Results for “sexual repression”

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

Run Like Hell

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

It's a Sin

Pet Shop Boys

A confessional pop song built on the grinding logic of Catholic guilt, where every desire and action the narrator has ever had…

religious guilt internalized shame repression

Sixteen Blue

The Replacements

A quiet, unglamorous portrait of teenage isolation, framed around confusion about sexuality and identity. Instead of anthemic…

adolescent alienation sexual confusion loneliness

Rockin' Daddy

Howlin’ Wolf

A boastful, sexually charged blues in which the singer claims mastery over both the physical act of "rocking" a partner and the…

sexual bravado transactional relationships masculine reputation

Candy Man

Mississippi John Hurt

A rollicking Piedmont blues built entirely on a single, transparent sexual double entendre. Mississippi John Hurt uses the…

sexual innuendo folk humor itinerant male desirability

King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1

Neutral Milk Hotel

An opening track that fuses childhood memory with domestic violence and adolescent sexual awakening, all delivered in a run-on,…

childhood innocence and its loss domestic dysfunction sexual awakening

Golden Gal

Animal Collective

A song built around a half-real, half-mediated female icon glimpsed through screens and reviews, with the narrator working out…

celebrity and mediated desire gender and sexuality fandom as devotion

Nasty Gal

Betty Davis

Betty Davis takes the insults an ex has thrown at her -- witch, alley cat, dirty dog -- and turns them into a badge of honor,…

sexual autonomy reclaiming slurs female desire vs. respectability

Work It

Missy Elliott

Missy Elliott's signature single is a maximalist celebration of sexual confidence and self-invention, built on a literal sonic…

sexual agency self-invention and reinvention female solidarity and hustle

5:15

The Who

A disoriented young man rides a commuter train while his mind fractures into fragments of memory, sexual anxiety, and social…

dissociation and identity collapse adolescent sexuality and shame class and Englishness

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

A Rose Is Still a Rose

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin plays elder counselor to a wounded young woman, using the image of a rose to insist that sexual betrayal doesn't…

self-worth after betrayal intergenerational female solidarity resilience

I Just Want To Make Love To You

Etta James

Etta James takes a Willie Dixon blues lyric written for a male singer and, sung from a woman's voice, turns a checklist of…

desire and domesticity gender role reversal possessiveness dressed as devotion

Traveling Riverside Blues

Robert Johnson

A restless travelogue of the Mississippi Delta juke-joint circuit, this is Robert Johnson at his most physically direct — a…

itinerant desire sexual boasting bondage and debt

Taking It All Too Hard

Genesis

A mid-tempo Genesis album track that watches an ex-partner spiral into self-blame after a breakup, with a narrator who claims…

emotional distancing denial and self-blame breakup aftermath

Mysterons

Portishead

Mysterons opens Dummy with a woozy, disorienting address to someone caught between denial and defiance. Beth Gibbons' vocal…

denial and repression guilt and judgment futility of desire

That Place

Smokey Robinson

This is a late-career Smokey Robinson track built on a single conceit: a lover's body, or more precisely an intimate…

sexual exclusivity possessiveness as devotion intimacy as sanctuary

Loose

The Stooges

A two-minute blast of proto-punk swagger built almost entirely on a single boast repeated until it becomes incantation. The song…

sexual bravado loss of inhibition bodily sensation over meaning

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

Should Have Known Better

Sufjan Stevens

A song about the aftermath of a mother's abandonment and death, staged as a private argument between numbness and the…

maternal abandonment and grief emotional repression childhood memory

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

Outside Woman Blues

Cream

This is Cream's electrified cover of a pre-war country blues (originally by Blind Joe Reynolds), turned into a slow-burning…

sexual jealousy infidelity folk wisdom/proverb

La La Love You

Pixies

A deliberately dumb, bubblegum-pop pastiche sung by drummer David Lovering, this is Pixies parodying the sincerity of teenage…

parody of pop convention adolescent sexuality irony vs sincerity

Voodoo Chile Blues

Jimi Hendrix

This is the slow, extended blues incantation that Hendrix later compressed into 'Voodoo Child (Slight Return),' built around a…

self-mythology supernatural power cosmic/psychedelic imagery

T.V. Eye

The Stooges

This is a song built almost entirely on repetition, groove, and physical grunt rather than narrative or wordplay. It circles a…

voyeurism and being watched sexual desire primal/animal imagery

Drop It Like It's Hot

Snoop Dogg

A minimalist club track built on a single triple-word command that gets reinterpreted verse to verse, moving between seduction,…

status and wealth display sexual conquest street/gang loyalty

Pneumonia

Danny Brown

Pneumonia is a hard, boastful posse-cut-style track from Atrocity Exhibition that trades in rapid-fire flexing about money,…

excess and indulgence hustler bravado sexual conquest

Lola

The Kinks

A wide-eyed young narrator recounts a night at a Soho club where he meets a striking, ambiguous figure named Lola, and the song…

gender ambiguity sexual awakening urban nightlife

Start Me Up

The Rolling Stones

A relentless riff-driven come-on built almost entirely from a single mechanical metaphor: sex as an engine or vehicle that needs…

sexual desire machinery/car imagery as metaphor loss of control

I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)

Jamie xx

This Jamie xx track builds a euphoric, sample-driven dance anthem around a simple mantra of anticipated joy, then hands the mic…

anticipation and collective release hedonism and excess class and hustle

Respect

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin's reworking of a song originally about a working man asking for domestic peace turns it into a declaration of…

self-respect reciprocity in relationships female autonomy

Oh My God

A Tribe Called Quest

A showcase track built almost entirely on braggadocio, wordplay, and interlocking verses from Q-Tip and Phife Dawg, with the…

braggadocio lyrical dexterity group chemistry

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

Honey Bee

Tom Petty

This is Tom Petty in full blues-rock costume, cranking up a swaggering come-on riff with lyrics so absurd they tip into parody.…

parody of blues machismo sexual bravado as performance absurdist humor

Come On In My Kitchen

Robert Johnson

A slow, aching invitation built on a repeated refrain about shelter from rain, the song fuses seduction with mourning for a lost…

loss and abandonment sexual invitation as consolation poverty and hard times

Follow Your Arrow

Kacey Musgraves

A catalog of no-win social judgments builds into a plainspoken anthem for living by one's own compass rather than trying to…

double standards sexual and social freedom religious hypocrisy

Righteously

Lucinda Williams

A woman lays out terms for a lover who confuses aggression with masculinity, insisting that tenderness and respect are the real…

masculinity and its performance sexual respect and reciprocity desire coexisting with frustration

Lose Control

Missy Elliott

This is a call-and-response club track built almost entirely as choreography instructions and hype-man ad-libs, with the thesis…

surrender to rhythm bodily confidence collective release

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