David Bowie
A radio drama in miniature: a space agency counts an astronaut into orbit, celebrates him as a media sensation, then loses him.…
alienation celebrity and spectacle technological failure
Public Enemy
A protest anthem built as a dance record: Chuck D argues that political consciousness and Black pride are things you build in…
Black pride and self-definition institutional racism who gets to be a national hero
Joni Mitchell
A three-part meditation in which the speaker sets a naive, image-drunk way of seeing against a disenchanted one, then refuses to…
disillusionment the limits of knowledge aging and changed perception
Prince
A slow, gospel-shaped ballad in which a speaker apologizes for hurting someone, then gradually widens the address from a single…
apology and regret failed intimacy that could not become friendship spiritual deliverance
Patti Smith
A duet between erotic urgency and something closer to faith: the speaker asks a lover to take her as she is, and then defends…
erotic desire as sustenance night as sanctuary from harm doubt and belief