Results for “violent fantasy as metaphor”

Songs

Fantasy

Mariah Carey

A buoyant celebration of infatuation that lives entirely in the space between attraction and consummation, where the pleasure…

infatuation escapism desire and daydream

Sometimes a Fantasy

Billy Joel

A driving new-wave rocker about phone sex and the loneliness that drives someone to it, dressed up in a jittery, almost…

loneliness desire and substitution shame versus need

Batting Practice

Souls of Mischief

A posse cut built around a single extended conceit: rapping as batting practice, with each Souls of Mischief member (plus…

braggadocio competition/skill display crew unity

The W.A.N.D.

The Flaming Lips

A funky, riff-driven anthem that dresses up a political fantasy of taking down authoritarian power in the language of magic…

power vs. greed collective resistance fantasy as political metaphor

Ramble On

Led Zeppelin

A wandering-troubadour song that fuses restless road-life imagery with an unexpected detour into Tolkien fantasy, using the…

restlessness and wanderlust romantic quest fantasy/myth as metaphor

Hero

Weezer

A childhood fantasy of superheroism becomes an extended metaphor for the pressures of public identity and fame, as the narrator…

disillusionment with fame introversion vs. public expectation childhood fantasy abandoned

I'd Like That

XTC

A cascade of small domestic and historical fantasies stacked into one long conditional wish, this song imagines romantic…

romantic devotion role-play and historical fantasy growth through love

Karma Police

Radiohead

A speaker invokes a childhood fantasy of cosmic justice to punish people who irritate him, then realizes partway through that…

petty vindictiveness corporate/institutional conformity self-recognition and guilt

It's Good to Be King

Tom Petty

Tom Petty builds a wry daydream around the fantasy of absolute power and ease, using the language of royalty as a stand-in for…

escapism fantasy vs reality longing for control

Musical Massacre

Eric B.

A boastful battle-rap track built around fire and combustion imagery, where the MC positions himself as an unstoppable force who…

braggadocio competition/battle rap destruction as metaphor for skill

I Need a Forest Fire

James Blake

A minimalist meditation on emotional stagnation, where the speaker asks for destruction as a form of renewal. Blake uses the…

emotional numbness renewal through destruction self-isolation

Everybody's Talkin'

Harry Nilsson

A song about tuning out the noise of other people in favor of an interior fantasy of motion and escape. Written by Fred Neil and…

alienation escape/wanderlust isolation amid crowds

Hear My Train a Comin'

Jimi Hendrix

A blues fantasy of escape, built around the image of a train that will carry the singer away from rejection and poverty into…

escape and departure romantic rejection poverty and social judgment

Surfing On a Rocket

Air

A minimalist space-flight fantasy that doubles as a meditation on departure and dissolution, sung with the breezy detachment Air…

escape and departure transcendence romantic reassurance vs. abandonment

Let Your Love Flow

Joan Baez

This is a straightforward, sunny cover of the Bellamy Brothers' soft-pop hit, built entirely around an extended nature metaphor…

romantic surrender nature as metaphor seasonal renewal

luther

Kendrick Lamar

Built around a Luther Vandross/Cheryl Lynn duet sample, this GNX track finds Kendrick trading his usual combative persona for…

romantic devotion escapism through fantasy protection and provision

Mothers Talk

Tears for Fears

A jittery, synth-driven track that uses Cold War anxiety and Raymond Briggs' nuclear-fallout imagery as a backdrop for something…

nuclear anxiety conformity vs individuality manipulation and coercion

Pixeleen

Steely Dan

"Pixeleen" is Steely Dan's arch send-up of manufactured pop-culture heroines, following a video-game/anime action girl through…

commodification of fantasy media satire artificiality vs. authenticity

Neon Knights

Black Sabbath

This is Black Sabbath's opening statement with a new singer, and it plays like a mission statement disguised as…

heroic fantasy renewal/rebirth good versus evil

Return To Paradise

Shirley Horn

Shirley Horn builds a hushed, largely wordless ballad around a mission-control conceit, tracking a 'space bird' through launch,…

longing and reunion journey as metaphor transcendence

Ghetto Dreams

Common

Common builds a composite fantasy of a woman who fuses hood authenticity with high-end glamour, verse by verse assembling and…

idealized femininity as class fantasy hood authenticity versus upward mobility female strength shadowed by objectification

