History DomesticAbuse / Music

** Eminem also had a domestic violence charge for assaulting his abusive mother; in "Kill You", Slim raps his fantasy about killing [[OedipusComplex and raping]] her.

* The Music/{{Eve}} song "Love is Blind" is about a woman whose friend was in an abusive relationship with a man who beat and raped her. It ends in a DownerEnding where the friend is beaten to death by her ex-boyfriend. In revenge, the singer kills the man and ends up arrested.

* Music/ThePretenders:
** "The Phone Call" where some unknown benefactor tries to get the victim out of the circumstances.
** Even more known: "Thin Line Between Love and Hate", where the obedient wife suddenly goes berserk.
* Finnish band PMMP's "Joku Raja" is about a woman fed up with being physically abused and threatening to kill her abuser if he hits her again.

* Elvira T:
** The music video for her song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6b-tzSBmh8 "Nevynosimo" ("Unbearably")]] is about this. The video begins with Elvira being intimidated by her boyfriend, who has her backed against the way in a threatening manner. As the video goes on, it becomes more graphic, and Elvira is shown bleeding from the mouth at several points and is even shown [[spoiler:being brutally choked by him at one point]]. It all comes to a head when the abusive boyfriend [[spoiler:forces her to the ground and holds her head down with his boot, with the scene gradually becoming bloodier. The video ends with a disturbing scene of her choking on her own blood before finally closing her eyes and going limp, possibly having died.]]
** Her other song "Moy Paren Psikh" ("My Boyfriend Is Psycho") is also about this.

* Touched on in Stan Kenton's "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine".
-->And when his wife said "Hey now!\\
What did you get for me?"\\
He socked her in the choppers\\
Such a sweet, sweet guy was he!
* Pretty much ''all'' of the work made by {{Industrial}}[=/=]neoclassical musician Lingua Ignota is about domestic abuse. This is also a case of WriteWhatYouKnow, as she has been in numerous abusive relationships and intends to exorcise her traumatic experiences with her harsh, nightmarish body of work.
* Music/TaylorSwift's song "Dear John," from the album ''Music/SpeakNow'', never explicitly calls the narrator's ex abusive, but the description of his behavior that eventually led to her breaking up with him is ''textbook'' emotional abuse in a lot of ways. Given that most of her {{Breakup Song}}s are simply "we weren't right for each other" or "we fought all the time," this one is shockingly dark, with her realizing in hindsight how toxic the relationship was.
** Alternating between sweetness and cruelty at the drop of a hat? Check, she describes "wondering which version of you I might get on the phone." She also says that the instability of their relationship made left her "praying the floor won't fall through... again."
** Being inconsistent about what his expectations from her and their relationship are? ''Big'' check, she comments on this in several lines, accusing him of "keeping lines blurry, never impressed by me acing your tests" and "[changing] the rules every day."
** For that matter, the implication that he would "test" her love and loyalty is also a hallmark of an abusive (or at least unhealthy) relationship.
** She repeatedly emphasizes that she was barely nineteen when they dated, implying that he was ''much'' older and was taking advantage of her naivete and driving her to tears. (The song is almost certainly about John Mayer, who dated Taylor when he was thirty-one and she was nineteen.)
** Isolating her from family and loved ones? This one's implied; she describes that her "days once revolved around you," and mentions that her mother expressed concern about the relationship, but she brushed her off.
** It's made clear that his behavior is a pattern; the narrator describes his past girlfriends with "tired, lifeless eyes, 'cause you burned them out" and deeply regrets not listening to the people that tried to warn her about him.
* Music/JessicaSimpson's "Remember That" is about a woman giving advice to another woman who is in an abusive relationship.
* Music/RichardThompson's "She Twists The Knife Again" is sung from the perspective of a man being emotionally and physically abused by his partner.
* Finnish band PMMP's "Joku Raja" is about a woman fed up with being physically abused and threatening to kill her abuser if he hits her again.
* Russian band Kis-Kis's music video for their song "Molchi" ("Be Quiet") is about this and [[AbusiveParents child abuse]]. [[note]]The song itself seems to be more about [[BystanderSyndrome Bystander Syndrome]], and the video has shades of this as well.[[/note]]
* Russian singer Elvira T's music video for her song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6b-tzSBmh8 "Nevynosimo" ("Unbearably")]] is about this. The video begins with Elvira being intimidated by her boyfriend, who has her backed against the way in a threatening manner. As the video goes on, it becomes more graphic, and Elvira is shown bleeding from the mouth at several points and is even shown [[spoiler:being brutally choked by him at one point]]. It all comes to a head when the abusive boyfriend [[spoiler:forces her to the ground and holds her head down with his boot, with the scene gradually becoming bloodier. The video ends with a disturbing scene of her choking on her own blood before finally closing her eyes and going limp, possibly having died.]]
** Her other song "Moy Paren Psikh" ("My Boyfriend Is Psycho") is also about this.
* "Your Southern Can is Mine" by Blind Willie [=McTell=] is sung by a domestic abuser telling his woman that she cannot escape him. Music/TheWhiteStripes have recorded a version.
-->''Now, looky here, momma, let me explain you this\\
You wanna get crooked, I'll even give you my fist\\
You might read from Revelation back to Genesee\\
You get crooked, your southern can belongs to me''
* "Voices Carry" by 'Til Tuesday is about a woman in an abusive relationship who fears expressing her emotions about what she feels about her lover.
* {{Music/Halsey}}: Her character in "If I Can't Have Love I Want Power", Queen Lila, is treated very badly by the king, her husband, to the point that [[spoiler:she ends up poisoning him to escape]].
* Music/WallOfVoodoo's "Factory" is about a factory worker whose dangerous, monotonous, and stressful job has caused him physical and mental harm - one sign of the latter is when, near the end of the song, he casually admits "just lately when my wife talks back to me, I smack her around".

