Results for “regional neglect”

Songs

Louisiana 1927

Randy Newman

A plainspoken ballad about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, sung from inside the disaster rather than about it from a…

natural disaster regional neglect class and condescension

Jeremy

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam's best-known single is a fragmented, first-person account of a neglected boy who becomes a spectacle of violence in…

childhood neglect violence and its aftermath isolation

Little Child Runnin' Wild

Curtis Mayfield

This is Curtis Mayfield's origin story for the addict who becomes the film's tragic antihero -- a child raised in poverty and…

urban poverty childhood neglect addiction as inheritance

The Girl and the Robot

Röyksopp

A vocal track built around a simple, obsessive complaint: a partner who works constantly and never seems present, rendered…

romantic neglect isolation codependency

Turn the Lights Back On

Billy Joel

A comeback single that reads as both a reconciliation ballad and a piece of career autobiography, built around the plea of…

reconciliation neglect and regret time and lateness

The Next Episode

Dr. Dre

A West Coast victory-lap posse cut in which Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg reassert their partnership and their region's dominance,…

regional pride hedonism and ritual (weed, cars, drinking) reunion/partnership

Jambalaya

Hank Williams

A breathless invitation to a Cajun celebration, this song strings together food, music, and a woman's name into a single rushing…

celebration regional identity and place romantic anticipation

We Run This

Missy Elliott

A brash, party-floor anthem in which Missy Elliott asserts sexual and regional dominance in equal measure, treating braggadocio…

sexual assertiveness regional pride/unity self-mythologizing braggadocio

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

I Shall Not Be Moved

Public Enemy

Chuck D uses the title of an old gospel/civil-rights standard as a manifesto for artistic and political endurance, framing…

longevity and refusal to be silenced corporate control of music and media racial injustice and neglect of the poor

The Space Program

A Tribe Called Quest

A cosmic metaphor becomes a blunt indictment of racial exclusion: the space program stands in for every promise of American…

racial exclusion collective uplift disillusionment with progress

Pale Shelter

Tears for Fears

A song about emotional withholding, built as a plea disguised as a diagnosis. The narrator keeps demanding certainty and love…

emotional neglect need for control insecurity in relationships

America First

Merle Haggard

A late-career protest song from Merle Haggard arguing that American resources and attention spent overseas should be redirected…

war-weariness economic neglect populist nationalism

Still Woman Enough

Loretta Lynn

A late-career declaration of resilience, this song has Lynn taking stock of a long, hard-won life and refusing to concede any…

resilience aging and identity working-class pride

Mean to Me

Billie Holiday

A torch song built on a small, bitter pun: the title phrase slides between accusation ('you're cruel to me') and confession…

romantic masochism emotional neglect self-aware heartbreak

Kentucky Woman

Deep Purple

This is Deep Purple's cover of the Neil Diamond original, a straightforward blues-rock love song built around a repeated title…

idealized love devotion simplicity/contentment

They Don't Care About Us

Michael Jackson

A protest chant built almost entirely from one repeated grievance, this song stacks fragmented images of police violence, media…

police brutality institutional neglect racial injustice

Four Years of Chances

Margo Price

A classic country kiss-off built on a simple ledger metaphor: four years of a failing marriage tallied down to the exact number…

infidelity and neglect domestic labor and its imbalance vindication after heartbreak

Rosa Parks

OutKast

A brash, funk-driven boast track in which Outkast repurpose a civil-rights phrase as a battle-rap taunt, using the chorus as a…

competition and dominance in hip-hop staying artistically ahead Southern regional pride

Rubble Kings Theme (Dynamite)

Run the Jewels

A theme song for a documentary about 1970s New York gang culture, this track has Killer Mike and El-P narrate street survival as…

urban survival and neglect self-made authority religious skepticism

So Fresh, So Clean

OutKast

A hook-driven strut through vintage cars, retro cool, and pickup lines, where the chorus's braggadocio functions less as…

vanity and self-presentation seduction and courtship rituals nostalgia for Black pop-culture iconography

Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight

Emmylou Harris

A folk-ballad narrative about a young Louisiana woman named Mary who runs off with a drifter, told through a shifting cast of…

escape and restlessness cautionary romance generational warning

9th Wonder (Blackitolism)

Digable Planets

A loose, jazz-inflected posse cut in which the Digable Planets crew trade boasts about style, borough pride, and lyrical…

borough/regional pride Afrocentric and cosmic imagery lyrical dexterity as identity

Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)

Warren Zevon

A mock-heroic ballad about a Canadian enforcer whose only real ambition was to score a goal, told with the deadpan cadence of a…

thwarted ambition masculine role and duty violence as commodity

ATLiens

OutKast

A two-verse-plus-hook showcase where Big Boi and André 3000 each stake out their identity as outsiders within their own city and…

regional pride and specificity outsider/alien identity self-improvement and discipline

56 Fury

Rodney Crowell

A rockabilly-style car song that celebrates a 1956 Plymouth Fury as an icon of speed, style, and small-town swagger from the…

Americana nostalgia masculinity and status regional pride (Texas)

Hood Mentality

Ice Cube

Ice Cube adopts a first-person voice steeped in street bravado to expose how the mindset it celebrates is a trap, not a triumph.…

cyclical poverty education vs. street survival celebrity worship and false escape routes

A.M. 180

Grandaddy

A slight, hazy love song built almost entirely out of anti-events: no plot, no conflict, just a wish to be near someone and do…

companionship over accomplishment fear of losing someone through neglect romanticizing inertia

Back to California

Carole King

A road-weary travelogue in which the narrator catalogs the Southern and Eastern towns she's passed through on tour, using each…

homesickness touring fatigue regionalism/East vs West

squabble up

Kendrick Lamar

A high-velocity West Coast flex track that turns a slang term for confrontation into a chant, stacking boasts about money, sex…

street credibility and violence wealth and material excess authenticity vs. performance in rap

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

Jambalaya

Lucinda Williams

This is Lucinda Williams' cover of Hank Williams' 1952 Cajun standard, a breathless invitation to a bayou party built almost…

celebration and escape community and gathering romantic anticipation

Not Like Us

Kendrick Lamar

A West Coast diss track that turns a specific rap beef into a broader indictment of cultural appropriation, exploitation, and…

cultural authenticity vs. appropriation predatory behavior and exploitation regional pride (West Coast/Compton)

Godwhacker

Steely Dan

A hitman narrative in which God himself is the target, framed as a hardboiled contract-killer's briefing. Steely Dan uses genre…

divine accountability cosmic vengeance satire of religious authority

Superwoman

Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight catalogs the domestic labor of a woman keeping a household running while her partner grows cold and indifferent,…

emotional labor and domestic care withheld affection self-respect and pride

The Nature

Talib Kweli

Talib Kweli surveys global poverty and violence as symptoms of a single underlying logic he calls 'the nature of the world,'…

poverty and survival spiritual searching media distraction