Results for “revenge fantasy”

Songs

Fantasy

Mariah Carey

A buoyant celebration of infatuation that lives entirely in the space between attraction and consummation, where the pleasure…

infatuation escapism desire and daydream

Sometimes a Fantasy

Billy Joel

A driving new-wave rocker about phone sex and the loneliness that drives someone to it, dressed up in a jittery, almost…

loneliness desire and substitution shame versus need

Paranoid Android

Radiohead

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

Needles and Pins

Ramones

A cover of the 1963 Jack Nitzsche/Sonny Bono pop-soul standard, reworked by the Ramones into buzzsaw punk while keeping its…

heartbreak wounded pride denial

These Boots Are Made for Walking

The Supremes

A woman lays out an ultimatum to a partner who has been cheating and lying, using the image of walking boots as both threat and…

infidelity female defiance revenge

Karma Police

Radiohead

A speaker invokes a childhood fantasy of cosmic justice to punish people who irritate him, then realizes partway through that…

petty vindictiveness corporate/institutional conformity self-recognition and guilt

It's Good to Be King

Tom Petty

Tom Petty builds a wry daydream around the fantasy of absolute power and ease, using the language of royalty as a stand-in for…

escapism fantasy vs reality longing for control

Everybody's Talkin'

Harry Nilsson

A song about tuning out the noise of other people in favor of an interior fantasy of motion and escape. Written by Fred Neil and…

alienation escape/wanderlust isolation amid crowds

Surfing On a Rocket

Air

A minimalist space-flight fantasy that doubles as a meditation on departure and dissolution, sung with the breezy detachment Air…

escape and departure transcendence romantic reassurance vs. abandonment

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

luther

Kendrick Lamar

Built around a Luther Vandross/Cheryl Lynn duet sample, this GNX track finds Kendrick trading his usual combative persona for…

romantic devotion escapism through fantasy protection and provision

Neon Knights

Black Sabbath

This is Black Sabbath's opening statement with a new singer, and it plays like a mission statement disguised as…

heroic fantasy renewal/rebirth good versus evil

Ghetto Dreams

Common

Common builds a composite fantasy of a woman who fuses hood authenticity with high-end glamour, verse by verse assembling and…

idealized femininity as class fantasy hood authenticity versus upward mobility female strength shadowed by objectification

The W.A.N.D.

The Flaming Lips

A funky, riff-driven anthem that dresses up a political fantasy of taking down authoritarian power in the language of magic…

power vs. greed collective resistance fantasy as political metaphor

In the Sun

Blondie

A breezy, almost novelty-pop daydream in which the singer imagines escaping gray urban New York for a sunlit, surf-and-luau…

escapism urban alienation fantasy vs. reality

Next Lifetime

Erykah Badu

A woman confesses to an overwhelming attraction to someone who isn't her partner, and instead of acting on it, she defers the…

temptation fidelity vs desire self-restraint

Ramble On

Led Zeppelin

A wandering-troubadour song that fuses restless road-life imagery with an unexpected detour into Tolkien fantasy, using the…

restlessness and wanderlust romantic quest fantasy/myth as metaphor

Happy Hour

Weezer

A song about using a nightly ritual of drinking and socializing to paper over daytime stress and depression, dressed up in…

escapism work stress and burnout self-medication

Winter Wonderland / Sleigh Ride

Dolly Parton

This is a medley of two Christmas standards, spliced together into one seasonal set piece rather than an original composition.…

courtship and domestic fantasy seasonal ritual nostalgia

I'd Like That

XTC

A cascade of small domestic and historical fantasies stacked into one long conditional wish, this song imagines romantic…

romantic devotion role-play and historical fantasy growth through love

Rolling in the Deep

Adele

A breakup anthem that transforms grief into a threat, built on gospel-inflected repetition and a rising, percussive arrangement.…

betrayal and revenge transformation of pain into power lost potential

Fancy Clown

Madvillain

A jealous, wounded rant against a cheating lover and her new partner, delivered as a broken phone call full of accusation, petty…

betrayal and infidelity masculine pride and possessiveness petty revenge

Scandalous

Prince

A slow-burn seduction track built almost entirely around anticipation, in which the narrator promises total sexual surrender to…

erotic surrender impatience and urgency fantasy fulfillment

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

Scarlet Town

Gillian Welch

A traveler recounts a journey to a mythic, menacing place called Scarlet Town, where hospitality curdles into betrayal and…

betrayal mortality folk/ballad inheritance

By the River

Aesop Rock

A meandering, list-like meditation on rivers that uses the image as a container for memory, mortality, and imagination. Aesop…

mortality and grief memory and nostalgia escapism/fantasy

Deep Down In Florida

Muddy Waters

A loose, sun-warmed travel blues in which Muddy Waters imagines an escape south to Florida, framing relaxation, an old…

escape and leisure nostalgia and old friendships domestic contentment

Come Live with Me Angel

Marvin Gaye

A slow-burning seduction song built almost entirely on a single proposition: move in with me. Marvin Gaye layers a soft, almost…

seduction and desire domestic fantasy emotional vulnerability masked as pleasure-seeking

The Hardest Part

Blondie

A heist narrative told through the mechanics and hardware of an armored car robbery rather than through character or motive.…

crime and heist fantasy machinery and industrial imagery greed and money

Beethoven (I Love To Listen)

Eurythmics

A propulsive, largely nonsensical dance-pop chant built around the fetishized repetition of a single composer's name,…

obsessive repetition performance and artifice gendered desire and control

It Ain't Me Babe

Joan Baez

A Bob Dylan composition performed here by Joan Baez, the song is a firm, almost gentle refusal of an idealized love that demands…

refusal of idealized love autonomy versus self-erasure disillusionment with romantic fantasy

I'm Still Standing

Elton John

A breakup anthem built entirely around defiant repetition, where the narrator addresses an ex directly to declare emotional…

resilience revenge through self-sufficiency emotional survival

C.C. Rider

Lead Belly

Lead Belly's take on the traditional "C.C. Rider" blues strips the song down to its call-and-response bones: a rolling…

betrayal and desire itinerant love (the "rider" figure) sexual boasting and fantasy

Cold Sweat

Thin Lizzy

A gambler's monologue delivered as tense, driving hard rock, built around the physical sensation of nervous sweat rather than…

risk and compulsion masculine bravado poverty and escape fantasy

Girls

Beastie Boys

A cartoonishly juvenile chant dressed up as a party anthem, built on a nursery-rhyme hook and a rambling anecdote about a…

adolescent bravado misogyny as performance comic self-deprecation

Apeman

The Kinks

A satirical music-hall romp in which the narrator renounces modern civilization's pretensions and declares himself happier as a…

anti-civilization satire environmental anxiety nuclear dread

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

Penthouse Pauper

Creedence Clearwater Revival

A blues-boogie boast built on a string of hypothetical superlatives collapses into an ironic punchline: the speaker claims he'd…

braggadocio and its deflation poverty vs. imagined status irony of self-invention

Affirmative Action

Nas

This is a mafioso-rap posse cut in which Nas, alongside his Firm collaborators, trades the political/street-prophet voice he's…

organized crime as fantasy/roleplay materialism and status display loyalty and betrayal within a crew

Mushaboom

Feist

Mushaboom is a domestic daydream sung from the gap between a cramped present and an imagined rural future. Feist narrates a life…

domestic fantasy vs. present reality aspiration and patience rural retreat