Results for “mythologizing the outlaw/biker figure”

Songs

Ezy Ryder

Jimi Hendrix

A shape-shifting rock jam built around a mythic biker figure who embodies late-60s countercultural freedom while quietly hinting…

freedom and its limits the counterculture ethos mortality shadowing pleasure

Father Figure

George Michael

A slow-building declaration of total devotion that reaches for every available role — lover, parent, teacher, priest — to…

all-consuming devotion protection vs. control roleplay and identity fusion

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

Bruce Springsteen

A cinematic street narrative that doubles as an origin myth for Springsteen's own band, tracking a lone, wary figure ('Bad…

urban isolation chosen family/band mythology outsider status

Never Could Toe the Mark

Waylon Jennings

A plainspoken defense of romantic independence, delivered in Waylon Jennings' outlaw drawl. The narrator explains, without…

romantic independence resistance to conformity outlaw self-mythology

Theme from "the Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol' Boys)"

Waylon Jennings

This is a theme song that doubles as a character sketch and a wink at its own singer, framing rural outlaws as harmless folk…

rural outlaw mythology folk-hero framing of crime Southern identity and pride

Live Oak

Jason Isbell

A murder ballad disguised as a confession of self-improvement, in which the narrator's claim to have left his violent past…

duality of self violence and love intertwined addiction as haunting past self

Paul Revere

Beastie Boys

A cartoonish spaghetti-Western pastiche in which the three Beastie Boys members appear as characters in their own tall tale,…

mythmaking and self-invention outlaw fantasy adolescent bravado

Panic in Detroit

David Bowie

A hallucinatory street scene fuses American urban unrest with the mythology of revolutionary martyrdom, filtered through a…

revolutionary mythology celebrity worship urban collapse

Raid

Madvillain

"Raid" is a two-verse showcase built around boastful self-mythologizing, with MF Doom opening and MED closing over a woozy,…

outlaw persona and contradiction poverty and hustling reputation and legend-building

Feel Alright

Steve Earle

A defiant survivor's anthem in which the narrator refuses to be pitied or contained, casting himself as a storyteller-outlaw…

survival and defiance inherited identity addiction and recovery

Ol' George Stopped Drinkin' Today

George Jones

This is George Jones turning the mythology of his own drinking and unreliability into black comedy, imagining his own death and…

alcoholism mortality self-mythology

Dirty Life and Times

Warren Zevon

This is Zevon's wry farewell song, opening the album he recorded while dying of mesothelioma, dressed as an outlaw's confession…

mortality and reckoning outlaw persona romantic failure

The Agony of Laffitte

Spoon

A cryptic, industry-inflected kiss-off aimed at a music-business figure who's been caught performing sincerity rather than…

authenticity vs. image music industry disillusionment betrayal

Seven Seas

Echo & the Bunnymen

A jubilant, oddly triumphant piece of nonsense-poetry built on nautical and elemental imagery, "Seven Seas" trades linear…

self-mythology transformation catharsis through destruction

Voodoo Chile Blues

Jimi Hendrix

This is the slow, extended blues incantation that Hendrix later compressed into 'Voodoo Child (Slight Return),' built around a…

self-mythology supernatural power cosmic/psychedelic imagery

Legend Has It

Run the Jewels

A boastful, mythmaking duo track in which El-P and Killer Mike cast themselves as outlaw legends -- part supervillain, part folk…

self-mythologizing violence as performance drug use and excess

Rhymin' & Stealin'

Beastie Boys

An opening track built entirely on cartoon-pirate bravado, splicing swashbuckler movie tropes with hip-hop boast rhetoric to…

outlaw bravado juvenile provocation pop-culture pastiche

Death or Glory

The Clash

A song about the corrosive gap between youthful rebel ideals and the compromises that inevitably follow, written by a band…

selling out and compromise the mythology of rebellion cynicism vs. idealism

Nas Is Like

Nas

Built on a DJ Premier loop and a simile-driven hook, this track is Nas's attempt to define his own mythology by analogy,…

self-mythology survival amid violence fame and mortality

Oh My Darling Don't Cry

Run the Jewels

A two-verse trade-off between El-P and Killer Mike that functions as pure sonic swagger and threat display, dressed up in…

