Results for “survivor's guilt and self-implication”

Songs

Self Control

Frank Ocean

A wistful, fragmented account of a fading summer romance that never quite resolved into anything permanent, sung from the…

unrequited or asymmetrical desire nostalgia for a shared past that never fully existed self-restraint and its collapse

Borderline (An Ode to Self Care)

Solange

A hushed, weary meditation on withdrawal as an act of love, this A Seat at the Table track frames stepping back from public and…

burnout and self-care solidarity under pressure the personal as political

Funeral

Phoebe Bridgers

A young singer confronts grief secondhand—preparing to sing at a funeral for a peer—while narrating her own chronic depression…

depression grief and guilt dissociation

Street Struck

Big L

Big L delivers a first-person cautionary account of Harlem street life, warning listeners against the seductive pull of drug…

street violence and its consequences the lure of fast money wasted talent and lost potential

All Apologies

Nirvana

A closing statement of exhaustion dressed as a lullaby, where the singer offers blanket apology and self-erasure instead of…

self-effacement marriage and domesticity guilt and blame

Bigmouth Strikes Again

The Smiths

A serial motormouth apologizes for cruel things he's said, then dramatically inflates his guilt by comparing himself to a martyr…

guilt and self-loathing comic martyrdom the damage of words

Hot & Heavy

Lucy Dacus

Lucy Dacus revisits an old, formative relationship with a former self who has since become someone else entirely — more…

nostalgia and revisitation growth and self-transformation guilt and self-protection

Bird On a Wire

Leonard Cohen

A confession and an apology run together as the speaker compares himself to a series of unstable, straining images to explain…

freedom versus commitment guilt and self-forgiveness instability of the self

Anti-Hero

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift turns a self-lacerating confessional into a singalong chorus, cataloguing her worst self-perceptions—insomnia,…

self-loathing and self-awareness fame and disproportion fear of abandonment

Don't Follow

Alice in Chains

A stripped-down acoustic confession from a narrator who insists on leaving while quietly begging to be brought back. The song…

addiction and self-destruction isolation vs. longing for home guilt and self-recrimination

All Falls Down

Kanye West Tribute Band

A meditation on materialism and insecurity in Black American life, built around a fictional college dropout in the first verse…

consumerism as compensation racial economic inequality self-consciousness and insecurity

The Watcher

Dr. Dre

This is Dr. Dre's meditation on survival and disillusionment as a founding figure in gangsta rap, looking back on the genre and…

aging out of gangsta life surveillance and self-protection survivor's guilt and disillusionment

Girlfriend In a Coma

The Smiths

A miniature comic-tragic monologue in which a narrator processes the possible death of a partner while confessing, almost…

guilt and ambivalence in intimate relationships mortality treated with dark comedy emotional repression and denial

We'll Sweep Out the Ashes In the Morning

Gram Parsons

A duet-style country ballad about an affair both parties know is doomed, built entirely around a single fire-and-ashes metaphor.…

forbidden love self-deception temporary pleasure vs. consequence

Temptation

New Order

A dance-pop track built from disconnected emotional fragments rather than a linear story, this song stages the anxiety of desire…

romantic infatuation loss of self guilt and betrayal

You Know I'm No Good

Amy Winehouse

A confessional soul number in which the narrator catalogues her own infidelities and self-sabotage inside a volatile…

infidelity self-sabotage guilt and shame

Babylon

SZA

A confessional spiral built around the image of crucifixion, where SZA frames self-destructive behavior and guilt as a kind of…

guilt and self-punishment distrust and isolation romantic sabotage

Hand of Kindness

Richard Thompson

A first-person account of self-sabotage—hanging, shipwrecking, sabotaging one's own vehicle of escape—that keeps circling back…

self-destruction dependence on others redemption/salvation

Burning

The War on Drugs

Burning is a mid-album meditation on self-recrimination and endurance inside a fraying relationship, sung from a narrator who…

self-doubt emotional survival relational guilt

I Am a Scientist

Guided by Voices

A short, deceptively simple lo-fi anthem in which the narrator cycles through professional identities—scientist, journalist,…

self-examination addiction and escape art as self-medication

Kevin's Heart

J. Cole

J. Cole builds a confessional about infidelity around a strained pun on actor Kevin Hart, whose public cheating scandal becomes…

infidelity and guilt addiction as metaphor for compulsive behavior self-loathing and identity fracture

