Music effortlessly reflects Earth’s endless expanse of life, colour and sound within its sonic landscapes. Some songs about animals are absolute nonsense, like the mindless feral nature of the wilderness where language ceases to exist.
Other tracks are riddled with instinctive power, like the vicious difference between predator and prey, while some reflect the longing for flight in those of us tied to the soil. This list collects some of pop’s best songs about animals to evoke that evolutionary energy you seek.
Songs About Animals
1. Nelly Furtado – I’m Like A Bird
Nelly Furtado’s 2000 hit, I’m Like A Bird, is about love entangled with the truthful knowing that your heart belongs to the freedom of the deep skies.
Furtado’s R&B-enthused verses are reassured by love, “You’re beautiful, that’s for sure, you’ll never ever fade,” but every chorus is swept with her honest doubt of what the future holds, “And though my love is rare, though my love is true, I’m like a bird, I’ll only fly away.”
Furtado’s bird metaphor is presented with flitting melodies and free-flying spirit, making a soundtrack for anyone who wants to spread their wings, or simply can’t sacrifice their independence to a tied-down relationship
2. Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
White Rabbit binds hypnotic 1960’s psychedelia with the strange drug metaphors riddled throughout Lewis Caroll’s classic children’s novel, Alice In Wonderland.
They craft a clever song about substance abuse against Alice In Wonderland’s psychoactive, pill-popping scenery, whilst summoning familiarly warped woodland imagery like, “If you go chasing rabbits, you know you’re going to fall.”
Shrinking and expanding their sound exponentially, Jefferson Airplane stylistically reflect Alice’s changing size and the disorientation of disreality.
White Rabbit showcases a strange but needed contrast to the rampant drug-infested music of their era; “Remember what the dormouse said: feed your head.”
3. Shakira – She Wolf
She Wolf’s soundscape of howling sets the scene for a lady unhappy in love, simmering with a deep-set compulsion to let her inner she-wolf run loose, in other words, cheat on her neglectful partner.
Her lyrics are fierce with werewolf allusions as she stalks with the impulsive ferocity and fearlessness of a moon-struck animal;
“Sitting across a bar, staring right at her prey, it’s going well so far, she’s gonna get her way,” stirring in predatory animal references like “My body’s craving, so feed the hungry … Nocturnal creatures are not so prudent, the moon’s my teacher and I’m her student.”
4. Def Leppard – Animal
Def Leppard’s Animal is a fading treasure of a rock song about lust, written under the guise of a hunting animal analogy.
Leppard paint a scene of boys chasing intimacy with the compulsion of a wild wolf-pack, weaving their lyrics with night-fallen imagery, “We are the hungry ones … Cry wolf, given mouth to mouth, like a moving heartbeat in the witching hour
I’m running with the wind, a shadow in the dust.” Animal is sonically soaked with a playful sense of passion and bounding spirit, compared to Shakira’s dark pop approach to a strikingly similar wolf concept.
5. Bob Marley & The Wailers – Three Little Birds
Bob Marley’s timeless chorus, “Don’t worry about a thing ‘cause every little thing is gonna be alright,” is delivered by three little birds singing upon a sun-lit doorstep.
Marley’s clear-skied illustration of early mornings glimmering with sweet birdsong provides one of the purest songs about animals, settled in a simple message that transcends generations and cultures alike.
6. Survivor – Eye Of The Tiger
Survivor’s hit captures the brutal, pouncing energy of a tiger during the hunt. Eye Of The Tiger conjures the predatory animal behaviour within you, charged with the will to survive, conquer and be the top cat of your jungle by means of overpowering success.
Their track is striped with suspense and the shameless, untamed nature of a wild animal, while being thickly coated with tiger metaphors,
“Face to face, out in the heat, hanging tough, staying hungry, they stack the odds still we take to the street, for the kill with the skill to survive.”
7. Ylvis – The Fox
Ylvis’ nonsensical dance anthem is inspirited with the mystery of the fox. The chorus scrambles erratically to answer the impervious question, “What does the fox say?” mimicking the fox’s scavenging, quick-footed nature perfectly in his strange search for reason.
Looking beyond the absurdity of the chorus, Ylvis draw upon aspects of the fox which are veiled in mystery and mysticism, describing the animal as an adorable and wise, spiritual creature while tearing apart the common hateful remark that foxes are nothing more than pests, “Your fur is red, so beautiful, like an angel in disguise.”
The Fox holds some very cute, loving moments that, while being shrouded by the chorus, help craft a theme tune for anyone enchanted by woodland animals.
8. David Bowie – Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)
Cat People (Putting Out The Fire) is a rock song creeping with lustful cat imagery. Bowie’s track is backlit with the gleaming gaze of cat eyes, “See these eyes so green, I can stare for a thousand years,” as he slyly implies the animalistic nature of human love.
He digs deeper into his animal metaphor by “putting out the fire with gasoline,” or in other words, acting in wild, thoughtless destruction like a beast in hope to make his love flourish.
9. The Beatles – I Am The Walrus
The Beatles weave the sentiments of Jefferson Airplane and Ylvis together in their psychedelic nonsense track, I Am The Walrus.
Harnessing every colour of the LSD rainbow, The Beatles create a kaleidoscope of sound, distorting reality into their incomparably original mould of mania and mindlessness.
Many have tried to interpret the maze of lyrics and many have failed, but The Beatles clearly revelled in the minor conspiracy they’d created, sparking the debate again years later when they sang in Glass Onion, “The walrus was Paul.”
10. First Aid Kit – Wolf
This shamefully obscure track calls forth the ambience of the ancient forest ridden with wolves and peaceful creatures of the dark.
They capture the graceful spiritual energy of the wolf, the strength raised in a pack despite violence and torment, and the boundless freedom of nature.
Hidden in the beauty of their harmony is a story swarming with gloom and hurt, threaded with stunning apocalyptic poetry and spiritualism.
“When I run through the deep dark forest long after this begun, where the sun would set, the trees were dead and the rivers were none … Holy light, O guard the night, keep the spirits strong.”