* The video of Music/SamHunt's "Take Your Time," a massive country hit in 2015. Instead of playing on the storyline of a young man just honestly wanting to get to know an attractive woman at the local college bar (rather than someone looking for sex with one), this bar story takes a much darker turn. Indeed, a good chunk of the video is set in a bar and one of the central characters is indeed a young woman, but this woman is constantly berated and/or slapped around by the no-good SOB of her tattooed, drunken boyfriend ... sometimes at the bar, sometimes at the local coin-op laundry, sometimes at their home, often with their baby in sight. Hunt, meanwhile, often witnesses this and is seething angry every time he witnesses the guy's actions, but butts out. Until one day, he's walking along the street. He sees the woman try to make her getaway, suitcase and baby in hand. With suitcase and baby (barely) in the truck, the boyfriend tries to grab the woman and plans to brutally beat her to death. Hunt sees what's about to happen and can take no more ... and rushes up to beat the boyfriend up, giving the young woman the opening she needs to make her getaway. Hunt has a bloody lip at the end -- heck, he doesn't even really win the fight -- but he has held the punk back long enough for the woman to drive out of sight, and presumably out of her now ex-boyfriend's life forever. The moral in the end, of course, was that Hunt wasn't looking for a relationship with a woman or steal someone's girl ... it was that he was doing the right thing.

