Paula Cole/YMMV

• Anvilicious: Most of her political songs are this to some degree, but special mention must be made of the following
  • Hilter's Brothers: If your song title breaks Godwin's Law, it's already pretty Anvilicious, however Cole doesn't stop there, following it up by graphically describing a KKK cross burning, a racially motivated gang rape, and the particularly gruesome lynching of a Hispanic man. The bridge of the song is Hitler giving a speech.
  • Be Somebody: this song starts with the line "I want to be somebody / I want to make a difference" and manages to invoke gang violence, Malcolm X, and police brutality before it gets done.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: The full-length version of I Don't Want to Wait, especially the verse that was cut from the radio version.
• Genius Bonus:
  • One needs to have a least a passing familiarity with New Left thought and identity politics to get a few of the references in Cole's first album.
  • And don't even try to offer an interpretation of Nietzsche's Eyes if you're not familiar with the titular figure's work.
  • Subverted by Chiaroscuro. Cole apparently felt the word was so obscure that the liner notes include a definition separate from the song lyrics.
• Tear Jerker: Oh so many...
  • Hush, Hush, Hush is a lullaby sung by a farther to his gay son, who is dying of AIDS.
  • I Don't Want to Wait if you can listen to it without remembering it's connection to a sappy high school drama.
  • As Anvilicious as Be Somebody is, the opening verse, about a young boy seeing his father's killer and realizing his decision to tell the police what he saw will mean his own death, hits you in the gut. Too bad the rest of the song is so filled with upper-middle class liberal pretension that it can't sustain the momentum of the opening.
  • With a title like She Can't Feel Anything Anymore you know it's going to be a downer, but My GOD!
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Rhythm and blues and white bourgeoisie liberalism just don't mix that well it turns out.