Hounds of Love

Kate Bush

A woman being chased through a nocturnal forest realizes the thing pursuing her is love itself, and that her real terror is not…

fear of intimacy vulnerability vs self-protection the hunt as metaphor for love

You Go to My Head

Cassandra Wilson

This is Cassandra Wilson's 2015 reading of the 1938 Coots/Gillespie standard, delivered as part of a tribute to Billie Holiday.…

intoxication as metaphor for desire self-awareness versus helplessness obsession

Small Plane

Bill Callahan

A quiet domestic love song disguised as an account of piloting a small plane together. The flight becomes a working metaphor for…

domestic trust shared control in partnership contentment

In the Sun

Blondie

A breezy, almost novelty-pop daydream in which the singer imagines escaping gray urban New York for a sunlit, surf-and-luau…

escapism urban alienation fantasy vs. reality

I'm a Ram

Al Green

This is a lean, driving groove song built almost entirely around one animal metaphor: the singer as a ram, butting persistently…

persistence in desire masculine self-assertion obstacle and pursuit

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

Everything Must Go

Steely Dan

A liquidation sale becomes a metaphor for a business, a relationship, or an era ending, with the narrator determined to face…

failure and decline corporate dissolution as metaphor denial through humor

Next Lifetime

Erykah Badu

A woman confesses to an overwhelming attraction to someone who isn't her partner, and instead of acting on it, she defers the…

temptation fidelity vs desire self-restraint

Actor Out of Work

St. Vincent

A breakup song built almost entirely out of blunt, escalating metaphors, each one recasting the addressee as some kind of prop…

toxic attachment self-deception performance vs. authenticity

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

Paranoid Android

Radiohead

A three-part suite that moves from claustrophobic paranoia to vindictive fantasy to a kind of exhausted, apocalyptic prayer.…

technological/social overload status anxiety and greed alienation and paranoia

Honey

Erykah Badu

A breezy, sample-driven cut about chasing an elusive love interest, built almost entirely around a single extended sweetness…

romantic pursuit elusiveness/unavailability desire and craving

What Kind of Love Are You On

Aerosmith

A shuffling blues-rock strut in which Steven Tyler catalogs a partner's contradictions and compulsions, using nursery-rhyme…

addiction as metaphor for love hypocrisy and mixed signals toxic relationships

Terraplane Blues

Robert Johnson

Robert Johnson builds an entire song out of a single dirty joke, using a 1930s automobile as an extended stand-in for a woman's…

sexual jealousy infidelity and possession mechanical/automotive metaphor

Stormy Weather

Etta James

Etta James takes the 1933 Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler standard and strips it down to raw, aching testimony, using weather as an…

heartbreak and abandonment weather as emotional metaphor spiritual longing

100%

Sonic Youth

A tribute song built from fragments of grief, aggression, and dark humor, written in memory of a scene figure lost to violence.…

violent death and its aftermath rock scene mythology and idolization gender and predation within a music subculture

Chicken Grease

D'Angelo

A loose, groove-first party track built around a nonsense-turned-metaphor phrase, D'Angelo uses the image of frying grease as a…

funk as physical/spiritual force dance as communal release authenticity vs. imitation

Happy Hour

Weezer

A song about using a nightly ritual of drinking and socializing to paper over daytime stress and depression, dressed up in…

escapism work stress and burnout self-medication

Raising Hell

Run-DMC

The title track of Run-DMC's landmark album is a boast-battle anthem built almost entirely from self-crowning imagery and…

braggadocio hip-hop supremacy battle rhetoric