Results for “rejection of superficiality”

Songs

Jah Love

Bad Brains

A short, chant-like Rastafarian devotional in which Bad Brains strip away surface markers of identity to insist that the only…

spiritual devotion rejection of superficiality Rastafarian faith

He's the One I Love

Mary Wells

A young woman addresses her girlfriends directly, defending her choice of boyfriend against the flashier options around them.…

romantic loyalty self-assurance in love rejection of superficial standards

She Used to Love Me a Lot

Johnny Cash

A man reencounters an old flame in a cafe and convinces himself her old feelings can be reignited on the spot, only to be…

self-deception nostalgia versus reality rejection

Hear My Train a Comin'

Jimi Hendrix

A blues fantasy of escape, built around the image of a train that will carry the singer away from rejection and poverty into…

escape and departure romantic rejection poverty and social judgment

Sheela-Na-Gig

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey turns the offer of a woman's body into a confrontation, borrowing the name of a medieval carved figure to skewer male…

female sexuality and shame rejection and humiliation the body as spectacle

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

Drop Dead Legs

Van Halen

A strutting party-rock throwaway built entirely around physical fixation, delivered with the band's trademark bravado and…

physical attraction sexual bravado hedonism

Little Too Late

Pat Benatar

A kiss-off song built almost entirely around one insistent phrase, in which the narrator refuses to take back a partner who left…

romantic betrayal self-respect and refusal emotional exhaustion

Run With the Pack

Bad Company

A defiant kiss-off anthem built around the image of running free from a controlling relationship or authority. The narrator…

escape and freedom distrust of authority independence

Off the Wall

Michael Jackson

A pulsing invitation to abandon the grind of daily routine and lose yourself in dance, this title track sells liberation through…

escapism nightlife as liberation rejection of convention

Change Gonna Come

Otis Redding

Otis Redding's cover of Sam Cooke's civil-rights-era anthem strips the original's orchestral polish into raw, gospel-inflected…

racial oppression and hope endurance and exhaustion fear of mortality

What's on Your Mind?

Eric B.

A New York subway pickup evolves into a slow-building courtship narrative, told from the perspective of a smooth-talking…

courtship and seduction urban geography as narrative backdrop mind versus body

I Will Possess Your Heart

Death Cab for Cutie

An extended, deliberately monotonous instrumental build frames a lyric spoken by someone who refuses to accept another person's…

obsession denial of rejection unreciprocated desire

Going Mobile

The Who

A buoyant, almost novelty-song ode to caravan life, in which freedom is defined entirely by motion and lack of fixed address.…

freedom through motion rejection of domesticity escapism

Underground

David Bowie

Written as the opening theme for Jim Henson's Labyrinth, this song sells escape as salvation while quietly undercutting it.…

escape and flight the seduction of easy comfort childhood vulnerability

My Girls

Animal Collective

A domestic vow set to euphoric, cascading production: the narrator strips away ambition and status anxiety down to a single…

fatherhood and provision rejection of materialism class anxiety disguised as simplicity

Lorelai

Fleet Foxes

A breakup song built from small, deflating images of self-worth, sung by someone who has resigned themselves to having been…

romantic rejection self-deprecation memory and haunting

Thirteen

Elliott Smith

A cover of a Big Star song, reworked here into something quieter and more aching, this is a teenage courtship scene rendered in…

adolescent love innocence and vulnerability rock and roll as shared language

If You Needed Somebody

Bad Company

A late-period Bad Company track built around a simple, almost adolescent premise: a narrator paralyzed by unspoken feelings for…

unrequited longing fear of rejection romantic timidity

Katie Cruel

Bert Jansch

This is a traditional Appalachian folk lament, here rendered by Bert Jansch in his hushed, weathered late-career voice, about a…

exile and rejection itinerancy social reversal of fortune

Forget About It

Alison Krauss

A breakup song built on a paradox: the narrator repeats the command to forget as a way of proving she can't. Every dismissive…

denial as coping unresolved heartbreak performed indifference

Flavor of the Month

Black Sheep

"Flavor of the Month" is a boastful, ice-cream-metaphor-driven track about sudden popularity and the fair-weather friends and…

fame and fickleness validation after rejection hip-hop bravado

Which Will

Nick Drake

A quiet, almost unbearably direct song built entirely around a single repeated question, addressed to someone the narrator loves…

romantic uncertainty fear of rejection self-doubt

The Modern World

The Jam

A young, defiant voice pushes back against everyone who ever underestimated him, staking a claim to self-knowledge and…

class resentment and defiance self-education vs institutional judgment youthful independence

