidden desire infidelity/temptation romantic obsession

Electric Chair

Prince

A pulsing, funk-driven fantasy in which lustful thought itself becomes a punishable crime, with the narrator gleefully accepting…

desire as transgression punishment and pleasure obsession

Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore

John Prine

A darkly comic anti-war satire that follows an ordinary, flag-happy patriot from a seedy magazine rack to the pearly gates,…

war and complicity empty patriotism consumerism and commercialized faith

I'm Sticking With You

The Velvet Underground

A deceptively childlike singsong from Moe Tucker turns into an odd meditation on loyalty without limits, where devotion to a…

unconditional loyalty childlike innocence vs. danger identity merging with another

Devil's Gonna Git You

Bessie Smith

A blues warning delivered as a curse: the narrator threatens a philandering partner with damnation, using the devil as a…

infidelity and betrayal moral reckoning female assertiveness

Other Side of the Game

Erykah Badu

A woman narrates loving a man whose livelihood comes from illegal hustling, weighing pride and dread as she carries their child.…

street economics and survival love under pressure pregnancy and continuity

The Cold Hard Truth

George Jones

George Jones builds this song around a striking conceit: the truth itself shows up as a character, confronting a man about the…

personified truth/conscience infidelity and self-deception moral reckoning

Sinner or Saint

Sarah Vaughan

This is a devotional address built almost entirely on paired opposites, culminating in a refrain of unconditional love. The…

unconditional love moral duality forgiveness

God's Gonna Cut You Down

Johnny Cash

An old African-American spiritual, reworked by Cash near the end of his life, this is a stark warning that moral reckoning is…

divine judgment mortality moral reckoning

Pressure Drop

The Clash

This is The Clash's cover of Toots and the Maytals' classic reggae number, a warning song built almost entirely from repetition…

karmic justice warning/prophecy moral reckoning

On the Turning Away

Pink Floyd

A gentle, hymn-like protest song that addresses complacency toward poverty and suffering directly, using the recurring image of…

social indifference collective responsibility moral awakening

Dollar Bill Blues

Townes Van Zandt

A ramshackle blues about a broke, drink-craving gambler whose fantasies of easy money and easy love curdle into a confession of…

poverty and want drink and gambling as fate violence disguised as bravado

Carnival

Natalie Merchant

Natalie Merchant turns a walk through an unnamed city into an extended metaphor for moral disorientation, framing urban life as…

urban spectacle moral ambiguity complicity vs. observation

Paradise Circus

Massive Attack

A slow-burning meditation on desire as self-inflicted damage, built from a handful of repeated images—storms, sin, flame,…

desire and self-destruction moral ambivalence addiction to feeling

On That Day

Leonard Cohen

A spare, almost prose-like meditation on the September 11 attacks, in which the speaker refuses to endorse any explanatory…

9/11 and national trauma refusal of ideology complicity of the observer

Something I Learned Today

Hüsker Dü

A rapid-fire punk song that opens Zen Arcade with a set of clipped, almost proverbial observations about perception, autonomy,…

moral ambiguity autonomy vs. imposed rules perception and empathy

The Rainbow

Talk Talk

An oblique meditation on justice, guilt, and the gap between legal verdicts and moral truth, built from fragments of courtroom…

justice and its failures guilt and repentance institutional power

The Vigilante

Judee Sill

Judee Sill builds an allegorical portrait of a tireless spiritual guardian, half folk-hero and half angel, who patrols against…

spiritual guardianship good versus deception faith and service

The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song

The Flaming Lips

A deceptively bouncy singalong turns into a moral thought experiment, asking listeners to imagine unlimited power and confront…

power and corruption self-knowledge and its limits selfishness vs altruism

Heaven and Hell

Black Sabbath

This is Black Sabbath's title track marking the arrival of Ronnie James Dio, trading the band's earlier horror-movie doom for…

moral ambiguity illusion versus reality corrupted power

Tearz

Wu‐Tang Clan

A grim, cautionary storytelling track built around two narrated tragedies -- a child's death from a street robbery and a…

mortality street violence consequence of recklessness

Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)

Van Halen

This is a defiant, almost reckless assertion of self-determination, delivered through a string of extreme hypothetical choices —…

free will vs fate rejection of moral instruction self-destruction as autonomy

Are You Ready?

Wire

Wire builds this track almost entirely from a single interrogative structure, hammering out a litany of yes/no questions that…

complicity and complacency consumerism/branding as identity moral and existential reckoning

Bleed The Freak

Alice in Chains

A confrontational early Alice in Chains track that inverts biblical language and moral hierarchies to attack self-righteous…

religious hypocrisy judgment and retribution cruelty of moral authority

Hellacious Acres

Kris Kristofferson

A carnival-barker satire that reimagines hell as a theme park, complete with billboards, ticket lines, and celebrity attractions…

moral corruption as entertainment consumerism and commodified sin celebrity and infamy

A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

Laura Marling

This is a cover of Bob Dylan's 1963 apocalyptic ballad, structured as a call-and-response between a questioning parent and a…

apocalypse and prophecy witness and testimony social collapse

Higher Ground

Stevie Wonder

A funk sermon built on a clavinet riff, the song frames spiritual urgency as physical momentum: the narrator treats a second…

reincarnation and second chances social corruption vs. individual awakening urgency of moral time

Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It

Ice Cube

Ice Cube uses the media's stock accusation that gangsta rap 'causes' violence as a satirical device, exaggerating the charge…

media scapegoating and moral panic authenticity vs commercial gatekeeping black masculinity and self-reliance

Savage Good Boy

Japanese Breakfast

A song written in the voice of a wealthy, self-justifying man who frames his hoarding and moral compromises as acts of devotion.…

late capitalism and wealth hoarding toxic masculinity and possessiveness climate apocalypse

Get Down

Nas

Nas narrates a series of street-life anecdotes and near-death encounters spanning decades of New York and West Coast gang…

cycles of violence street mythology and legacy fatalism vs. moral awakening

m.A.A.d city

Kendrick Lamar

A two-part suite that reconstructs Kendrick Lamar's adolescence in Compton as a series of near-misses and moral compromises,…

gang violence and territorial identity childhood exposure to trauma survivor's guilt and moral compromise

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

When the Blues Catch Up to You

Bettye LaVette

A weary lover delivers a warning dressed as prophecy: the reckless partner she addresses is going to burn out or get caught, and…

consequence and reckoning romantic exhaustion self-respect and threatened departure

In Between Jobs

Todd Snider

A broke narrator hits up a wealthier acquaintance for cash, mixing hustler charm with barely-veiled resentment. Todd Snider…

class resentment hustling and charm as survival poverty vs. wealth

Mack the Knife

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

The Wreckers

Rush

A narrator recounts a shipwreck deliberately caused by shore-dwellers who lure vessels onto rocks with false lights, then loot…

betrayal false hope/illusion predation and greed

Waiting for an Alibi

Thin Lizzy

A fast, riff-driven character sketch of a small-time hustler named Valentino, a bookmaker or gambler who lives by evasion and…

deception and self-justification gambling and compulsion moral ambiguity

Tear My Stillhouse Down

Gillian Welch

A dying moonshiner delivers final instructions, not for a proper funeral, but for the destruction of the illegal still that…

addiction and ruin moral reckoning rural poverty

9 Crimes

Damien Rice

A duet between a man and woman (recorded here as a solo vocal) confessing an affair in the aftermath, framed as a confession of…

infidelity and guilt moral ambiguity desire versus loyalty