Results for “survival instinct”

Songs

Beat It

Michael Jackson

A pulsing anti-violence anthem disguised as a street-fight taunt: the title's double meaning lets the song urge retreat from…

peer pressure toxic masculinity violence and its futility

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

Wordless Chorus

My Morning Jacket

This opening track from Z announces a stylistic pivot for My Morning Jacket, trading reverb-soaked murk for something clearer…

loss of instinct commercialism vs. authenticity self-reinvention

The Healer

John Lee Hooker

This is less a song than a testimony delivered over a slow-burning groove: John Lee Hooker declares the blues itself a curative…

the blues as spiritual medicine suffering and survival heartbreak and abandonment

Fight the Power (From "Do The Right Thing" Soundtrack)

Public Enemy

A rallying anthem built on funk breaks and blunt sloganeering, the track argues that Black cultural pride and outright refusal…

Black pride and self-determination media and cultural gatekeeping collective action versus passivity

Bring It on Home to Me

B.B. King

This is less a song than a spoken monologue set to guitar, in which B.B. King explains his relationship to his guitar, Lucille,…

companionship and loneliness music as confession survival and near-death experience

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

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

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

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

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

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')

KILL DEM

Jamie xx

KILL DEM is less a song with a plot than a piece of dancehall-derived sound sculpture, built from a stuttering patois vocal…

violence as ritual/rhythm paranoia and evasion dancehall/soundsystem lineage

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

Dashboard

Modest Mouse

Modest Mouse builds a shaky optimism out of wreckage imagery, insisting that even a broken-down vehicle still gets you…

near-disaster and survival willed optimism emotional evasiveness

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

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

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

Kirby

Aesop Rock

A song built entirely around addressing a cat named Kirby, whose small, absurd domestic behaviors become a lens for talking…

companionship as coping mechanism mental illness and medication domesticity

When It Rain

Danny Brown

A relentless portrait of Detroit street violence set to a hyper-fast, footwork-inspired beat, where the manic tempo and…

urban poverty and survival violence and fatalism addiction as coping mechanism

Bring Da Ruckus

Wu‐Tang Clan

The opening track of Enter the Wu-Tang stages hip-hop as martial arts combat, with each MC treating the microphone like a weapon…

martial arts mythology as metaphor for lyrical combat collective identity vs individual bravado urban violence and street survival

Celebrate

Common

A party track built around a repeated chant of togetherness and excess, where Common trades his usual introspection for…

celebration and excess loyalty among friends upward mobility

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

Blindness

The Fall

This is a plainspoken cautionary tale about romantic self-deception: a man ignores his own instincts, falls hard for a woman who…

self-deception romantic ruin pride and consequence

One Day At a Time

Merle Haggard

This is a plainspoken gospel prayer sung from a position of exhaustion and humility, asking for the strength to survive the…

religious surrender humility and human limitation present-moment endurance

Bury Our Friends

Sleater‐Kinney

A comeback anthem that treats survival as a physical, almost surgical process — a body being stitched back together and forced…

reinvention and self-repair fame and visibility collective anxiety/dread

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

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

We the People....

A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest opens their comeback album with a song that fuses street-level survival talk with a chorus that mimics the…

racism and xenophobia economic precarity media distortion

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

Simulation Swarm

Big Thief

A hazy, image-drenched love song that treats intimacy as something both cosmic and fragile, staged inside a metaphor of the…

impermanence and renewal love as refuge from unreality memory and childhood