It’s only ever easy to spot the signs of gaslighting and manipulation from the outside, looking in.
When you’re the one trapped inside a relationship, knowingly or not, it can be impossible to speak out against the emotional abuse and make the independent strides forward that you need.
Our list of songs about gaslighting scream every word you might fear to whisper, exposing the signs of manipulation while igniting you with the self-confidence you need to finally step away from a bad situation.
Songs About Gaslighting
1. Lady Gaga – Til It Happens To You
Lady Gaga’s compelling single, Till It Happens To You, highlights the devastating impact of sexual abuse, though its message resonates profoundly amongst those suffering from any type of abuse, physical or not.
This was a brave song for Gaga to release, peering deeply into the disharmony that erupts within the mind of a victim of abuse while demonstrating that their pain is unfathomable to anyone who hasn’t experienced it.
Through every crushing description of the effects of abuse and manipulation, Gaga binds her anthem together with the support needed by anyone going through trauma, by filling her lyrics with the most cutting of truths, reflecting every word that you might be too scared to say to your abuser;
“You tell me ‘hold your head up and be strong, ‘cause when you fall, you gotta get up and move on,’ tell me how the hell could you talk, ‘cause until you walk where I walk, this is no joke.”
2. Nessa Barrett – Gaslight
Nessa Barrett’s track Gaslight is a quirky tune harbouring a multitude of eccentric pop influences within its plush modern soundscape.
From the perspective of somebody being gaslit, she details the guilty, suspicious behaviour of her man as she slowly figures out he’s been cheating on her.
Similar to the way any argument unearths months of buried resentment, Barret fills her chorus with every way he’s made her feel terrible in the past, with lyrics which read like an unsent letter from someone who’s always been made to feel insignificant by their partner;
“Why am I jealous if I’m yours, why do you make me insecure, why do you tell me not to worry, when you always f****** hurt me, why am I jealous if you’re mine, why am I not even your type,”
Perhaps her most spot-on lyric,“why do you tell me that I’m crazy, gaslight, I’m not crazy if I’m right,” captures the absolute truth of any manipulative relationship.
3. The Police – Every Breath You Take
Every Breath You Take has become one of the most iconic love songs in the world, for its pure and profound message of ‘protection’ over someone you love. However, this wasn’t the song’s original intention.
Sting once said in an interview that The Police’s 1983 hit is actually about stalking a girl. With this in mind, their lyrics are transformed to reflect a parasitic lover who won’t stop tangling himself cruelly within your life.
Every line of their song is doused with the manipulative techniques which an abusive partner might use to make you fall in love with them, deepend by the bridge which needlessly throws their sorrow onto their partner, as if convincing her that it’s her fault that he feels so miserable.
Take another look at the lyrics of this song and prepare to have your childhood ruined; “Every move you make, every vow you break, every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I’ll be watching you… I feel so cold and I long for your embrace, I keep crying baby, baby, please.”
4. Lizzy Farrall – Gas Lighting
Lizzy Farall’s track borders on the edge of dream-pop, her sound hypnotic in every sense yet brimming with the residual anger left over from a manipulative relationship.
Gas Lighting highlights how emotional abuse and physical abuse are equally as destructive to a person’s demeanour, while embedding the self-depreciating pessimism that soon spirals your brain into oblivion, “Will I ever feel too beaten up to give up on us, are we both too messed up?”
Interestingly, the lyrics to Lizzy’s verses are identical, crafting a track with a message as cyclical as the gaslighting her song exposes.
Gas Lighting refuses to be cast aside any longer, holding a prominent message that anyone reeling from a relationship will relate to; “It’s easier to say that I hate you, than I meant that I love you.”
5. NF – Trauma
NF’s track Trauma is a gut-wrenching open diary of someone whose lover has devastated them with manipulation.
Their lyrics reflect the barbaric breaking down of somebody’s sanity and sense of self, resounding with immense fragility and subtle fright, “Say you’re there when I feel helpless, if that’s true, why don’t you help me? It’s my fault, I know I’m selfish.”
Trauma is coupled with a sparse sonic landscape holding little more than its softly threatening piano harmony and unexploratory vocals.
This not only reflects the lethargy and deep entrapment that follows an abusive relationship, but also empties the song of excess, drawing the depths of your attention to the melancholy and truth inherent within the song’s lyrics.
This is a song for anyone needing comfort in their trauma, and who needs to know that someone else on Earth understands their pain.
6. Nevv – Gas Lighting
Nevv’s Gas Lighting darkly illustrates the manipulation that surrounds the music industry and the deceitful love that runs rampant through his genre.
The video for this bloodthirsty track is impeccably unique, simple and stripped of all the excess that often degrades rap music; no hoes and no chains, just pure and focused truth.
Gas Lighting is crammed with a multitude of poignant, eye-opening lines which put an unequivocal spin on rap’s usual /hoe-loving themes to expose his disillusionment with the untrusting, manipulative nature of fake love;
“Women say they want a loyal man, then they pass around that pussy like a stoner with a plate of freaking pizza rolls, gross … Hate the city type of girls cause they call you the wrong name, then they tell you that they love you, then they go and f*** that brotha that they called you, then they tell you that they miss you”
Underscoring Nevv’s relentless track is the instinctive confidence needed to rise above the manipulation threatening to drag us down, “Imma cut all the ties in my life I don’t want… If you hate me then that’s fine I’m use it as some fuel just to leave you in the dust.”