Please could you help with song choices for an English assessment

One of my favourites 🥰🥰

Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

People are going to just say their favourite songs. Shouldn't it be songs that your teenager actually likes themselves and already knows?

But if I was in school again and got this work I'd do Joanna Newsom because her songs are really poetry to music. Maybe Baby Birch, which is about an abortion and really a tour de force imo. But your teen might think it's crap!

Lots of System of a Down songs about war…War?, BYOB, soldier side, Boom…

As reminded of on another thread today - 'I've Had a Little Time' by Beautiful South. Or 'Common People' by Pulp. (links to videos below)

Imagine - John Lennon

Any hardcore straight edge song/band. Too many to choose!

Justin Bieber - Love Yourself. I always thought it was a great song to illustrate toxic relationships and coercive control to a younger generation who think they’re invincible and beyond being ill-treated.

Good luck, sounds like an interesting assignment

If your teen is prepared to consider modern folk music, I'd suggest "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle. (The Furies did a cover version and renamed it "The Green Fields of France", but the original title is more meaningful, IMO.)

Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
A rest for awhile in the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone that you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart are you always 19
Or are you just a stranger without even a name
Forever enclosed behind some glass-pane
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

Well the sun it shines down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished now under the plough
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it is still No Man's Land
And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation that was butchered and damned.

Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you 'The Cause'?
Did you really believe that this would war would end wars?
But the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame -
The killing, the dying - it was all done in vain
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they sound the pipe lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

If the theme is the perils of drugs...

Sister Morphine by the Rolling Stones.
Mother's Little Helper by the Rolling Stones
Cold Turkey by John Lennon - The Plastic Ono Band

I thought the OP was asking for suggestions for their DC to listen to as a starter/pointer for the project rather than saying ’use this one and this one’ etc.
There’s a lot of music out there!

Please can we do your teen's homework...?

Early Elton John's song have great lyrics (by Bernie Taupin) so maybe one of those?

In a similar vein Scissor Sisters.

David Bowie life on Mars album.

Paul Simon is a truly amazing lyricist, his songs are studied as poetry in many US schools and so well worth listening to as a whole, from albums like ‘Homeward Bound’ to ‘Graceland’, and more.

It ain’t me babe by Bob Dylan could be juicy.

(I would walk walk all the way)
From Boulder to Birmingham by Emmylou Harris, about love and loss after the death of Gram Parsons.
( it’s Boulder, Colorado and Birmingham, Alabama to avoid any confusion)

Hazard - Richard Marx

Two on theme of domestic conflict
He hit me (and it felt like a kiss)- The Crystals originally I think
Behind The Wall - Tracy Chapman

Lot to say about societal views on domestic violence, what's healthy in a relationship, messed up ideas around passion, affect of the domestic on others in wider society...
I'd let them chose their own songs though to be honest, I don't think you should help with the choice.

TLC - no scrubs 😆

Survivor destineys child

TLC - waterfalls or unpretty

Tupac - changes

Black eyed peas - where is the love

Michael Jackson - earth song

NARS- I know I can be what I wanna be

Christina Aguilera etc- shout louder

I came here to suggest The Divine Comedy but I am paused as they’re my favourite band!! I worked a lot of song quotes into my GCSE creative writing exam 🤣

Sunrise is beautiful about the troubles or maybe Certainty of Chance or Charge that last one’s a bit obscure though!!

I used to set this assignment when I was a secondary English teacher. It helps the students learn how to analyse the texts for their poetry paper. Just my two penneth but I would think twice about suggesting songs for your child. It would be so much more beneficial to them to do it themselves as selecting the song is part of the assignment. If they bring something that doesn’t fit the bill, it shows their current level of understanding and their teacher can talk to them about poetic devices that can be used to communicate etc.