* "Working My Way Back To You" by The Four Seasons (later [[CoverVersion covered]] as a {{medley}} by the Spinners with "Forgive Me, Girl" added) is about an apparently reformed abuser trying to win back the girl who dumped him for being an abusive jerk.
* The Mercedes Lackey song "It Was A Dark And Stormy Night" featured a Countess who was verbally abusive to her husband, and not particularly pleasant to everyone else in the household. When she suddenly died (by having the lute she played while forcing people to listen to her awful singing every night shoved down her throat), the investigators found that everyone in the household had their every action accounted for, and were forced to call the death 'suicide'.
* There are the truly grim recordings on Music/LouReed's ''Berlin'' album, including "Caroline Says" ''(as she gets up off the floor/You can hit me all you want to/But I don't love you anymore)'' and the coda "Sad Song" ''(I'm going to stop wasting my time/Somebody else would have broken both of her arms)''
* "'Til Death Do Us Part" and "Oh Father" from {{Music/Madonna}}'s ''Music/LikeAPrayer'' album both deal with abuse, first husband/wife, and second parent/child. The video for the latter song incorporates both types of abuse into its imagery, suggesting that people who grew up in abusive homes end up in abusive relationships of their own.
* The song "Tainted Love" could be seen in this light, especially when listening to Music/MarilynManson's cover.
* "[[Music/TheBeatles I used be cruel to my woman, I beat her]] [[Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand and kept her apart from the things that she loved]]/[[TheAtoner Man I was mean, but I'm changing my scene and I'm doing the best that I can.]]" This was, unfortunately, in reference to the emotionally stilted Music/JohnLennon's tendencies in his youth to hit women, [[OldShame a behavior he deeply regretted later in life]]. [[WordOfGod John claimed his feminist activism]], influenced by Music/YokoOno, was in part to to his shame at how he treated women for much of his life. He disliked the chauvinistic-sounding lyrics to "You Can't Do That"[[note]]a lyrically clumsy attempt to emulate WilsonPickett[[/note]] and "Run For Your Life" for similar reasons.
* "Two Beds And A Coffee Machine" by Music/SavageGarden is about a woman and her child dealing with the aftermath of domestic abuse.
* "Because of You" by Music/KellyClarkson speaks to the aftereffects of abuse, including a lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. The original video by Kelly Clarkson is focused mostly on the singer's fear of repeating her parents' marriage, in which her father was physically and emotionally absent for both wife and daughter. The duet with Reba [=McEntire=] portrays it as interpersonal violence, with Kelly Clarkson being the victim of an emotionally and physically abusive boyfriend. The original video ends on a hopeful note, with the singer putting a stop to the cycle and making up with her boyfriend; the second video ends more tragically as Kelly leaves with the abusive boyfriend while Reba sings the final lyrics and looks on sadly.
* The Music/{{Hozier}} song "Cherry Wine" also features a rare example of female-on-male emotional and physical abuse. The music video shows male-on-female domestic abuse. The song is about a man who is in love with a woman who fights with him, beats him, and likely cheats on him as well. He's scared of his lover, and his mother doesn't like their relationship, but he refuses to leave her.
-->''Way she tells me I'm her and she's mine\\
Open hand or closed fist would be fine\\
The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine''
%%* The subject of Music/GeorgeMichael's "Look At Your Hands" from his debut solo album ''Faith''.
* Music/DuranDuran's "Sin Of The City" from ''Music/TheWeddingAlbum'' begins with such a case, given its real-life setting:
-->Coat check girl up in Happy Land
-->Has a violent row with a Cuba man.
-->Julio leaves in a drunken rage,
-->He comes back with the gasoline.
* "Teddy Bear" by Music/MelanieMartinez is about a woman whose sweet 'teddy bear' of a boyfriend suddenly turns dark on her. When she begins finding knives under the bed, and crumbled photographs of herself, she starts getting worried. He then tries to kill her and she kicks him out. Afterwards he begins stalking her and calling her but only breathing into the phone. That's when she really becomes terrified.
* "If I Were Your Woman" by Gladys Knight is about a woman trying to convince a man to breakup with his emotionally abusive girlfriend/wife and be with her instead.
* On Music/DanielAmos' album ''Music/HorrendousDisc'', the title track starts off with a musician who's "killed his wife with words, confident it's private rage". But then the song gets ''weird'', as a (seemingly magical) AccidentalPublicConfession reveals the musician's abuse for all his fans to witness.
* Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home," about an abused wife burning down the family home with her abuser inside. The lyrics and video are fairly vague, but it has been confirmed by the artist in recent years to be a murder ballad and many fans of the song assume that where Sunny had been before she "came home" was in the hospital, recovering from injuries sustained by an abusive partner.
-->''Sunny came home with a list of names''
-->''She didn't believe in transcendence''
-->''It's time for a few small repairs she said''
-->''Sunny came home with a vengeance''
* "Run Rabbit Run" by Music/TheHoosiers uses animal allegories to describe a person in a dangerous relationship. The singer warns them to leave it.
-->''I saw a fox by the rabbit hole\\
You saw a prince from a fairy-tale\\
He promised that he'd look over you\\
Turned out to be the fox we all knew\\
Too good to be true\\
What chance did you stand?'\\
Take flight, turn tail\\
Get out while you can\\
Run, rabbit, run, as fast as you can\\
Don't look back''
* "Back For Good" by Take That seems to imply that an abusive relationship is taking place between the singer and his loved one.
-->''We'll be fighting, and forever we will be''
-->''So complete in our love''
-->''We will never be uncovered again.''
* The music video for Shawn Mendes' "Treat You Better", where Mendes is portrayed trying to convince a girl to build up the strength to leave her abusive boyfriend -- the video ends with the number for the National Abuse Hotline appearing on the screen. It's ambiguous as to whether the song itself is meant to portray abuse too: The narrator doesn't like how the subject's boyfriend treats her and thinks she'd be better off leaving with him, but the lyrics don't really mention why, other than the fact that he's not "a gentleman" and causes her to cry on a regular basis.
* The Israeli song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CeUKqDfR6U Bad Boy]]" is about a girl in love with an abusive and, it seems, rather disturbed boy. [[PuppyLove She is a few days short of ten, and he is even younger]].
* Andy Griggs' "Waitin' on Sundown" is about a man named Jimmy who helps a woman named Shelby make her escape from an abusive relationship.

