Please could you help with song choices for an English assessment

[JMSA]

‘Morning all
My teen has an English assignment and I’d love to hear your song choices (the assignment is for English but with a music theme!). I thought about The Drugs Don’t Work by the Verve, but I’m not sure. Ideally it would be quite a ‘meaty’ song so that we can really analyse the lyrics!
Thanks very much

Pretty much anything by Manic Street Preachers
Fifteen Years by The Levellers
Master of Puppets by Metallica

Chance by Big Country ‘you played chance with a lifetime’s romance and the prize was far too low. ‘

I’ve read another completely different interpretation, that it was his father-in-law!

Letter to myself - the lottery winners
black tie - grace petrie

Ice King by Res would work for both tbh

Google/ YouTube JellyRoll.

His lyrics are from the heart and from his own life experiences and fit very well with the consignment. More so his recent Country songs, not so keen on the earlier rap ones.

Chandelier by Sia

How about songs teaching resilience?

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and Don't Worry, Be Happy - a nice bit of compare and contrast there.

I Wanna Be Yours by the Arctic Monkeys, lyrics by John Cooper Clarke, if doing the love song option.

I was about to suggest Letter to Myself.

Black Tie is a great idea too!

Conflict - Eminem 'Cleaning out my closet'. The anger, bitterness and regret is visceral. Depends how liberal the school is about swearing though I suppose!

Love - Extreme 'More than words'.

I second this one

surely the point of your teen having an assignment is that they do it - not their Mother or a group of random strangers on the internet.

If it's too hard, maybe they can get moved down to a lower class?

I have a vivid memory of sitting around, stoned, in my halls of residence with a few friends listening to Urban Hymns back in the 90s and discussing this. I went with the interpretation that it's someone who is terminally ill, for whom the drugs no longer work.

Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
Fortunate Son - Creedence
Another Man’s Cause - Levellers
Army Dreamers - Kate Bush
The Remembrance- Jake Thackray
Goodnight Saigon - Billy Joel

All about the terrible waste of young men’s lives in conflict.

Yes!

There are some fucking awful Mum songs on this thread, and that's before you get to the turgid "modern" Scottish folk song.

It's for a 14 year old!

Pretty much anything by Nick Cave. Into My Arms is beautiful and Oh Children (the song Harry & Hermoine dance to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1) also fits the love/conflict theme.

I seem to remember doing a similar drug-themed project on Go Ask Alice by Jefferson Airplane when I was at school.

Song about addiction: Sugarman by Rodriguez
Running to stand still - U2
Angel - Sarah Mclaghlan
Song about social exclusion: another day in paradise Phil Collins
Songs about love: Beautiful ugly by Tim Minchin
mulder and scully - Catalonia
I say a little prayer - Aretha Franklin
so long Marianne - Leonard Cohen
Songs about war: Sunday Bloody Sunday U2
Give me hope Joanna - Eddy Grant
The Partisan - Leonard Cohen

Can’t remember who did it but what about ‘Cos I got high?

Have you actually listened to all the lyrics to that song?! Teachers would be calling social services! 😂

Breaking the habit by Linkin park

Waterfalls TLC

I’m an English teacher and songs I analyse in lessons are:
Something Inside so strong
Ghost Town
I am woman (Helen reddy)
Strange Fruit
Another brick in the wall
What’s Going on?

The majority of song choices scream 'parents helped'. You need DD to choose something that resonates with her, and I bet it is current, not decades old

Handlebars - Flobots