Results for “survival”

Songs

The Cutter

Echo & the Bunnymen

A dense, incantatory piece of post-punk imagery in which the speaker pleads for mercy from some undefined judging or cutting…

self-doubt judgment and punishment survival

Corona

Minutemen

A terse, two-minute political sketch that moves from a stark statement about poverty and inherited injustice to a small, almost…

economic inequality inherited guilt survival

Pink + White

Frank Ocean

A soft, wandering meditation on maternal love and mortality, built around the image of a hurricane and the small acts of…

maternal love survival and resilience impermanence

The Unsinkable Fats Domino

Guided By Voices

A cryptic, riddling GBV track that uses Fats Domino's real-life survival of Hurricane Katrina as an emblem of resilience, then…

survival and resilience flood/water imagery as threat and purification fame versus obscurity

London Calling

The Clash

A blitzkrieg of apocalyptic headlines delivered as a radio broadcast, "London Calling" imagines a city besieged by nuclear…

nuclear anxiety urban decay disillusionment with youth culture

The Midnight Special

Creedence Clearwater Revival

CCR's take on this traditional American folk-blues song reworks a prison-camp lament into a swampy rock anthem, keeping its cast…

incarceration and forced labor folk tradition and inheritance longing for deliverance

Paid In Full

Eric B.

This is the title track and origin document of hip-hop's most sampled record, a first-person account of a hustler talking…

hustling and survival redemption through legitimate work the music industry as a means of escape

Feel Alright

Steve Earle

A defiant survivor's anthem in which the narrator refuses to be pitied or contained, casting himself as a storyteller-outlaw…

survival and defiance inherited identity addiction and recovery

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

Mannish Boy

Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters restages his own 1955 declaration of manhood as a late-career victory lap, spelling out the word itself to leave no…

masculinity and self-definition aging and vitality racial dignity ('man' vs 'boy')

When We Get By

D'Angelo

A slow-groove love song built almost entirely from a single circling phrase, promising that romantic devotion is enough to…

romantic devotion as survival domestic intimacy sensuality

C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)

Wu‐Tang Clan

Two verses from Raekwon and Inspectah Deck lay out parallel autobiographies of poverty, hustling, and incarceration in…

economic desperation and survival the school-to-prison pipeline urban poverty in New York

That Lonesome Road

James Taylor

A spare, almost proverbial song about walking away from a failed relationship or a bad chapter of life, addressed as much to the…

self-recrimination forward motion as survival regret

A Change Is Gonna Come

Sam Cooke

A first-person testimony of endurance under racial oppression, built around a single hope that refuses to die even as evidence…

racial injustice endurance faith and doubt

Ms. Jackson

OutKast

An apology addressed to a hostile mother-in-law figure that keeps curdling into self-justification, "Ms. Jackson" turns the…

fractured families co-parenting and custody conflict accountability vs. resentment

Crossroads

Cream

Cream's version compresses Robert Johnson's Delta blues into a lean, high-velocity rock performance, turning a song about…

isolation spiritual desperation the blues tradition