Songs About Losing a Husband

There is a particular loneliness in losing a husband that other kinds of grief do not quite reach. It is not only the loss of a person. It is the loss of the one who knew what you meant before you finished the sentence, who handled the things you never had to think about, who was simply there in the next room while you both got on with your evening.

People will ask what song you want played. It is a hard question to answer while you are still trying to work out how to sleep on your own side of the bed. So here are some songs that widows and families have leaned on — grouped by the kind of feeling they carry, rather than ranked, because there is no best one. There is only the one that sounds like him.

Songs about the life you built together

These are the ones that look backward at a shared life rather than forward at the absence. They tend to be the gentlest place to start.

• "The Dance" — Garth Brooks. Perhaps the most-played song at husbands' funerals, and for a reason: it argues that the pain of the ending does not cancel the worth of the whole.
• "Unchained Melody" — The Righteous Brothers. Old, familiar, and about longing across a distance. Many couples of a certain generation already claimed it.
• "Grow Old With Me" — John Lennon. Tender and plain-spoken. It lands hard when the growing old got cut short.
• "You're Still the One" — Shania Twain. A song about lasting, which is what a long marriage is.
• "Annie's Song" — John Denver. Unguarded devotion, without a trace of irony.
• Your wedding song. Whatever it was. Playing it at the service closes a circle nothing else can close, and most people in the room will understand instantly why it is playing.

Songs for missing him

Some families want the music to name the grief rather than soften it. These do that.

• "There You'll Be" — Faith Hill. Written from the point of view of the one left behind, carrying the other forward.
• "Fields of Gold" — Eva Cassidy. Her version is unhurried and almost weightless. It suits an outdoor service or a scattering.
• "Somewhere Only We Know" — Keane. For a couple who had their own places, their own shorthand, their own small world.
• "To Where You Are" — Josh Groban. Reaches toward him rather than away. Often chosen by families with a faith background, though it does not require one.
• "I'll Follow You Into the Dark" — Death Cab for Cutie. Spare, acoustic, quietly devoted. A good fit for a younger widow or a less formal service.
• "Bridge Over Troubled Water" — Simon & Garfunkel. If he was the steady one, this is his song.

Songs that sounded like him

Not every song has to be about loss. Sometimes the truest choice is whatever was playing in his truck, or the record he put on every Sunday morning. If he was a Springsteen man, play Springsteen. If he was a Willie Nelson man, play Willie.

• "Wish You Were Here" — Pink Floyd. The classic-rock choice that still says exactly the right thing.
• "Forever Young" — Bob Dylan (or the Rod Stewart version). A blessing more than a lament.
• "What a Wonderful Life" material — Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." For a man who was hard to rattle and easy to be around.
• "My Way" — Frank Sinatra. Divisive, and beloved. If it was his, it is his.
• "Simple Man" — Lynyrd Skynyrd. Often chosen by sons, and it carries a father's voice as much as a husband's.

Songs for afterward, not for the service

The service is one afternoon. The years after it are longer, and the songs you need then are different — often ones you would never play in front of a room full of people.

• "Nothing Compares 2 U" — Sinéad O'Connor.
• "Everybody Hurts" — R.E.M.
• "Fine" — Kacey Musgraves. About insisting you are, when you are not.
• "Beam Me Up" — Pink.
• "If I Die Young" — The Band Perry, for a marriage cut short early.

Some widows keep a private playlist and never share it. That is a perfectly good way to grieve.

A few practical notes on choosing

Listen to the whole song before you commit to it. Lyrics you half-remember can turn somewhere unexpected in the third verse, and you do not want to discover that in a full room.

Check the length. Three or four minutes of music is a long silence in a service. Many families use one song for the entrance, one during a slideshow or photo tribute, and one at the close.

You do not have to explain your choice to anyone. If a song matters to you for a reason no one else knows, that is reason enough.

And if his taste in music was, frankly, terrible — play it anyway. People will laugh, and that laugh is part of the grieving too.

When no song quite fits

Sooner or later most families run into the same wall: every song on the list is about someone else's husband. None of them mention the way he answered the phone, or the boat he never finished restoring, or forty-one years of him bringing coffee up the stairs every morning without being asked.

That gap is why some families choose to have an original song written from his actual life — his stories, his sayings, the details only the people who loved him could supply. It is what we do at Their Life Song: families share the memories, and we write a song that belongs to him and to no one else. Some play it at the service; others simply keep it. Either way, it stays.

Whatever you choose — a song that was already his, or one made for him — the aim is the same. Something to play when words run out, and they will.

Related reading

• Grief After Losing a Spouse: What No One Tells You
• Songs for a Memorial Service: A Complete Guide to Choosing Music That Fits
• Custom Memorial Songs: The Complete Guide