Results for “survival and denial”

Songs

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

Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely

Hüsker Dü

A breakup song built on a contradiction: the narrator claims he wants distance from an ex-partner but keeps monitoring her…

ambivalence after a breakup emotional self-protection denial

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

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

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

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

See No Evil

Television

The opening track of Marquee Moon works as a manifesto of pure appetite and willful blindness, its narrator declaring immediate…

desire and impatience willful ignorance denial of consequence

Running Up That Hill

Kate Bush

A song about the gulf of misunderstanding between two lovers, imagined as something so vast it could only be closed by a…

miscommunication in intimacy empathy and its limits bargaining with fate

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

Flagship

Jason Isbell

A song about watching long marriages calcify and making a private, almost superstitious vow not to let that happen to your own.…

marital decay willed devotion nostalgia

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

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')

Something In The Way

Nirvana

A hushed, almost inert closer to Nevermind that trades the album's loud-quiet-loud dynamics for a single sustained murmur. The…

isolation destitution moral numbness

Cranes in the Sky

Solange

Solange catalogs every failed strategy for numbing an unnamed grief or unease, building a list of avoidance tactics before…

avoidance and denial emotional exhaustion consumerism as coping mechanism

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

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

Things I Miss the Most

Steely Dan

A recently divorced narrator insists he's fine with solitude, then keeps undercutting himself by cataloguing everything lost —…

divorce and its aftermath denial versus admission materialism as emotional substitute

This Ain't No Picnic

Minutemen

A short, blunt punk song about wage labor as a form of daily indignity. The narrator describes clocking in and out for a boss he…

wage labor and exploitation class resentment dignity versus survival

Love Galore

SZA

Love Galore is SZA's clipped, cool-voiced meditation on wanting intimacy without wanting the vulnerability that comes with it.…

emotional detachment as self-protection transactional intimacy power and control in casual relationships

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

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

I Don't Want to Know

Fleetwood Mac

A folk-rock kiss-off built on willful avoidance: the narrator insists they won't ask why a relationship is ending, framing that…

denial as self-protection romantic exhaustion emotional withholding

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

Liar

Built to Spill

A meditation on obsessive thinking and the indifference of the natural world, built around a repeated denial that functions…

obsessive thought indifference of nature anxiety over decision-making

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

Float On

Modest Mouse

A catalogue of everyday mishaps—fender benders, cons, firings, verbal blunders—gets deflated by a chorus that refuses to treat…

resilience through indifference everyday misfortune collective endurance

Nothing Ever Happened

Deerhunter

A short, hypnotic piece about emotional numbness and passive existence, built on a repeated denial that anything of substance…

dissociation passivity time and memory

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