* In "Wee Cooper of Fife," #277 of the ''Literature/ChildBallads'', the cooper responds to his wife's refusal to perform housework by putting a sheepskin over her back.
-->''Oh I'll no thrash your gentle kin\\
Nickety nackety noo noo noo\\
But I will thrash my ain sheepskin''
* Paula Cole's "Throwing Stones" is about a couple coming to blows in their relationship, getting to the point of throwing stones at each other until both of them die.
* Music/CarrieUnderwood:
** "Blown Away": The central character is a teenaged girl who is abused by her father. She gets her escape when a storm destroys their house and kills the father in the process.
** "Church Bells": A young country girl marries into money...but the rich guy gets drunk and beats her. She retaliates by poisoning his alcohol with something "no lawman was ever gonna find."
--->''And how he died remains a mystery\\
But he hit a woman for the very last time''
* Music/CelineDion has one obscure song, "This Time", which touches this issue.
-->''One more hour burns\\
So scared of his return\\
That I can't sleep tonight\\
In this hospital light.''
* "Call Me Names" by Joan Armatrading, a rare example where woman-on-man is not played for laughs.
* "The Phone Call" by The Pretenders, where some unknown benefactor tries to get the victim out of the circumstances.
** Even more known: "Thin Line Between Love and Hate", where the obedient wife suddenly goes berzerk.
* Music/AliceCooper's "Only Women Bleed" from ''Welcome to My Nightmare'' is a ballad about a woman in an abusive marriage.
* Music/LoversAndLiars' song "I'm Not Him" is about a man who is in love with someone who is still haunted by a past abusive relationship.
* Alec Benjamin's "Must Have Been The Wind" is about a man who hears a loud noise and crying in another apartment. He goes to investigate and the woman who answers the door says the noise was probably just the wind.

* Music/FrancoDeVita: The theme of "Un extraño en mi bañera" (A Stranger In My Bathtub). In it, Franco roleplays as a woman who is being physically abused by her husband. The woman tells how she's unable to recognize her husband when he's in his darkest mood, yet she's unable to denounce him due to fears of being ridiculed. Near the end of the song, Franco breaks character to make a non-sung commentary on the outcome: [[spoiler:The husband ends up killing the woman and, due to the incompetence of the justice, [[KarmaHoudini he gets acquitted due to the lack of witnesses]]; everyone who hears about this news claim that people must prevent a repeat of this in the future, but even that hollow resolve won't revert what already happened.]]

