Songs that sound like the singer is going through an existential crisis

Steve Perry - For the Love of Strange Medicine

Billy Joel - River of Dreams

Kiss - Rain

Journey - Easy to Fall

Michael Bolton - Lost in the City

Michael Jackson - Morphine

 

Daryl Hall - What's Gonna Happen To Us (1986)

 

Bruce Springsteen - Brilliant Disguise

I'm just a lonely pilgrim
I walk this world in wealth
I want to know if it's you I don't trust
'Cause I damn sure don't trust myself

 

Any Joy Division song.

 

Leonard Cohen- No Diamonds in the Mine

 

Robert Calvert with Hawkwind/Sonic Assasins - Over The Top

 

Johnny Cash - Hurt

 

The entire Beck 'Sea Change' album.

 

Initially, I misread that as "Sex Change"

Double oof

 

Bob Dylan, Blowing In The Wind
R.E.M., Everybody Hurts
John Lennon, Imagine

 

Every song Kurt Cobain ever wrote.

 

Syd Barrett on this Pink Floyd song:

 

This might be more of an example of a multiple personality crisis but it's the first song I thought of.

Van der Graaf Generator - "Man-Erg" from the 1972 album Pawn Hearts:



"HOW CAN I BE FREE?
HOW CAN I GET HELP?
AM I REALLY ME?
AM I SOMEONE ELSE?"

I find that quite a few of songs by Van der Graaf and Peter Hammill could be considered to be concerned with states of existential crisis.

 

...and any Nick Drake song. Except "Mayfair." Maybe.

 

Nice Thread, OP
Mike Ness - Misery Loves Company
(solo, not as/w/Social Distortion)
off Cheating At Solitaire, feat. Bruce Springsteen




"I used to roam all night long
I lurked the streets late at night
I ain't never comin' home
But loneliness
Is part of the game
And misery loves company

I used to think that I was a king
Fancy cars, fancy clothes and diamond rings
Yeah but happiness is a funny thing
And misery just loves company

Don't even try to understand
What goes on inside this man
As a boy I used to dream
'cause' sometimes life ain't what it seems

We used to dance under moonlight
But then the tears began to fall
And baby that ain't right
'cause' losin' you
Was part of the game
And misery loves company
'cause' f****' up
Was part of the game
And misery loves company"
Songwriters: Michael Ness

 

Jeff Buckley, grace and specially dream brother.

 

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- U2
"Both Sides Now" -- Joni Mitchell / Judy Collins
"The Logical Song" -- Supertramp
"Is That All There Is?" -- Peggy Lee

 

The ultimate existential crisis of Hatsune Miku.

 

Alejandro Escovedo - Bottom Of The World



"Austin’s changed, it’s true
Show me what hasn’t
Tonight the TV's throwing colors on the wall
As watches cities of the world reduced to ashes
From where I sit, at the bottom of the world
Oh, there used to be a phone booth
Down here on every corner
He used to call me up just to say my name
But now anybody get is a busy signal
No I can’t call home, from the bottom of the world
She said, hey paper boy
Don’t you think it’s time you delivered
I said say the word, your wish is my command

You may think you know all there is to know about me
You might think the beast is in the cage
But everything you see is just an illusion
It’s about to get real, at the bottom of the world
Oh, hey little boy, little boy you look a little frightened
For these awful kind of streets for walking alone
So why don’t you get yourself home back to Houston
I don’t think you’re ready, for the bottom of the world
No I don’t think you’re ready, for the bottom of the world."
Songwriters: Alejandro Escovedo / Chuck Prophet

 

An old country nugget about the classic existential dilemma of the married man:

Right or Left at Oak Street - Roy Clark

Right or left at Oak Street
That's the choice I face every day
And I don't know which takes more courage
The stayin', or the runnin' away

 

There was this guy who called himself Scott Walker...

 

Who Are you by Pete Townshend / The Who

"I woke up in a Soho doorway a policeman knew my name"

Tim

 

Love that guy