"I Hate" Song

I wish I had a bullet big enough to fucking kill the sun
I'm sick of songs about the summer, and I hate everyone.

— AJJ, "Hate, Rain on Me"

The antithesis of Silly Love Songs, this type of song is where the singer complains about not liking something. The song may or may not be satirical.

Common topics of hate include one's job, ex, hated foods (in sillier examples, as Food Songs Are Funny), or political figures, but these can be about anything. Usually, the song serves to characterize the singer as The Cynic or someone with a lot of self-loathing— unless, of course, the song is funny.

Supertrope to "The Hero Sucks" Song and "The Villain Sucks" Song. May overlap with Anti-Love Song, Anti-Christmas Song, and Villain Song (where the character's hatefulness characterizes them as a villain). See also Take That!. If it's about hating a person, it's usually The Diss Track, though not all Diss Tracks are "I Hate" Songs, since you can insult someone without outright hating them.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In the late 1990s, Marmite ran an advertising campaign with two versions of a song - one for those who love Marmite and one for those who hate it.

Films — Animation

• In the 1993 animated film based on the story of David Copperfield, Aunt Betsy is not happy that her sister Clara Copperfield has given birth to a boy, and her song about this is appropriately titled "I Hate Boys!" The reason she's so hung up about the male gender is that she had a quite bad relationship with her last husband.
• Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights has the protagonist Davey Stone, an obnoxious troublemaker sing all about how he hates the holidays. His singing starts when he runs from the cops after he fails to pay for four scorpion bowls and he causes a bunch of chaos downtown during his number, from pelting snowballs at reindeer to stealing a snowmobile and destroying snowmen with nunchuks.
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1998): Stormella's Villain Song, "I Hate Santa Claus", is all about how she hates Santa's jolliness and how she's planning to stop him from delivering toys.

Films — Live-Action

• Scrooge (1970): Albert Finney as the title character belting out "I Hate People."
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home has "I Hate You" by Edge of Etiquette, a song about how rotten humanity is and how we'd be better off nuking ourselves into oblivion. When The Quincy Punk playing it flips Kirk off for requesting that he turn it down, Spock nerve-pinches him, leading to him falling on his boom box and turning off the song... at the same time. Everyone on the bus applauds.

Live-Action TV

• In Season 3 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Heather sings "The Moment is Me", an inspirational musical theatre ballad all about the utter cheesiness of songs about accomplishment. This works with Heather being a very cynical, dry character. In Season 4, Greg fits this trope perfectly by singing the aptly named song "I Hate Everything But You."
• Galavant:
  • "Maybe You're Not the Worst Thing Ever" is a parody love ballad during which the two main couples sing about the things they despise in their respective partners, before acknowledging that those things might not be complete deal-breakers.
  • "Jackass in a Can" features a group of squires singing about how much they loathe the knights they serve.
  • "World's Best Kiss" is a sweet duet between Galavant and Isabella about their "slightly yeasty, oddly musty" first kiss, which they conclude was actually awful.
  • "What Am I Feeling?" features an upset Madalena complaining about her feelings, and feelings in general.
  • In the aptly-titled "I Don't Like You," Madalena and Isabella sing about how much they dislike each other.

