Stressors/Pressures of Everyday Life

Drift Away: Dobie Gray (rock and roll will allow him to drift away from the confusion and angst he experiences in this unkind world).

Talk Talk:  The Music Machine (themes of teenage angst, anger, depression, paranoia, despair... the whole package).

Lyin' Eyes: Eagles (a case study of self-created stress: marry a rich old guy with hands as cold as ice to achieve the good life, then cheat on him with a guy her own age (who's hands are presumably not as cold as ice) and we have a recipe for a stressful existence).

Uptown: Roy Orbison

Uptown: The Crystals

(Two different songs, but each conveys the pressures and stress faced by the "little guy" in the big city. Roy's little guy is a bellhop who fantasizes about getting rich and hooking up with the woman in the penthouse. The Crystal's little guy becomes a big guy after he returns to his uptown home after a soul-crushing workday downtown). Interesting how the word "uptown" has a different meaning in each song. 

Idiot Wind: Dylan (the story [to put it mildly] of a bumpy relationship).

Movin' On: Billy Joel (he critiques what he sees as the destructive obsession with "getting ahead" [working multiple jobs, not having a real life, not enjoying what you have] just to buy that metaphorical Cadillac and have just enough energy and health left to polish its fenders, but not enough to drive it).

I Won't Back Down: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Richard Cory: S&G (life's stresses and pressures fall both on the rich and the non-rich.

Cat's In The Cradle: Harry Chapin (the pressures of life collide with good parenting).

"Raise A Little Hell" by Trooper