Paper is metaphorised in music to illustrate a plethora of different concepts. It retains memory unlike any other material, from intentional pen marks to accidental crumples, poetically mirroring the fragility of the human psyche.
In other songs, it represents cash piles and luxury; while being nothing more than a meaningless scrap that holds inherent power over the greatest of men.
Our list collects the best songs about paper, taking a leaf from a multiplex of genres to show how intrinsic this simple creation is to our experience.
Songs About Paper
1. Christopher Martin – Paper Loving
Christopher Martin’s pop track Paper Loving has a fresh sound nostalgic of mid-00’s hip hop with a subtle reggae feel.
This is a song about love that’s based on money, not attraction, as Martin asks his girl to make the choice between him and his fortune, or another man she’s cheating on him with.
His chorus sums up the thoughts of anyone getting sick of their gold-digging girlfriend, “If you can’t love me now, don’t love me later, when my later is much greater, it only proves that she love di paper, my paper.”
2. M.I.A. – Paper Planes
M.I.A’s hit Paper Planes has one of the most iconic choruses in history, but its deeper meaning is usually lost amid its captivating cash machine samples and free-spirited harmony.
Paper Planes is about making money, matched with the American fear of immigration. Paper makes appearances through the forms of cash and visa papers,
Her chorus lyric, “All I wanna do is [gunshots, cash machine] and take your money,” is a profound satirical take on how immigrants are harshly viewed.
It doesn’t matter what honest job they are working, as M.I.A shows in her video, working in shops, deliveries and cafes – an immigrant is often wrongly viewed as leeching off society, working criminally and contributing next to nothing in culture.
Obviously, these are all lies, which M.I.A shamelessly draws attention to as she empowers fellow immigrants like herself.
3. Egg – Passing Papers
Egg’s quirky indie pop track creatively opens on the question, “Passing papers is a decent way to flirt, right?”
Passing Papers is a delicately cute song filled with the butterfly feeling, crafted around the concept of having a crush on someone and being so scared to tell them, so you dance around the topic instead.
What makes this track even sweeter is that the EP it was released on was actually a birthday gift to the girl it was written to.
4. Linkin Park – Papercut
Linkin Park’s hit Papercut is a dark insight into depressive paranoia and a suicidal downfall tainted by voices inside your head.
While their track is called Papercut, there are no actual references to it at all in the song, dousing the song in metaphor.
The rage and despair Linkin Park encapsulate leads one to think of the concept of ‘death by 1000 cuts’ – it doesn’t always take one catastrophic event to break you down; sometimes hundreds of tiny issues can build remorselessly to become just as lethal to your mental wellbeing.
Papercut is the end result of this reckless bombardment; a song that bleeds out from a complex of smaller issues that combine to turn a man insane.
5. Fiona Apple – Paper Bag
Fiona Apple’s song Paper Bag is about the disappointment of realising who your lover truly is, and the swift descent from utopia and back into dreary reality.
Her metaphor slots into the first verse as she describes the moment she saw past the honeymoon phase; “But then the dove of hope began its downward slope… I thought it was a bird, but it was just a paper bag.”
This song has since been discreetly adopted by sections of eating disorder recovery communities for it’s spot-on portrayal of the delicate nature of starving that makes one feel as empty, weightless and useless as a paper bag;
“Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, it kills me, ‘cause I know that I’m a mess that he don’t wanna clean up, I got to fold ‘cause these hands are too shaky to hold, hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love.”
6. Allie X – Paper Love
Allie X’s compelling pop track compares her relationship to the destructible nature of paper.
The power of love is striking even in the purest sense, leaving impressions on your heart, for better or for worse, as it changes your life forever; a sentiment Allie embeds in her chorus, “I know that boy’s gonna rip me up… He’ll leave a nasty cut… Come on watch my heart turn to pulp like paper.”
This is a song for anyone being swept away in the passion of new romance while knowing that it will inevitably tear them to shreds.
7. Matilda Mann – Paper Mache World
Matilda Mann’s sweet and catchy indie track Paper Mache World is wrapped in the sense that love is vulnerable, as she waits for her boyfriend to call her back.
She illustrates a slip from reality, describing how she would travel to the furthest reaches of the earth to find her lover again, lost somewhere within the “paper mâché world.”
Matilda dyes her song with the feeling that she is dissolving, that the depth of her love is breaking her apart; “You called to say you won’t be long, but every second passes by, I must’ve cried a million times.”
This is a track for anyone navigating through a strange disreality, where everything around you seems false and fragile.
8. Wiz Khalifa – Paperbond
Paperbond is a stoner anthem, weaving in the paper concept by its alluding to cash mountains and rolling papers.
Wiz Khalifa paints a narcissistic picture common to his genre, detailing the luxury of the lifestyle he’s built from his stacks, “Now my watch is worth 20 thousand, got Cuban links and Italian, boy I’m getting’ it, riding in my ride, lookin’ filthy rich.”
Seamlessly hidden in his lyrics are references to planes, calling to mind the metaphor of paper planes, i.e. the private jets which Wiz can afford. Paperbond is a track for anyone wishing they had an infinite stash of drugs and cash like Wiz shows off.