Please Don't Bury Me

John Prine

A comic-macabre novelty song in which the narrator dies a mundane kitchen death, ascends to heaven, and delivers a posthumous…

death and mortality absurdism/black comedy generosity and connection after death

Walk On By

Dionne Warwick

A woman instructs a former lover to keep walking past her rather than stop and witness her grief, turning a request for distance…

heartbreak concealed by pride self-protection through avoidance public performance of composure

Love of My Life

Queen

A ballad of direct, almost naked pleading, structured as a repeated appeal to a departing lover rather than a story with events.…

romantic loss pleading and supplication devotion despite rejection

Days To Come

Bonobo

This is a soft-focus, incantatory piece built more from sound and image than argument -- a hazy invitation to abandon…

renewal and hope spiritual seeking rejection of materialism/violence

Corrina, Corrina

Mississippi John Hurt

This is Mississippi John Hurt's spare, fingerpicked take on the traditional blues standard "Corrina, Corrina," a song about a…

romantic longing abandonment fidelity despite rejection

Poetic Machine Gun

Buzzcocks

A speaker pitches his own verbal outpouring as a weapon of seduction — a "poetic machine gun" that's supposed to get someone…

failed seduction language as weapon/drug male bravado vs. rejection

Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 3

Pink Floyd

This is the moment PinkInk's protagonist Pink completes his self-imposed isolation, rejecting comfort, chemical or human, as a…

emotional withdrawal self-destruction disguised as independence accumulated trauma

Money (That's What I Want)

The Supremes

This is a cover of Barrett Strong's 1959 Motown founding single, redone by the Supremes as a driving, chant-heavy dance number.…

materialism vs. sentiment economic realism desire and demand

They Say It's Spring

Blossom Dearie

A wry love song that argues against the cliché that romantic feeling is just a seasonal chemical accident. The singer catalogs…

romantic skepticism vs. sincerity nature as false cause seasonal metaphor

Don't Say You Love Me

Free

A blues-rock confession about a relationship built on mutual convenience rather than love, sung by a narrator who admits he let…

loneliness and self-deception transactional intimacy emotional honesty vs. convenient lies

Blueprint

Fugazi

"Blueprint" is Fugazi's manifesto against the music industry's game-playing, delivered as a repeated refusal that gradually…

artistic integrity refusal of commercial games consumer complicity

You Should Probably Leave

Chris Stapleton

A late-night seduction song built on reverse psychology, where the narrator repeats a warning to leave while doing everything…

temptation and self-denial desire versus restraint vulnerability disguised as control

Take Me to the Alley

Gregory Porter

A gospel-inflected ballad that imagines a king or messiah figure rejecting the pomp prepared for his arrival in favor of the…

religious allegory compassion for the marginalized critique of materialism

What's Golden

Jurassic 5

A four-MC posse cut in which Jurassic 5 restate their credo of underground craft over commercial flash. Each rapper takes a…

hip-hop authenticity vs. commercialism craftsmanship and lyricism as value group identity and unity

(I Left My Heart) In San Francisco

Tony Bennett

A wandering singer catalogs the great cities of Europe and the loneliness of New York only to reject them all in favor of one…

homesickness idealized place as beloved urban loneliness

How Strong Is a Woman

Ann Peebles

Ann Peebles takes up a question circulating in early-70s soul and pop culture — who's stronger, men or women — and answers it in…

gender roles and power romantic devotion vs independence strength redefined through love