Music

• "I'll Make You Cry" by aespa promises merciless treatment toward an ex-lover.
• In "Fuck You", Lily Allen catchily tears into a homophobic, racist, warmongering bigot.
• Andrew Jackson Jihad has "Hate, Rain on Me", a song about hating everything, but most of all yourself.
• "Fuck You" by Archive (and Covered Up by Placebo) is a song about undying hatred towards someone. However, due to one line it's also interpreted as intense self-hatred.
• "I Can't Stand L.A." by Bowling for Soup, is, well... about how the band can't stand Los Angeles, while mentioning other cities they do enjoy.
• Bring Me the Horizon:
  • "True Friends" rants about a friend's betrayal.
  • "Go To Hell For Heaven's Sake" is an angry song about someone the singer dislikes.
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "Scum" is an unhinged stream-of-consciousness rant of hatred for a music critic who was Cave's friend until he wrote a high-profile bad review of his second solo album.
• Another "Fuck You" by Cee Lo Green is a rant about how much he hates the guy that stole his girl and, by extension, the girl herself.
  I still wish you the best with a fuck you!
• Susan Christie spends more of "I Love Onions" singing about things she doesn't like than about her beloved tuberous vegetables.
• "I Hate You" by Alice Cooper has Alice and the other surviving members of the original band taking turns on the lead vocals for a verse on what they hate about each other. It's actually all in fun, but the last verse is about the late Glen Buxton. What they hate the most about him is the fact he is no longer around:
  But most of all, we're filled filled with rage, at the empty space you left on stage!
• Jonathan Coulton has "I Hate California", which doesn't exactly hide its point — though it makes it clear that he's not blaming anyone in particular for the feeling, and the main problem may be that the object of his affection is there when he isn't.
• German/Austrian fun band DÖF with "Codo". The "Master of Hate" does sort of a Villain Song.
• The Entoi song "Cold Song" is about some Cartoon Creature's who hate having a cold.
  Sore throat! Snot! Chest cold! I really really don't like it!
• Eric Bogle had a satirical song about racism titled "I Hate Wogs". He stopped performing it after it attracted a Misaimed Fandom who thought it really was about hating migrants.
• Hollywood Undead's "Kill Everyone" is an angry song about feeling so angry you could kill everyone around you.
• In the Kat McSnatch song "I Don't Like You", the singer sings about how she hates the listener so much she wants them to die.
• Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" is about someone having a bad day where they hate everything.
  It's just one of those days when ya don't wanna wake up, everything is fucked, everybody sucks!
• "Suck Shit" from Machine Girl's U-Void Synthesizer is best described as an "I Hate You" song, with themes of violent, elaborate revenge on an unspecified enemy.
• Howard Devoto of Magazine doesn't seem to like much — not even himself. "A Song From Under the Floorboards" declares I am angry I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin. Actual hatred tends to be carefully meted out in his songs, though. For example, "Motorcade" expresses sheer contempt for authoritarianism:
  The man at the center of the motorcade
  Has learned to tie his boots...
• German singer Marius Müller‐Westernhagen has his "Herr D." who hates everything and its opposite and doesn't even know why.
• Miley Cyrus has a song titled "7 Things" in which she sings about the seven things she hates about her ex. Although the final chorus subverts this by listing the seven things she likes about them.
• Bob Mould has a song called "I Hate Alternative Rock", about the diminishing returns of post-Nirvana guitar rock in the mid-90s.
• "Cool to Hate" by The Offspring rails against the very idea of positivity, with the singer acknowledging that tearing things down is easier than building them up.
  I hate the jocks and I hate the geeks
  I hate the trendies but I also hate the freaks
• The Nursery Rhyme "Rain, Rain, Go Away" (the Trope Namer for Rain, Rain, Go Away) is about disliking the rain.
• Amanda Palmer has a song called "Vegemite (The Black Death)" in which she explains at length how much she hates the titular spread and laments that her significant other enjoys eating it.
  • "Fuck You Daily Mail" is pretty much self-explanatory.^note  The DM slathered over a Wardrobe Malfunction at a gig that exposed Amanda's breasts. She came back with a scathing song.
• Passenger has one literally just called "I Hate", in which he professes his hatred for things ranging from racists and the promotion of eating disorders, to The X Factor, "fussy eaters", and "ignorant folks that pay money to see gigs and talk through every fucking song".