* Music/MartinaMcBride had several songs addressing the topic, at least two involving adults and the other a young girl:
** "Independence Day," an empowering ballad of a woman freeing herself from her abusive, alcoholic husband, told from the point of view of her 8-year-old daughter. As the title suggests, it takes place on the Fourth of July, giving the song a double meaning. The song and video, which came out in 1994, were controversial for its graphic depiction of a man beating his wife and destroying their possessions, as well as just how the mother puts an end to the abuse; the video ends with both the victim and abuser dying in a house fire set by the abused wife. The little girl returns from a town parade to find her home engulfed in flames and police surrounding it; she is sent to the "county home". The song is also noticeable for its condemnation of a town that knew about the abuse, but "everybody looked the other way" and its non-condemnation of the mother's actions in killing herself and her husband.
** "Concrete Angel," where an omniscient observer feels sympathy for a little girl whose mother had killed her.
** "A Broken Wing" is about emotional/psychological abuse. A woman stays with a man who constantly belittles her and witholds affection. The last verse leaves the ending to the story ambiguous...the man sees his wife/girlfriend is not in church and finds a note and an open window. It's unclear on whether she simply left or committed suicide.
* The video of Music/SamHunt's "Take Your Time," a massive country hit in 2015. Instead of playing on the storyline of a young man just honestly wanting to get to know an attractive woman at the local college bar (rather than someone looking for sex with one), this bar story takes a much darker turn. Indeed, a good chunk of the video is set in a bar and one of the central characters is indeed a young woman, but this woman is constantly berated and/or slapped around by the no-good SOB of her tattooed, drunken boyfriend ... sometimes at the bar, sometimes at the local coin-op laundry, sometimes at their home, often with their baby in sight. Hunt, meanwhile, often witnesses this and is seething angry every time he witnesses the guy's actions, but butts out. Until one day, he's walking along the street. He sees the woman try to make her getaway, suitcase and baby in hand. With suitcase and baby (barely) in the truck, the boyfriend tries to grab the woman and plans to brutally beat her to death. Hunt sees what's about to happen and can take no more ... and rushes up to beat the boyfriend up, giving the young woman the opening she needs to make her getaway. Hunt has a bloody lip at the end -- heck, he doesn't even really win the fight -- but he has held the punk back long enough for the woman to drive out of sight, and presumably out of her now ex-boyfriend's life forever. The moral in the end, of course, was that Hunt wasn't looking for a relationship with a woman or steal someone's girl ... it was that he was doing the right thing.
* "Not to Blame" by Music/JoniMitchell is about a serial abuser who always avoids responsibility for his actions, even when it drives his partners to suicide. The song is alleged to be about Mitchell's ex-boyfriend Music/JacksonBrowne, who was [[OvershadowedByControversy facing down well-publicized allegations that]] he physically abused his then-girlfriend DarylHannah when the song was released. Mitchell denies this, but the similarities between the song's lyrics and known events in Browne's personal life have not gone unnoticed, and even garnered an angry response from Browne in the media.
* "Gunpowder & Lead" by Music/MirandaLambert. Actually, the reason the male antagonist went to jail, because he "''slapped my face and shook me like a rag doll''."
* "The Little Girl" by Music/JohnMichaelMontgomery, where the title character -- a young girl -- witnesses increasingly violent confrontations between her father and mother, culminating in a murder-suicide.

