Results for “the consolations of art”

Songs

Art School

The Jam

A blast of punk-era sloganeering that treats the art school as a metaphor for total creative and social permission. The Jam…

youthful self-assertion anti-authoritarianism media distrust

My Little Town (with Art Garfunkel)

Paul Simon

A bitter recollection of a suffocating hometown, stripped of color and possibility, sung as a reunion piece by Simon and…

small-town claustrophobia loss of faith inherited identity

That Girl Could Sing

Jackson Browne

A meditation on an elusive woman remembered less for who she was than for what her voice could do -- a song that turns the…

idealization vs reality impermanence the consolations of art

The Song Is Over

The Who

A meditation on the end of a love affair that doubles as a meditation on the end of a piece of music itself, where the singer's…

loss and acceptance art as transcendence dissolution of self

It's Getting Late In the Evening

Talk Talk

A brief, hymn-like piece built around a single nautical metaphor: setting sail into an uncertain sky while insisting that a…

exile and displacement faith versus self-deception collective salvation

On Melancholy Hill

Gorillaz

A hushed, drifting love song built from a handful of dreamlike images rather than a plot. The narrator offers companionship as a…

longing and consolation escapism isolation within intimacy

My Journey to the Sky

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

This is a spiritual built on a single, insistent wish: to reach heaven and behold Jesus face to face. Beneath its consoling…

longing for heaven solitude and abandonment faith as consolation

Shahdaroba

Roy Orbison

Orbison builds a consoling mantra around an invented, exotic-sounding word, framing heartbreak as something to be endured rather…

consolation after loss fate and acceptance exoticism as escapism

Right Here

The Go-Betweens

A song of consolation addressed to a woman worn down by a failed relationship, offered by a speaker who positions himself as…

emotional exhaustion consolation and care gendered heartbreak

Don't Let It Bring You Down

Annie Lennox

This is a Neil Young cover Annie Lennox transforms into a bleak urban nocturne, stringing together images of death and…

urban decay mortality indifference of the city

Hey Jude

The Beatles

A gentle, direct address to someone in pain gradually widens into a communal, wordless singalong that enacts the very…

consolation and encouragement fear of vulnerability transformation through repetition

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Ella Fitzgerald

A holiday standard that consoles more than it celebrates, this version leans on the song's built-in ambivalence: a promise of…

separation and longing deferred hope wartime-era consolation

Ocean Breathes Salty

Modest Mouse

A slippery meditation on death, disbelief, and the failure of consolation, addressed to someone who has died and may not be able…

death and mourning religious doubt emotional detachment as defense

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

Pacifics (From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack “N.Y. Is Red Hot")

Digable Planets

Digable Planets turn a Sunday in New York into an extended meditation on rest, community, and creative replenishment, moving…

urban leisure and rest Black cultural inheritance (jazz, literature, hip-hop lineage) community and belonging

Shadowboxin'

Gza

A dense, boastful piece of Wu-Tang battle rap in which GZA frames lyrical dominance as martial art, layering kung-fu movie…

lyrical supremacy martial-arts discipline as metaphor brotherhood/crew loyalty

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

I'll Fight

Wilco

A stark chant-driven monologue in which a speaker pledges escalating sacrifice—going, fighting, killing, dying—for an unnamed…

sacrifice and its cost devotion versus self-erasure religious martyrdom

Max Ernst

Mission of Burma

Mission of Burma turns the Surrealist painter Max Ernst into both subject and method, building a song out of collaged,…

art and irrationality collage and fragmentation the outsider artist

The God That Failed

IDLES

A terse, hymn-like post-punk dirge that stages a confrontation between someone's inherited religious faith and the raw fact of…

religious disillusionment grief and loss inherited faith versus lived experience

Everything Must Change

Nina Simone

A meditation on impermanence set as a slow, incantatory song rather than a story. Simone (performing a standard she didn't…

impermanence time and aging acceptance

In Bloom

Nirvana

A song built on a sneer disguised as a singalong: Cobain sketches a fan who loves the band's melodies but misses everything…

misreading of art mainstream co-optation loss of innocence

Better Things

The Kinks

A direct-address toast to someone going through hard times, built almost entirely from blessing and reassurance rather than…

resilience hope as choice leaving the past behind

Who Scared You (Recorded at Elektra Studios, 1969)

The Doors

A loose, blues-inflected fragment that circles a single question—what happened to you before I met you—without ever answering…

damage and its origins seduction as consolation escape through intoxication

Watch the Sunrise

Big Star

A gentle, hymn-like closer built on a single reassurance: fear can be released and morning can be trusted. Chris Bell's…

reassurance and comfort spiritual or quasi-religious feeling renewal

Ghosts Again

Depeche Mode

A meditation on mortality and impermanence dressed in soft, dreamlike imagery, written and released in the shadow of a…

mortality and impermanence grief and remembrance spiritual uncertainty

Into the West

Annie Lennox

A lullaby that doubles as a threshold song, easing a weary listener toward death by reframing it as a sea voyage home. Written…

death as departure comfort and consolation memory and the afterlife

Something More Than Free

Jason Isbell

A working-class narrator describes his days through the rhythm of manual labor, framing exhaustion and diminished expectation as…

labor and class faith as consolation resignation vs. dignity

The Way You Look Tonight

Billie Holiday

A standard from the Kern-Fields songbook, delivered here as a hushed, intimate meditation rather than a big romantic…

romantic devotion memory as consolation vulnerability

Here Comes the Sun

The Beatles

A short, plain-spoken song of relief that uses weather as the entire vocabulary for emotional recovery. It never explains what…

renewal relief after hardship seasonal metaphor

Mean Old World

Sam Cooke

A slow, blues-based lament on solitude, built from a single insistent refrain that circles rather than progresses. Cooke uses…

loneliness longing for love emotional isolation

I'm Going Home

Hank Williams

A deathbed testimony song in which a dying believer comforts an onlooker by reframing death as homecoming. Hank Williams…

death and salvation religious comfort acceptance of mortality

I'll Be Seeing You

Billie Holiday

A standard from the World War II era, delivered here as a hushed vow of remembrance rather than a jaunty farewell. Holiday turns…

separation and longing memory as consolation wartime parting

Me Myself and I

De La Soul

De La Soul use a mirror-gazing conceit to push back against critics and industry types who wanted to pigeonhole them as hippies…

individuality vs. conformity authenticity in art resistance to stereotyping

Will the Circle Be Unbroken

Mississippi John Hurt

This is Mississippi John Hurt's spare, guitar-picked reading of the Carter Family standard, stripping the hymn down to a single…

grief and mourning death and the afterlife family loss

It's Alright

Seal

A loose, feel-good soul number built almost entirely on reassurance -- the title phrase repeats as both comfort and command,…

reassurance and consolation communal joy romantic hope

Welcome to the Machine

Pink Floyd

A synthetic, industrial voice greets a young rock aspirant with false warmth, revealing that his entire trajectory—rebellion,…

commodification of art loss of individuality the music industry as machine

Almost Blue

Chet Baker

A torch song built entirely on approximation, where the singer tries to substitute one person for a lost love and finds every…

substitution and self-deception grief disguised as romance emotional numbness

Red Guitar

Cassandra Wilson

This is a meditative, almost devotional song built around a simple ritual: each day's mundane and sensory acts are catalogued by…

impermanence ritual and routine art as anchor

Let It Be

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin's 1970 reading of the Beatles standard transforms a hymn-like pop meditation into full-throated gospel…

consolation in crisis faith and maternal comfort surrender versus struggle