• Placebo's "Song To Say Goodbye" at minimum isn't positive towards the person being sung about, though it's more bittersweet than outright angry.
• "Hate" by the Plain White T's is about the singer's, um, extreme dislike for his ex:
  Hate is a strong word, but I really, really, really don't like you
  Now that it's over, I don't even know what I liked about you
  Brought you around and you just brought me down
  Hate is a strong word, but I really, really, really don't like you
• Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders rarely holds much back when she dislikes something or someone. For one example, "Pack It Up" starts with a cry of "You guys are the pits of the world!" and gets magnificently venomous at the culmination;
  But you're a piece of junk, and furthermore
  I don't like your trousers
  Your appalling taste in women
  And what about your mind...
• The Ramones' ''I'm Against It;" fourteen specific dislikes ranging from "Jesus freaks" to "the Viet Cong", and summed up with "I don't like anyone" and "I don't like anything."
• The Rolling Stones' "Stupid Girl" is three verses and a middle eight of "grrr..." against shallow, empty-headed women.
• "I Hate You", by Sick Puppies, involves the singer proclaiming his hate for someone, claiming that even if that person also hates them... "I will always hate you more." It has an undertone of Belligerent Sexual Tension, as the singer sounds frustrated about a terrible relationship with the song's subject, but admit that the person "turns them on" and feels ashamed of whatever it is they did to them.
• Songdrops:
  • "The Fidget Spinner Song" is about how the narrator hates it when he's trying to eat his lunch at the cafeteria but everyone distracts him with their fidget spinners.
  • "The Summertime Song" lists everything the narrator hates about summer.
  • "Mosquitoes" says, "This song is about everything I like about mosquitoes" followed by an awkward silence because he likes nothing about them.
• "Mr. Writer" by Stereophonics is all about how much the band hates music critics (they were successful but notoriously unpopular with many critics who accused them of epitomising everything backwards and cliched about post-Britpop guitar-based rock).
• In "Jerk" by Kim Stockwood the singer wants to let the titular jerk know exactly what they think.
• Shinedown:
  • "Bully" is a song against bullies.
  • "Enemies" is about someone's enemies.
• A good portion of Three Days Grace songs such as "Home" are about hating people.
  • "I Hate Everything About You" is a Zig-Zagged example about love-hate relationship.
    I hate everything about you / Why do I love you?
• "I Hate Everything" by George Strait, where a man lists off a number of things he hates, some completely mundane (all four seasons, for example). Behind it all is his dejection at his wife leaving him for another man.
• Suicidal Tendencies: "I'll Hate You Better", although we grant the singer hating only in self-defense.
• "The Toronto Song" by Alberta band Three Dead Trolls In A Baggie, also known as "Ontario Sucks".
• "H-A-T-R-E-D" by Tonio K, starts as a mellow retrospective song about a failed relationship, but the music changes and the lyrics become a rant about the one who left him.
• "Everything About You" by Ugly Kid Joe is mostly about a failed relationship but the singer also mentions a number of other things he hates.
• Vader's "Litany" is a list of things the speaker hates about the person they are addressing the song to, as well as nasty things that he would like to do to them.
• In "Bomb New Jersey", Aurelio Voltaire is willing to do anything for even the most heinous of villains, if they would only drop a nuke on the town where he grew up (and was relentlessly bullied).
• "Hate My Life" by Theory of a Deadman qualifies.
• "Albuquerque" by "Weird Al" Yankovic starts off with Al talking about how his mother fed him nothing but sauerkraut for a good portion of his life. He then details winning a contest where the prize is a one-way trip to Albuquerque, surviving a plane crash, getting a treasured item stolen, trying to order doughnuts, a failed marriage, and a couple of chance encounters. In the end, he loses his train of thought and admits the song was just a roundabout way of saying "I hate sauerkraut."
  • He plays with this in "Since You've Been Gone" which sounds more like an "I want you back" song, listing off all the ways he feels absolutely terrible since his ex left. Until the punchline: "I feel almost as bad as I did when you were still here".
• "The Evening Hate" by Red, which they’ve said "dives into the deep-seeded hatred that everyone has felt at some point or another." This winds up being one of the more serious examples, as the lyrics imply that their hatred is so intense, it’s literally driving them insane.
  Voices screaming, cold hands reaching, the earth shaking, my mind, BREAKING!!

