Songs About Losing a Friend

When a friend dies, the grief often arrives without a place to put it. There is usually no bereavement leave, no seat reserved in the front row, no card in the mail. And yet the person who knew your worst year, who had your history memorized, who called for no reason at all, is gone. That is a real loss, and it deserves a real place.

Music tends to be where people go first. A song can hold what you can't say out loud yet. Below are songs that families and friends return to, grouped by the moment you might need them for, whether you are choosing music for a service or just driving around with the windows down, letting a song do the crying for you.

Songs for the first raw weeks

These are not for a service. These are for the car, the kitchen at midnight, the long walk. They don't try to fix anything.

• "Fire and Rain" — James Taylor
• "Tears in Heaven" — Eric Clapton
• "Everybody Hurts" — R.E.M.
• "I'll Be Missing You" — Puff Daddy & Faith Evans
• "Keep Me in Your Heart" — Warren Zevon
• "See You Again" — Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth
• "Missing You" — John Waite
• "Slipped Away" — Avril Lavigne

Songs about friendship itself

Sometimes the song you need isn't about death at all. It's about what the two of you actually had, and that turns out to be the harder, truer thing to sit with.

• "Lean on Me" — Bill Withers
• "You've Got a Friend" — Carole King
• "Thank You for Being a Friend" — Andrew Gold
• "Count on Me" — Bruno Mars
• "Wind Beneath My Wings" — Bette Midler
• "For Good" — from Wicked
• "My Old Friend" — Tim McGraw
• "Graduation (Friends Forever)" — Vitamin C

Songs for a service or celebration of life

For a memorial, look for songs that can be heard by a room of people at once, including people who didn't know your friend the way you did. These carry well in a chapel, a backyard, or a rented hall.

• "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" — Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
• "What a Wonderful World" — Louis Armstrong
• "Time to Say Goodbye" — Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman
• "The Dance" — Garth Brooks
• "Supermarket Flowers" — Ed Sheeran
• "Angels" — Robbie Williams
• "You Raise Me Up" — Josh Groban
• "Gone Too Soon" — Michael Jackson

Songs for a friend whose life was cut short

When someone dies young, the grief has a different edge to it: not only sorrow but a sense of interruption, of a story stopped mid-sentence. These songs make room for that.

• "Who You'd Be Today" — Kenny Chesney
• "If I Die Young" — The Band Perry
• "Dancing in the Sky" — Dani and Lizzy
• "Live Like You Were Dying" — Tim McGraw
• "You Should Be Here" — Cole Swindell
• "Drink a Beer" — Luke Bryan

Hymns and faith-rooted songs

If your friend held a faith, or if their family does, these are steady, familiar choices. They work whether the room is devout, uncertain, or somewhere in between.

• "Amazing Grace"
• "It Is Well With My Soul"
• "Go Rest High on That Mountain" — Vince Gill
• "I Can Only Imagine" — MercyMe
• "One Sweet Day" — Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men
• "Blessings" — Laura Story

How to choose without overthinking it

There is no correct song, and no song is going to be equal to the person. A few things that help:

• Start with what they actually listened to. The song they played badly on guitar, the one they always turned up. Fit matters more than solemnity.
• Read the lyrics all the way through. Songs sometimes take a turn in the third verse that you don't want in a quiet room.
• Match the moment, not the whole grief. A song for walking in is a different job than a song for the slideshow.
• Let someone else press play. Ask a friend to handle the audio so you can be present rather than managing a laptop.
• Don't over-plan. Two or three pieces of music is usually plenty for a service.

When no existing song quite fits

Sometimes you go through every list and none of it lands, because the songs are about friendship in general and you wanted one about this friend. The inside jokes, the road trips, the nickname nobody else understood, the way they answered the phone.

That is the gap a custom tribute song fills. At Their Life Song, families share the stories and details that made someone who they were, and we create an original song from them, with a private page where everyone who loved them can keep listening. It isn't a replacement for the songs above. It's just an option when you want something that names them by name.

Whatever you choose, the song is not the point. Remembering out loud, with other people who knew them, is the point. The music is only there to make that a little easier.

Related reading

• Custom Memorial Songs: The Complete Guide
• Songs for a Memorial Service: A Complete Guide to Choosing Music That Fits
• How to Support a Grieving Friend