* The Music/ShaniaTwain song "Black Eyes, Blue Tears" is an empowerment anthem about a woman attempting to break free from an abusive relationship.
* Mark [=McGuinn=], a country singer from the early 2000s, had his first – and [[OneHitWonder only hit]] – with Mrs. Steven Rudy," a song about a young man who lives next door to a young couple who constantly fight. The song's lyrics, ''That wedding ring's as ugly as your husband is to you'' and ''Sometimes Mrs. Rudy calls cryin' late at night/'Cause her and Mr. Ugly have had another fight'' imply that not all is well in their relationship, and the young man knows that he can provide a far better relationship for her than "Mr. Ugly" could.
* Music/TheStatlerBrothers: Their 1977 hit "I Was There" has lyrics that could imply that a young man's former childhood crush is being abused by the man she married, particularly with the dark lyric "I loved her first, but he loved her worse ... ."
* "Animal Nitrate" by {{Music/Suede}}, in which the protagonist falls victim to the charms of a FetishizedAbuser.
* The Jazmine Sullivan song "Call Me Guilty". But she gets revenge by [[spoiler: murdering him]].
* Music/{{Nickelback}}'s "Never Again."
* Music/SuzanneVega's smash hit "Luka" is about a boy who gets beaten at home, but constantly denies it to avoid unwanted attention.
-->Yes, I think I'm okay\\
I walked into the door again\\
If you ask, that's what I'll say\\
And it's not your business anyway
* The Eve song "Love is Blind" is about a woman whose friend was in an abusive relationship with a man who beat and raped her. It ends in a DownerEnding where the friend is beaten to death by her ex-boyfriend. In revenge, the singer kills the man and ends up arrested.
* A Jimmy Wayne song, "The Rabbit". It ends with the wife [[spoiler: being acquitted of her husband's murder]].
* "Face Down" by Music/TheRedJumpsuitApparatus.
-->"Face down in the dirt," she said, "This doesn't hurt," she said, "I've finally had enough."
** In the music video, the wife is shown collecting her things from the house in preparation for leaving the abuser. As she walks through it, certain items shatter or explode, representing when her abuser destroyed them in his anger.
* Though the song focuses on lead singer Jacoby Shaddix's childhood, Music/PapaRoach's "Broken Home" has shades of this.
-->I'm crying day and night now, what is wrong with me?\\
I cannot fight now, I feel like a weak link
** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yERDDbP53Sw music video]] lampshades this. The guy (Jacoby's father, if i'm not mistaken) verbally abuses his wife and even rapes her at one part (check it at 1:57.)
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s3iGpDqQpQ Falling Away From Me]]" by Music/{{Korn}}.
* "Facade" by Music/{{Disturbed}}. Another one that suggests the woman is getting ready to snap.
* Music/MariaMena:
** "He's Hurting Me" is about an emotionally, and possibly physically, abusive relationship. The protagonist is begging someone to come over and help her deal with her angry boyfriend who thinks she's lying about something. She's also is in denial about it.
-->''It's not his fault I made him lose his temper\\
I should know better not to talk too loud\\
There's no one who can love me better\\
I'm not like you--you are too proud''
** "It Took Me By Surprise" is a rare example being from the POV of the female abuser. It's about a woman who emotionally abuses and manipulates her boyfriend until he begins to hate and fear her.
-->''Now he's afraid of me\\
It took me by surprise\\
The hatred in his eyes\\
I pushed this man as far as he could go\\
But he lacked the words to let me know\\
He acted out\\
Now I can see it is my fault''
* "Better Man" by Music/PearlJam
-->"She lies and says she's in love with him... Can't find a better man."
* Rapper Music/ElP draws inspiration from growing up with an abusive stepfather over the course of multiple songs.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Hit_Me_%28It_Felt_Like_a_Kiss%29 "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)"]], a 1962 single by Music/PhilSpector-produced girl group The Crystals. It's about a woman trying to justify her jealous, abusive boyfriend's behavior.
* Music/PetShopBoys:
** "Only The Wind". (WordOfGod says it is indeed about domestic abuse and not AIDS, as commonly believed.) "There's nobody hiding behind a locked door/And no one's been lying 'cause we don't lie anymore." The abused lover says "I'm sorry..." at the end and is implied to have either left or killed the abuser.
** "One More Chance" may also be about this: "Chained, framed, you know what I mean. Push me in the corner and I'll scream." On the other hand, it may be interpreted as an ObligatoryBondageSong.
* Music/TracyChapman's "Behind the Wall", a haunting ACappella song about a domestic abuse situation which is only heard as "loud voices behind the wall." The narrator doesn't call the police to deal with what's happening because she knows that [[PoliceAreUseless they come late if they even come at all, and are disinclined to deal with domestic situations]]. One night, a horrible silence follows the screaming, and an ambulance comes to the scene, all but confirming that [[DownerEnding the worst has happened]].
* "Pulling Teeth" by Green Day is a female-on-male example.