Puppet Shows

• In Sesame Street, Oscar sings a song about hating Christmas called "I Hate Christmas".

Theatre

• "Little Girls" from Annie, in which the villainous Miss Hannigan, who runs an orphanage, sings about how much she hates... little girls.
• The Shredder's Villain Song in Coming Out of Their Shells "I Hate Music" is all about his hatred of music.
  I hate music
  I hate music and you heard it first I love it when the band never rehears
  I hate music I think it's the worst
• In Something Rotten!, Nick's song "God, I Hate Shakespeare" is devoted to how much he hates his fellow playwright Shakespeare. It starts off with him ranting about all the ways he finds him and his plays boring and pretentious, eventually devolving into him screaming that he loathes every single single thing about him.
• "What is this feeling?" from Wicked is Elphaba and Galinda passionately declaring their loathing for each other, in a manner parodying a love song.
• "I Hate Music" from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells Tour, where Shredder sings about how he wants to get rid of music. The song's name is also ironic, as Shredder technically makes music despite hating music. It's also the only song that didn't appear on the tour's album.
• "I Hate Men" from Kiss Me, Kate, where Kate expounds on how men are of little use to her.
  Then ever marry one of them, I'd rest a maiden rather
  For husbands are a boring lot that only give you bother
  Of course, I'm awful glad that mother had to marry father
  Still, I hate men
• "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime" is about every petty thing that the Mikado hates and how much he enjoys inventing bizarre punishments for these irritations. As is tradition for Gilbert and Sullivan the song is usually updated to include whatever day to day annoyances the audience would face.
  • "I've Got A Little List" is one from Ko-Ko, listing people and things he and others dislike as candidates for execution, since they'll "ne'er be missed." One of the play's memes is rewriting this song to include offenses relevant to the current audience in that list.

Video Games

• I. M. Meen starts with the eponymous villain singing about how he hates "goodie-goodies" studying and learning things, and how he banishes them to his labyrinth for doing it.

Web Animation

• In the Strong Bad Email "Marzipan", Marzipan sings a song about how she really doesn't like Strong Bad at all.

Web Videos

• The Real Me, The joke music video made by Roomie Official, Boyinaband, Andrew Huang and Rob Scallon contains a verse where Boyinaband proclaims that he hates his fans but loves the money they give him by being his fans.

Western Animation

• Animaniacs: "The Monkey Song" is Dr. Scratchansniff lamenting his recurring torment of dealing with the Warners (whom he regularly mistakes for monkeys). "A Quake! A Quake!" is one directed at the real life events and controversies surrounding the then-recent 1994 Northridge earthquake.
• Daria: Splendora's "Turn The Sun Down," the opening theme for "Is It Fall Yet?," consists of complaints about summer, played over scenes of characters frolicking on the beach (and Daria being annoyed by their antics).
• Family Guy: "The List" sung by Stewie is one huge rant about characters that angers him, ranging from stereotypes to real life people, which he is going to have killed in gruesome fashion. "None of them be missed" is used as a chorus to justify this stance.
• Garfield and Friends: "The Man Who Hated Cats" is a Musical Episode about, well, a man who hates cats. He gets a song about how much he hates cats, mentioning how they're "screeching and yelling and always rebelling" and they "bring the fleas into your house."
  Mr. Block: They all make me nauseous!
  I wish that every one of them would scat!
  That's why I hate a pussycat!
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • "My Goody Two-Shoes Brother" from "Tree To Get Ready" is about how Dr. Doofenshmirtz hates his eponymous brother and wants to "smother him in pigeon poo". He also talks about other things he hates, like bellhops, taxi drivers, monks, and underwater welders.
  • "I Really Don't Hate Christmas" is another Doofenshmirtz song that's an inversion. It's about how he hates every holiday but Christmas, and his frustration at not hating it like a good supervillain should. Not that he likes it, either; he's more apathetic.
  "I have an intense, BURNING indifference!"
• The Simpsons: In "Dude, Where's My Ranch?", Homer writes a song called "Everybody Hates Ned Flanders" about his rivalry with his neighbour Ned.
• South Park: "Jakovasaurs" opens with Cartman's newly composed "I Hate You Guys".
  I hate you guys
  You guys are assholes
  Especially Kenny
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In the episode "Mermaid Pants," Squidward sings a short song about how much he hates SpongeBob and Patrick.
  • In "SpongeBob's Place," Squidward isn't bothered by the Krusty Krab being empty and starts singing about how much he hates people. When the Krusty Krab re-attracts customers, Squidward is still singing in it.
• In 3rd & Bird, Esther once sings a song about her bird prejudice called "I Don't Like Birds".
• In the Rankin/Bass adaptation of "The Wind In The Willows", Badger hears Rat and Mole's knocking at his door, and starts singing "I Hate Company".

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