Public Enemy
A protest anthem built as a dance record: Chuck D argues that political consciousness and Black pride are things you build in…
Black pride and self-definition institutional racism who gets to be a national hero
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
The Rolling Stones
An apocalyptic weather report that turns into a plea for cover. Over a coiling, tremolo'd guitar figure and a hammering rhythm,…
apocalyptic dread violence as imminent, not distant the need for refuge
Stevie Wonder
A funk sermon against magical thinking. Over one of the most recognizable clavinet riffs in popular music, Wonder catalogues…
superstition and magical thinking the cost of ignorance fear as self-fulfilling prophecy
Otis Redding
A man who has moved across the country sits by the water in San Francisco, watching ships come and go, admitting he is doing…
idleness and drift migration and displacement loneliness
Kate Bush
A song about two lovers who keep wounding each other without meaning to, and the narrator's fantasy of a supernatural fix: a…
empathy as an impossible exchange the violence hidden inside love gendered misunderstanding