53 Pop, Rock, and Country Songs About Money

Some people attract money like magnets to metal while others have never met a dollar that isn't worth spending. It slips through their grasp like water through a sieve. Which are you?

If you have financial big dreams, motivate yourself to work hard, invest your earnings wisely, and avoid overspending. You can can also make yourself a Money Playlist of pop, rock and country songs about money, what it buys, and what it won't. Now go make bank.

Imagine what you'd do with a billion dollars. Would you be selfish or share a little bit of your windfall? In this popular 2010 rock song with some raggae influences, McCoy and Mars ponder paying it forward.

In addition to playing basketball with the President and hosting a tv show like Oprah, they claim they would:

• adopt orphans like Angelie Jolie and Brad Pitt
• bestow gifts to the deserving and food to the hungry and
• grant people's dying wishes.

This 1976 song reminds me of some of the people I went to college with. It was an elite university where students boasted that their parents were Wall Street investment bankers, corporate lawyers, or venture capitalists. (Cue eye roll.)

This classic hit is about a young woman who is skating through life because of her family wealth rather than forging her own identity. As a result, she fails to develop the empathy that is needed to make authentic relationships flourish. The narrator in the song, her boyfriend, is telling her the difficult truth after she has hurt him:

You're a rich girl, and you've gone too far
'Cause you know it don't matter anyway
You can rely on the old man's money
You can rely on the old man's money
It's a b*tch girl but it's gone too far
'Cause you know it don't matter anyway.

This 1984 hit imparts the cold hard truth: that you cannot live on love alone. A woman who swore eternal love to her sweetheart now leaves the poor man for one who has a little jingle in his pocket. As she trades up, she explains that money changes everything.

This was vintage 1980s and established Madonna as an icon of pop music. The 1984 song pays homage to affluence, all the finer things that money can buy, and relationships built on cold hard cash.

Can't we go back to a simpler time when life was more authentic, before everyone became consumed with the almighty buck? This 2011 recalls when music used to bring people together and people just enjoyed dancing. Jessie J asks:

Why is everybody so obsessed?
Money can't buy us happiness
Can we all slow down and enjoy right now?

Many people who have worked the daily grind of a 9-to-5 job can identify with this country hit from 1980. It laments the fast-paced and less-than-satisfying life of putting in 40 or more hours a week at a dead end job.

According to the song, you don't get the recognition, upward mobility, or financial compensation you believe you deserve:

Workin' 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by, it's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it.

In this 2011 song, Aloe Blacc is a man down on his luck. He's just been fired from a job that he really needed, and he begs for a dollar in exchange for his story.

His whole world feels like it's falling apart and although he knows he is reaping what he has sown, that doesn't make it any better. He just needs a dollar. Aloe Blacc wrote this song when he was a business consultant and his employer downsized him.

After having his heart broken when he married for love, the narrator in this 2009 song decides that next time around he'll snag a sugar mama. He doesn't care if she's old, ugly or not in love with him. He doesn't need to like her family or friends. He just wants to be rich and never have to work again. Sounds like someone is selling his soul.

This 1976 classic almost seemed prophetic of Willie Nelson's money troubles decades later. The song's narrator is eager to leave his beat up old car behind and go honky tonkying with an aquantainence in their Cadilac — but only if they're paying Willie's tab.

Fergie is living life in the fast lane in this 2007 song. She's riding first class, drinking champagne, and enjoying the bling. She points out, however, that even though she's got a lot of money in the bank, she still keeps it real, still goes to the Taco Bell drive-thru.

In this 2004 song, Gwen Stefani ponders what it would be like to be a rich girl (as if she's not loaded already, right?). She sees money as not just a means to purchase what she wants but a power-equalizer with men: "If I was a wealthy girl, no man could test me, impress me, my cash flow would never ever end."

Lady Gaga lets her beau know that she adores the champagne, "the Jag, the jet and the mansion" in this 2008 hit. But even though she finds the high life sexy, she swears that it's her lover's tender, seductive touch that beats everything. Because there are some things money can't buy.

Oh, the evils that money can bring! This classic 1973 soul hit points out some of the lows that people will sink to in the name of money, including stealing from family, betraying others and prostitution.

The song warns the listener that money can make some people go out of their minds. The song's title was based on the following Bible verse:

1 Timothy 6:10: For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

The song has been used commercially in H&R Block's 2014 television ad campaign, "Get Your Billion Back, America" and in Donald Trump's reality shows, "The Apprentice" and "The Celebrity Apprentice."

The narrator in this 2015 country song is a "redneck, white trash and blue collar" fella who works way too hard for way too little. But he has daydreams of having a rich uncle who'd conveniently kick the bucket and leave him several million dollars.

With his inheritance, he would buy a boat, a truck to pull it, a Yeti cooler, some fishing equipment, and a load of beer. That's any redneck's dream!

There's a lot of material possessions that Sheryl Crow doesn't have, according to this 2002 hit, but she makes up for it with the right attitude:

I don't have digital
I don't have diddly squat
It's not having what you want
It's wanting what you've got.

The narrator in this 1993 country hit doesn't have a lot of money, but he considers himself rich because he's got the girl of his dreams. For all the money in the world, he wouldn't give her up:

Right at the top, that's where you rank;
Honey, your love's better than money in the bank.

Like many people, the narrator in this 1976 song dreams of finding a wealthy partner so she wouldn't have to work anymore. Let's get real though. She's not considering that he probably had to work very hard to make his fortune and that she'd probably have to sign a pre-nuptial.

It's nice to dream of a financial windfall, but it's better to earn your own good hard earned fortune.

According to this 1960 song, two things are true: the best things in life are free and his sweetheart's love is thrilling. However, money is what pays the bills and that's what he needs. Give him money because that's what he wants.

It may be shallow to be so money-motivated, but when you have bill collectors harassing you it's a goal that probably keeps you up at night. This 1989 song features a protagonist seeking the big bucks so he can enjoy material bliss and "a little love, peace and happiness." Maybe then those bill collectors will leave him alone then.

I once worked with a lady who was her boyfriend's ATM, just like the woman in this 1999 song. At first, he impressed her with lots of gifts. However, gradually the boyfriend asked for loans and ran up her credit cards. He drove her car and then she found herself bankrolling his bills.

If you're doing this for your beloved, you don't have an equal. You have a dependent. Be sure that's what you want.