Eminem - Elevator (rap, 2009)
Songs about success, like pleasure, were fairly easy to find; especially since in most cases especially in America, success (wealth) would lead to pleasure (sex, drugs, pleasure etc.) even though many people say that money cannot buy happiness it can, in some cases, buy small amounts of pleasure. "Elevator" and "My Band" are both really just Eminem talking about how awesome he is. The Big L song is a play-by-play account of a robbery where he ended up stealing a large amount of money, fairly successful. "My President is Black" and "We Are The Champions" are the really the only 2 songs I could think of that brought a common goal to realization or recognized a group for their achievements. I had a hard time trying to find songs about liberation since, in America, we have so many freedoms that we really do not have one thing that the whole country can come together to liberate us from. However, looking for personal liberation is probably more of what the Hindu aim is directed at, so I chose songs that had to do with that. "Passing The Hat" is the story of a man who realizes the church that he attends is not really doing any good and putting money in the offering hat is the same as throwing it away since no one really knows where it goes. "Holy Shackles" has a similar tone but more accusatory of religion. Halie Selassie was the Emperor of Ethiopia and is thought of as Jesus to the Rastafarian community. In the Rastafarian religion one's goal is to make it back to Zion from Jamaica to be free, in this case Zion is Ethiopia, The Bright Eyes song is about Selassie calling people to Ethiopia to be free.
As Americans I think that we often treat money and material goods as an end or goal where in Hindu culture the goal would be moksha and you really only need money to survive while you are working your way through lives. However the idea of liberation, I think, is the same for us in America. We have to be able to sort through the biases and such we are presented with everyday, and must liberate ourselves from that. Everyone in this country feels that in some way they are not being treated fairly, and should be liberated from that.