* Music/DavidBowie's "Repetition" is about the grim routine this can fall into, with a bitter man verbally and physically abusing his wife.
* "Tormented Kid" by Australian rapper 360 is a story about a man who abuses his wife and son.
* The music video for [[Music/{{Pink}} P!nk's]] "Please Don't Leave Me" is about a batshit insane {{Yandere}} who abuses her husband. Thankfully, she's portrayed as the crazy woman she is, and she doesn't get away with it.
* Music/TheCrystallineEffect's 'Another Rainy Day'.
* "Stockholm Syndrome" by Music/{{Muse}}, sung from the POV of the perpetrator.
* The ([[RealitySubtext apparently autobiographical]]) "Drawn to the Blood" by Music/SufjanStevens:
-->''The strength of his arm,\\
My lover caught me off-guard.''
* "Pick Up The Phone" by Music/FallingInReverse is about an abusive and jealous boyfriend.
* Rachel Proctor's song "Me and Emily" tells the story of a woman who packs up her daughter to escape a physically abusive husband.
* "Push" by Music/MatchboxTwenty is one of the few songs that deals with female on male domestic abuse. The male singer is being abused by his girlfriend, emotionally and possibly physically.
* "99 Biker Friends" by Music/BowlingForSoup is about the singer telling an abusive husband/boyfriend to knock it off on pain of the 99 bikers showing up and kicking his ass.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYT6QHGOwvk "DLMD"]] by [[Music/ThreeEleven 311]] implores a girl to leave her abusive boyfriend ("DLMD" stands for "Don't let me down").
* "Earthquake" by Little Boots is a classic case of suffering an abusive relationship and keeping quiet about it.
* Inna's "Endless" video starts with her boyfriend verbally abusing her while she sings calmly, intercut with their happier times, escalating to physical fighting near the end, at which point she finally gets rid of him. However, the actual lyrics [[LyricsVideoMismatch don't quite match the video]].
%%* Music/{{Hurt}} plays it chillingly straight with "Abuse of SID".

* Betty Wright's "Go!" is about a woman in an abusive relationship finally finding the strength to leave.
* Subverted in Lightin' Hopkins' "Bring Me My Shotgun." In the song, a man calls for his shotgun, proclaiming that he's going to shoot his wife and hide her body for cheating on him. His wife stands firm and dares him to do it. The man then admits that his shotgun doesn't actually fire. It was all an empty threat.

* Music/WallOfVoodoo's "Factory" is about a factory worker whose dangerous, monotonous job has caused him physical and mental harm - one sign of the latter is when, near the end of the song, he casually admits "just lately when my wife talks back to me, I smack her around".

* ''{{Music/Halsey}}'': Her character in "If I Can't Have Love I Want Power", Queen Lila, is treated very badly by the king, her husband, to the point that [[spoiler:she ends up poisoning him to escape]].

* "Voices Carry" by 'Till Tuesday is about a woman in an abusive relationship who fears expressing her emotions about what she feels about her lover.

You get crooked, your southern can belongs to me''\\

* Music/TracyChapman's "Behind the Wall", a haunting ACappella song about a domestic abuse situation which is only heard as "loud voices behind the wall." The narrator doesn't call the police to deal with what's happening because she knows that [[PoliceAreUseless they come late if they even come at all, and are disinclined to deal with domestic situations]]. One night, a horrible silence follows the screaming, and an ambulance comes to the scene, which all but confirms that [[DownerEnding the worst has happened]].

* Music/TracyChapman's "Behind the Wall", a haunting ACappella song about a domestic violence situation that is only heard as "loud voices behind the wall." The narrator doesn't call the police to deal with this because she knows that [[PoliceAreUseless they come late if they even come at all, and are disinclined to deal with domestic situations]]. One night, a horrible silence follows the screaming, and an ambulance comes to the scene, suggesting that [[DownerEnding the worst has happened]].

* Tracy Chapman's "Behind the Wall".

* Russian band Kis-Kis's music video for their song "Molchi" ("Be Quiet") is about this and [[AbusiveParents child abuse]]. [[note]]The song itself seems to be more about [[BystanderSyndrome Bystander Syndrome]].[[/note]]

* Russian band Kis-Kis's "Ne Nado" ("I Don't Need") is about a girl being physically abused and too afraid to tell anyone about it or ask for help.[[note]]It is also about [[RapeAsDrama rape]].[[/note]]
** Much of the music video for their song "Molchi" ("Be Quiet") is about this and [[AbusiveParents child abuse]]. [[note]]The song itself seems to be more about [[BystanderSyndrome Bystander Syndrome]].[[/note]]

* "Animal Nitrate" by {{Music/Suede}}, in which the protagonist falls victim to the charms of a BastardBoyfriend.