Steely Dan
A comic-paranoid narrative about a man trying to evade a woman he finds both terrifying and, eventually, magnetic. Steely Dan…
obsession and avoidance paranoia as comedy ambivalent desire
Thom Yorke
A minimal, unsettled address to someone (or to a fractured part of oneself) urging escape from a cycle of paranoia,…
self-deception paranoia emotional avoidance
Radiohead
A tightly wound miniature about mob justice and social conformity, built on the imagery of witch-hunts and plague-era paranoia.…
mob mentality scapegoating surveillance and conformity
Common
Common builds a countdown thriller out of a love-triangle gone dangerous, narrating an affair with another man's girlfriend as…
infidelity and consequence paranoia masculine posturing
Cream
A jittery blues-rock chant built around a repeated demand to remove some unnamed threatening object, the song reads as a…
conscription anxiety fear of death/violence dependence on a partner for safety
Creedence Clearwater Revival
A slow-building protest allegory in which a symbolic fire, first lit as an act of political dissent, spreads until it consumes…
political dissent authoritarian power civil unrest
Pixies
A frantic, barely two-minute sketch of a roommate whose grip on reality is slipping, delivered with the manic energy and…
mental illness paranoia housing instability
Wire
A clipped, paranoid vignette that fuses interrogation-room menace with pulp sci-fi imagery, built from disjointed phrases rather…
interrogation and coercion surveillance/security state paranoia
Lana Del Rey
This is Lana Del Rey's cover of Donovan's 1966 psychedelic classic, recorded for the horror anthology film it lends its title…
paranoia surveillance and being watched cultural anxiety
Talking Heads
"Swamp" plays like a fever-dream noir, David Byrne narrating a shadowy transaction with the devil and a cast of menacing,…
paranoia moral corruption identity dissolution
A blues-rock talisman song in which the narrator feels dogged by an ominous, unshakeable premonition of death even as good…
superstition and fate paranoia fear of death
Nirvana
A hazy invitation dissolves into contradiction as soon as it's offered: the singer welcomes you exactly as you are, then…
contradiction and self-cancellation false reassurance identity as unstable
Television
"Careful" stages a nervy standoff between protest and confession: a narrator insists he doesn't care about anything while the…
denial and self-deception paranoia emotional withdrawal
Massive Attack
An almost-instrumental interlude built from a single repeated proverb about the unknowability of other people. The track…
opacity of others distrust and self-protection the gap between appearance and interior life
Magazine
A song about ideological homelessness, built around a narrator who has infiltrated a crowd or movement only to find himself…
ideological disillusionment alienation from crowds and movements cynicism about political certainty
A minimal, chant-driven fragment built almost entirely from four repeated phrases, this song trades narrative for atmosphere --…
paranoia violence betrayal
A jittery, funk-driven interrogation of what it means to trust information at all, framed through a narrator who feels…
epistemological doubt information overload identity dissolution
The Notorious B.I.G.
A victory-lap posse cut that doubles as a meditation on the isolation success brings. Over a buoyant, sample-driven groove,…
success and isolation envy and betrayal paranoia/surveillance
John Prine
A deadpan comic monologue about waking up defeated by ordinary life and reaching for a cheap, illicit pleasure to get through…
escapism paranoia and surveillance poverty and disillusionment
A three-part suite that moves from claustrophobic paranoia to vindictive fantasy to a kind of exhausted, apocalyptic prayer.…
technological/social overload status anxiety and greed alienation and paranoia
Risingson is a woozy, disoriented plunge into club-night paranoia, narrated by someone half-seduced and half-repulsed by the…
nightlife excess and comedown identity dissolution paranoia and manipulation
Danny Brown
Danny Brown turns his own addiction into dark comedy, stacking dense, cartoonish wordplay over a queasy hook that keeps asking…
addiction and dependency irony and dark humor wealth versus self-destruction
Frank Ocean
"Chanel" is a loose, associative track built around the Chanel logo's interlocking C's as a metaphor for bisexuality and duality…
bisexuality and duality surveillance and paranoia wealth as armor
Eric B.
Rakim narrates a first-person tour through the Gulf War, moving from a soldier's disciplined combat rhetoric to disorientation…
war and disillusionment PTSD and paranoia religious and racial contradiction
Nas
This is Nas mapping the mythology of the drug trade from the inside, tracking a narrator's rise through dealing, the trappings…
the drug economy as a distorted American dream inevitability and fatalism in ghetto life materialism as compensation for scarcity
Aesop Rock
Aesop Rock builds a dense allegory around farm-animal escape and surveillance-state paranoia, using the imagery of Animal Farm…
surveillance and control anxiety and hypervigilance complicity versus escape
Kanye West Tribute Band
A song about the corrosive intoxication of fame and cultural power, built on a warning it repeatedly ignores. Kanye West stages…
fame and its psychological cost hubris and self-awareness racial visibility and scrutiny
Spoon
A driving garage-rock riff underpins a song about leaving under duress and the psychic toll of resisting outside pressure to…
escape and departure conformity vs. independence paranoia and surveillance
Echo & the Bunnymen
A dense, incantatory piece of post-punk imagery in which the speaker pleads for mercy from some undefined judging or cutting…
self-doubt judgment and punishment survival
Modest Mouse
A song that lurches from confessional self-loathing into cosmic speculation, treating personal collapse and the birth of a child…
self-destruction and dishonesty surveillance and paranoia birth and creation
Animal Collective
A collage of surreal pastoral images and chanted refrains that circles around resistance to withdrawal—refusing to 'go…
entrapment vs. freedom embracing imperfection nature as omen
Michael Jackson
A first-person account of a man accused of fathering a child by a woman he insists was never his lover, told as a paranoid,…
paranoia and fame denial and guilt seduction and manipulation
A funk-driven complaint about gossip and betrayal, built almost entirely from repetition and chant rather than narrative detail.…
gossip and rumor paranoia and persecution betrayal
Beastie Boys
This is the Beastie Boys doing what they do best: rapid-fire boasting, absurdist non sequiturs, and a chant-along hook, all…
comeback/reassertion braggadocio as comedy collective unity vs individual ego
Gang Starr
Gang Starr's title track is a meditation on accountability and betrayal dressed as street philosophy, moving from meditative…
betrayal and loyalty accountability/karma paranoia at success
Ice Cube
Ice Cube stitches together a barrage of boasts, sci-fi imagery, and political fury into a chant demanding Donald Trump's removal…
political corruption distrust of institutions black survival and defiance
Pink Floyd
A pounding, paranoid rocker from the second half of The Wall, built almost entirely on a chanted command to flee. It stages the…
paranoia and surveillance fascism and mob violence guilt and self-disgust
Jamie xx
KILL DEM is less a song with a plot than a piece of dancehall-derived sound sculpture, built from a stuttering patois vocal…
violence as ritual/rhythm paranoia and evasion dancehall/soundsystem lineage
Mercury Rev
"Holes" is a hazy, impressionistic meditation on loss and the failure of memory to hold together, built almost entirely from…
memory and forgetting grief disorientation
A dense, image-flooded piece from a concept album about visions and threshold spaces, in which the speaker positions himself at…
liminality and thresholds exhaustion/burnout distrust of moral binaries