Line #17 FreudianExcuse/Music


1	%%%
2	%%
3	%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
4	%%
5	%%%
6
7	{{Freudian Excuse}}s in music.
8	----
9
10	* Creator/AnnaRussell's song "Jolly Old Sigmund Freud."
11	-->At three I had a feeling of ambivalence towards my brothers,\
12	And so it follows naturally I've poisoned all my lovers,\
13	But I am happy now I've learned the lesson this has taught,\
14	That everything I do that's wrong is someone else's fault!
15	* "Had Enough" by Music/BreakingBenjamin may be an example of this trope, as it could be about an OmnicidalManiac who is motivated by hatred for someone, possibly his father.
16	-->''You should have learned by now, I'll burn this whole world down\
17	I need some peace of mind, no fear of what's behind\
18	You think you've won this fight, you've only lost your mind\
19	You had to have it all, well have you had enough?\
20	You greedy little bastard, you will get what you deserve\
21	When all is said and done, I will be the one\
22	To leave you in your misery and hate what you've become''
23	* Music/TheEagles' "Get Over It" has this line:
24	-->''Victim of this, victim of that,\
25	Your momma's too thin and your daddy's too fat.''
26	* The titular protagonist of Music/EltonJohn's "All the Girls Love Alice" has her teenage rebellion attributed to "a simple case of Mummy Doesn't Love Me Blues."
27	* In Music/{{Eminem}}'s earlier work, this is somewhat parodied - his character Slim Shady had an awful life with a HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood, but apart from a few spots of revenge fantasy and a bit of standard GangstaRap stuff it doesn't justify or, really, [[StupidEvil explain]] his absurd actions. However, in "Insane", we learn that [[RapeAsBackstory Slim was repeatedly raped by his stepfather growing up]], and this is given as a reason for why he's so broken now - having little control over his own actions. Unlike in previous Slim Shady songs, Slim never gets revenge on anyone involved in the song - it ends with him flashing back to a rape, [[OffscreenInertia presumably reliving it forever]]. He even mockingly quotes bystanders who think he's cool, to draw attention to how pathetic it actually would be to be Slim:
28	-->Ain't he raw? Yeah, maniac, that's Shady, dawg\
29	Man that motherfucker's gangsta, ain't he dawg?\
30	Shady, dawg, what be goin' through that fuckin' brain of yours?
31	* Just about every villain, hero, or [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralityKitchenSink something else]] in the ''[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/Mothy?from=Main.Mothy Evillous Chronicles]]'' has this.
32	* Music/FallOutBoy, "My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light 'Em Up)":
33	--> My childhood spat back out the monster that you see
34	* Many GangstaRap artist used the back story of them being poor and growing up in a dangerous neighborhoods with no opportunities as their reasons for embracing the thug life of selling drugs, pimping, gang banging, etc. At first it was a genuine call for help and action. Now the tragic story songs are used to help justify the songs [[{{Flanderization}} glorifying the criminal lyrics]].
35	* Music/GeorgeMichael's "Star People"'s refrain seems to suggest this:
36	-->''Maybe your momma gave you up, boy.\
37	Maybe your daddy didn't love you enough, girl.''
38	* [[Music/{{Gwar}} GWAR]]: The reason why Oderus Urungus became a genocidal space barbarian is because, shortly after he was spawned from a Scumdoggian breeding hive, he was forced to fight off rapist little people in an arena with nothing but a sword. [[RefugeInAudacity It's that kind of band.]]
39	* A particularly {{Anvilicious}} case is Music/HarryChapin's "Sniper," about a boy whose mother never makes time for him, so he grows up to be a deranged mass murderer who explicitly voices his hatred for her at the climax. Can be considered a darker version of Chapin's "Cats in the Cradle."
40	* The person the singer is singing to in "Numb" by Music/LinkinPark has one, apparently ("but I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you").