defiance of authority hypermasculine bravado self-mythologizing

New Big Prinz

The Fall

A hypnotic, near-mantric chant that revolves around a mysterious figure called 'Big Priest' or 'Big Prinz,' whose worth is…

unrecognized authority ritual and repetition self-mythologizing

Maggie M'Gill

The Doors

A loose, blues-based closer that trades narrative coherence for atmosphere, following a barfly heroine into a fictional…

urban decay and escape self-mythology blues lineage and authenticity

Slip Jigs and Reels

Fairport Convention

A ballad-style narrative that follows an Irish emigrant from the boat to New York through a life of gambling, violence, and…

emigration and displacement the making of an outlaw loss of innocence

The Conversation

Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings imagines a barroom conversation with Hank Williams Jr. about his late father, using it as a vehicle to reckon…

musical inheritance/legacy myth-making around dead legends fatherhood and absence

Superheroes

Ethan Whitney

A straightforward pop declaration of romantic devotion dressed up in comic-book imagery. The narrator pledges protective,…

devoted love self-sufficiency vs. support escapism

Happens to the Heart

Leonard Cohen

This is a late-Cohen autopsy of a life spent chasing and fleeing intimacy, delivered as a kind of confessional inventory. Cohen…

mortality and retrospection the failure of romantic and religious ideals self-mythologizing and its collapse

Hymn 43

Jethro Tull

A caustic broadside against the American co-option of Christianity, pairing frontier violence and cowboy mythology with the…

religious hypocrisy American mythology and violence colonialism

Love Man

Otis Redding

A boastful, self-mythologizing party anthem in which the singer repeatedly declares his own nickname and physical credentials as…

braggadocio masculine self-mythology seduction as performance

Stronger

Kanye West Tribute Band

Built on a chopped Daft Punk hook, this track fuses a nightclub come-on with a victory lap of self-mythologizing. Kanye…

ambition and self-mythology desire and impatience status and luxury as armor

Fables

Interpol

Fables is a fractured, incantatory song about self-mythologizing and collapse, delivered by a narrator who oscillates between…

self-mythology and delusion instability and impermanence addiction and relapse

WTF (Where They From)

Missy Elliott

A regional-dance chant becomes a vehicle for Missy Elliott to assert her singularity as a rapper, alternating between mocking a…

regional identity and dance culture braggadocio and self-mythologizing female sexuality and power

Rhinestone Cowboy

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

20th Century Boy

T. Rex

A glam-rock strut built almost entirely on swagger and sound rather than narrative, the song is a self-mythologizing come-on in…

performed masculinity desire and conquest celebrity self-mythologizing

Ballad of Mott the Hoople

Mott the Hoople

This is Mott the Hoople's own epitaph and origin story rolled into one, a self-mythologizing autobiography written at the exact…

rock stardom as self-destruction nostalgia and regret band identity and mythology

Jokerman

Bob Dylan

Dylan builds a shape-shifting composite figure out of biblical allusion, political imagery, and mythic archetype, then refuses…

moral ambiguity messianic figures and false prophets political violence and complicity

100%

Sonic Youth

A tribute song built from fragments of grief, aggression, and dark humor, written in memory of a scene figure lost to violence.…

violent death and its aftermath rock scene mythology and idolization gender and predation within a music subculture

It's Good To Be Here

Digable Planets

Digable Planets frame their own arrival on the hip-hop scene as an interstellar landing, spinning a mock-sci-fi mythology in…

Afrofuturism as playful self-mythology hip-hop and jazz lineage group identity and unity

Jesus Was a Cross Maker

Judee Sill

Judee Sill turns a betrayal by a charming, elusive lover into a small theology, comparing him to a Jesus who literally built the…

betrayal and seduction sin and redemption entwined spiritual longing

Ain't Got No Haters

Ice Cube

A boast track built entirely around denial and inversion: the narrator insists he has no enemies while spending every verse…

self-mythologizing wealth as armor longevity and legacy

Dance

Danny Brown

This is a brief, high-energy verse opener in which Danny Brown reasserts his work ethic and local identity, framing his hustle…

hustle and ambition regional pride self-mythologizing