Every Time the Sun Comes Up

Sharon Van Etten

This is Sharon Van Etten at her loosest and most winking, a track built on a single sardonic refrain about self-sabotage rather…

self-sabotage domestic disorder irony and deflection

All My Favorite Songs

Weezer

A catalog of small self-contradictions strung together into a chorus of self-diagnosis, this song treats confusion about one's…

self-contradiction anxiety and self-diagnosis ambivalence toward pleasure

Machine Gun

Portishead

A stark meditation on self-recrimination dressed as spiritual crisis, delivered over one of the coldest, most mechanical beats…

guilt and self-blame failed salvation isolation

Barely Legal

The Strokes

A slack, half-confessional monologue about a lopsided romance where guilt, desire, and self-sabotage tangle together without…

failed responsibility desire and control guilt and self-justification

Shake It Out

Florence + the Machine

A confessional anthem about trying to physically expel guilt and self-recrimination, built around the image of dancing off a…

guilt and self-forgiveness cyclical regret catharsis through movement

Me and My Husband

Mitski

A brief, waltz-like song that frames marriage not as romance but as a bulwark against mortality and self-loathing. The…

mortality and impermanence self-erasure marriage as survival strategy

Hold Ya Head

The Notorious B.I.G.

This is Biggie's bleakest first-person confession, a suicidal monologue framed by a mournful sample of a mother grieving her…

suicidal ideation self-loathing street violence and its aftermath

Sludge Factory

Alice in Chains

A brutal, drug-fogged monologue that treats addiction and codependency as an abusive relationship, with the addicted narrator…

addiction and dependency codependent relationships self-destruction

That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate

Mission of Burma

A terse post-punk breakup song built around the logic of self-preservation dressed up as generosity. The narrator frames pushing…

self-justification guilt and denial independence vs. abandonment

Selah

Lauryn Hill

A confessional prayer set to a slow, mournful groove, tracing a narrator's spiral of self-deception and shame before a religious…

self-deception shame and guilt addiction to illusion

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

Crystal

New Order

A guitar-driven return-to-form track that treats romantic fragility as both confession and defiance, opening an album that…

fragility of love guilt and betrayal emotional dependency

Live Oak

Jason Isbell

A murder ballad disguised as a confession of self-improvement, in which the narrator's claim to have left his violent past…

duality of self violence and love intertwined addiction as haunting past self

Turn Out the Lights

Julien Baker

A quiet, unflinching account of a mind alone at night, where the speaker admits to self-harm ideation without melodrama and asks…

depression and isolation self-harm ideation asking for help while deflecting it

Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales

Car Seat Headrest

A meditation on addiction, self-destruction, and the possibility of change, filtered through the recurring image of driving…

addiction and self-destruction shame and self-loathing the possibility of redemption

Miss Misery

Elliott Smith

A stripped-down confession of failed self-repair, written for the film Good Will Hunting but functioning as a self-contained…

self-medication and denial romantic abandonment performed resilience

Boats to Build

Guy Clark

Guy Clark turns the craft of boatbuilding into a meditation on making a life with your own hands and getting on with it before…

mortality and urgency craftsmanship as self-definition self-reliance

Coming Up Roses

Elliott Smith

A hallucinatory address to a self or double, tracking a slow poisoning that the speaker frames as a kind of blooming. The song…

addiction and self-destruction dissociation from the self toxic inheritance

Reason to Believe

Karen Dalton

Karen Dalton's reading of the Tim Hardin standard turns a folk-pop lament into something closer to a slow reckoning with…

self-deception emotional dependency betrayal