41	** Same in "Points of Authority":
42	--->''You want someone to hurt like you (you live what you've learned)\
43	You want to share what you've been through (you live what you've learned)''
44	* John Flansburgh (of Music/TheyMightBeGiants fame) has recorded a song called "It Never Fails", about cops manipulating the psychological problems of criminals in order to keep their arrest quotas up.
45	* Music/{{Madonna}}'s "Oh Father" has this verse, speaking about her abusive father:
46	-->''Maybe someday,\
47	When I look back I'll be able to say\
48	You didn't mean to be cruel;\
49	Somebody hurt you too.''
50	* "Pseudothyrum Song" by Music/TheMountainGoats:
51	-->''I think someone was mean to you, when you were little\
52	That's what I think\
53	I think someone was mean to you''
54	* In the Music/PinkFloyd ConceptAlbum, ''Music/TheWall'', Pink is born to [[DisappearedDad a father absent to him]] due to dying in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and an [[MyBelovedSmother overprotective mother]] who micromanages his love life and leaves him paranoid and dependent. His [[SadistTeacher teachers are cruel and oppressive]], humiliating his artistic inclinations in front of the classroom. He becomes a famous rock star, but his SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll lifestyle, penchant for groupies and self-indulgence, and emotional coldness towards his wife (due partly to the female issues his mother instilled in him) led his wife to cheat on him ([[UnreliableNarrator or at least Pink takes it this way when another man answers the phone when he calls her from his hotel room]], and his manager injects drugs into him to keep him performing, even against his will. With each predicament, Pink layers a metaphorical "brick" on his "wall", leading to Pink isolating himself and decaying. In his madness, he imagines himself as a contemptuous, fascistic figure, leading his audience to a pseudo-Nazi-like rally until his the judge and jury in brain hold him for trial and tear down his wall. [[HereWeGoAgain Then the cycle repeats itself...]]
55	** It is overall subverted, though; the story of both the film and the album, and Roger Waters himself, has made it clear that Pink is at least partially responsible for his own problems by choosing to maintain his wall rather than trying to confronting his inner demons, and that he was treating his wife unfairly and she had some pretty good reasons to resent him.
56	* "Swift Kick in the Rear" by Power Salad, from the point of view of a disgruntled [[TheShrink therapist]]:
57	-->''You don't even have to speak, I've heard it all before\
58	You're impotent cause you did not get that bike when you were four''
59	* The Music/SaraBareilles song "Machine Gun," about the jerk whose sole purpose in life is to aggravate those around him:
60	-->''Maybe nobody loved you when you were young\
61	Maybe boy when you cried nobody'd ever come\
62	Will you try it once? Give up the machine gun...''
63	* "The Wound that Never Heals" by Jim White, is about a BlackWidow. It has this to say about her backstory:
64	-->''She runs from devils, she runs from angels\
65	She runs from the ghost of her father and five different uncles.\
66	Blinded by their memory, seared by their pain\
67	She'd like to kill 'em all, yeah, kill 'em all again\
68	She don't think much about what she's done, or the funny way she feels (No, she don't)\
69	To her it's just a condition she picked up as a child\
70	A little thing she calls "The Wound that Never Heals"''
71	* Music/TaylorSwift's "Mean", suggests it for the [[TheVillainSucksSong song target]]:
72	-->''I bet you got pushed around,\
73	Somebody made you cold.\
74	But the cycle ends right now,\
75	[='Cause=] you can't lead me down that road.''
76	* Tomahawk's self-titled album is supposedly a concept album about a SerialKiller, which would make the song "Flashback" the main character's FreudianExcuse, as it's about his repressed memories of a disturbingly abusive childhood.
77	* {{Defied}} in "Angels" by Music/WithinTemptation. The singer tells the subject that even if the world had failed him, he's still responsible for his own choices, and now [[KarmicDeath karma has come to collect]].
78	-->''The world may have failed you, it doesn't give you reason why\
79	You could have chosen a different path in life.''
80

Context FreudianExcuse / Music