Results for “seduction as ideology”

Songs

Politician Man

Betty Davis

A raw funk vamp that turns the language of politics into an extended sexual come-on, with Davis playing a swaggering seductress…

sexual power and control satire of political rhetoric female sexual agency

FALLINLOVE2NITE

Prince

A one-night invitation dressed up as a love song, built almost entirely around a single seductive refrain. Prince stages a…

seduction romantic urgency escapism

I'm a King Bee

Muddy Waters

This is a blues standard built entirely on an insect conceit: the singer casts himself as a bee and his desired partner as a…

sexual boasting seduction male virility

Hot Thing

Talib Kweli

A breezy, radio-ready love-and-lust song built around a repeated hook praising a woman's heat and appeal. Talib Kweli trades his…

desire and attraction romantic idealization pop culture reference as flattery

Angeles

Elliott Smith

A quiet, corrosive warning song addressed to someone being courted by fame and the music industry, personified as a seductive…

temptation and corruption the music industry as predator loss of autonomy

This Charming Man

The Smiths

A stranded young man with a broken bicycle is picked up by an older, wealthier stranger, and the encounter becomes a charged,…

class anxiety closeted desire vanity and self-consciousness

Shot By Both Sides

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

Lay, Lady, Lay

Bob Dylan

A gentle, direct invitation to a lover to stay the night, sung in a warm, unhurried voice that marks a sharp turn from Dylan's…

seduction and invitation domesticity urgency vs. patience

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

Spanish Moon

Little Feat

A late-night narrator wanders into a seedy nightclub called the Spanish Moon and finds himself pawning his possessions to keep…

seduction and ruin vice and nightlife music as intoxicant

Jeepster

T. Rex

A glam-rock come-on that fuses car culture, cosmic imagery, and vampire slang into a single boastful seduction. Marc Bolan…

desire and objectification glamour of consumer culture (cars) seduction as performance

Thriller

Michael Jackson

A horror-movie pastiche built as a seduction, where the terror on screen and the terror of intimacy blur together. The song…

horror as seduction voyeurism and spectacle predator/prey dynamics

Blackwaterside

Sandy Denny

This is a traditional British/Irish folk ballad given a spare, haunting reading by Sandy Denny, in which a woman recounts…

seduction and betrayal female shame and defiance broken promises

Who's Zoomin' Who?

Aretha Franklin

A mid-80s dance-pop track built around a single street-slang question: who's manipulating whom in a game of seduction. Aretha…

romantic gamesmanship female agency and self-possession seduction as strategy

Sumthin' Sumthin': Mellosmoothe (Cut)

Maxwell

This is a stripped-down, mostly instrumental-feeling neo-soul seduction piece built from fragments rather than full verses. It…

desire and seduction emotional guardedness persistence versus reciprocity

Evil

Interpol

A murky, incantatory song built around two women's names -- Rosemary and Sandy -- that Interpol never fully reconciles into a…

complicity and denial seduction as manipulation guilt and judgment

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

As the World Falls Down

David Bowie

A courtly, almost hypnotic love song written for the film Labyrinth, in which the speaker offers cosmic gifts to a beloved while…

seduction and enchantment love as surrender impermanence

Lay Lady Lay

Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes takes Dylan's spare, folk-country invitation and rebuilds it as a slow-burning soul seduction, stretching the…

seduction and invitation patience and waiting domestic intimacy

In the Mood

Talib Kweli

A loose-limbed party track built around braggadocio and seduction, where Talib Kweli shifts between flirtatious come-ons, boasts…

seduction and courtship artistic superiority authenticity vs. performance

California Roll

Snoop Dogg

A breezy, sun-drenched ode to Los Angeles life that runs its title's double meaning -- rolling a joint and 'going with the flow'…

California/L.A. mythology cannabis culture seduction and courtship

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

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

Sexy Boy

Air

A woozy, vocoder-warped taunt built almost entirely out of one phrase, "Sexy Boy" pokes at masculine vanity and celebrity…

vanity and self-image celebrity and consumerism irony versus seduction

Revolution

Grandaddy

This is a cover of the Beatles' 1968 track, not a Grandaddy original, recorded for the I Am Sam soundtrack, which reimagined…

political skepticism individual vs collective change distrust of ideology

Batdance

Prince

A collage rather than a song, this track stitches film dialogue samples, chant-like hooks, and rapid genre-shifting funk into a…

identity and masquerade seduction and menace media spectacle

I Want You (Vocal)

Marvin Gaye

A slow-burning plea for mutual desire, built almost entirely on repetition of a single wish stated and restated until it becomes…

unreciprocated desire longing for mutuality vulnerability in seduction

La Femme d'argent

Air

An eight-minute instrumental that opens Air's debut album, built on a hypnotic bassline, layered analog keyboards, and a…

retro-futurism seduction and mystery nocturnal drift

Ice Cream Man

Van Halen

A cover of John Brim's blues novelty tune, retooled by Van Halen as a live, stage-patter-heavy party anthem. The song trades on…

seduction as commerce summer as sexual awakening showmanship/performance

Eye Know

De La Soul

"Eye Know" is De La Soul's sunniest love song, built on a Steely Dan sample and playful Daisy Age slang. Both Posdnuos and…

courtship and seduction wordplay as intimacy group identity and self-naming

Paradise Circus

Massive Attack

A slow-burning meditation on desire as self-inflicted damage, built from a handful of repeated images—storms, sin, flame,…

desire and self-destruction moral ambivalence addiction to feeling

All Right Now (Single)

Free

A blues-rock pickup story stripped to its essentials: a street encounter, a home invitation, a moment of resistance, and a…

seduction and courtship male bravado reassurance versus persuasion

Billie Jean

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

I Love a Man In a Uniform

Gang of Four

A first-person portrait of a man who joins the military not out of conviction but as a solution to unemployment, lost…

militarism as consumer choice economic desperation masculinity and self-worth

Soothe My Soul

Depeche Mode

A blues-electro stalker's chant built almost entirely around a single fixation: sexual compulsion framed as addiction and…

obsession addiction desire as compulsion

Magic Dance

David Bowie

A propulsive novelty-funk number written for the film Labyrinth, in which a chant-like spell is cast to soothe a crying infant…

childhood fear transformation through play ritual and incantation

Visionz

Wu‐Tang Clan

A dense, freestyle-driven posse cut where multiple Wu-Tang voices trade abstract, violent, and pop-culture-saturated verses that…

apocalyptic imagery street violence as metaphor Five Percenter/Nation of Gods and Earths ideology

I Want Your Sex, Pts. 1 & 2

George Michael

George Michael turns a single, blunt demand into a sustained argument about desire, patience, and monogamy, dressing up a simple…

sexual desire and frustration persuasion and rhetoric monogamy versus promiscuity

Sail Away

Randy Newman

Randy Newman voices a slave trader luring West Africans onto a ship bound for Charleston with a mock-seductive sales pitch about…

slavery and the slave trade American exceptionalism as propaganda irony and complicity

Feel Like Makin' Love

Roberta Flack

A slow-building meditation on desire that treats ordinary moments — a walk, a candlelit dinner, a touch — as triggers for…

desire and intimacy the sensuality of the ordinary seasonal renewal as metaphor