Songs About Losing a Sibling

A sibling is the person who knew you before you had words for yourself. They remember the house, the car rides, the family jokes nobody outside would understand. When they die, you lose the person who could confirm your own childhood, and there is often no word for what you now are. Widow, orphan - those exist. This one does not.

Music tends to reach that place before language does. If you are looking for a song for a service, a slideshow, or just for the drive home, here are songs families return to, grouped by the kind of moment you are trying to fill.

Songs that name the bond outright

Sometimes you want the word said out loud - brother, sister - because that is what nobody else at the service will say quite the way you mean it.

• "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" - The Hollies
• "Brother" - Kodaline
• "Brother" - NEEDTOBREATHE
• "Go Rest High on That Mountain" - Vince Gill, who finished the song after his own brother died
• "Over You" - Miranda Lambert, written with Blake Shelton about the brother he lost in a car accident
• "Sister" - Dave Matthews Band
• "Stand by Me" - Ben E. King
• "You've Got a Friend" - Carole King or James Taylor

For a sibling who died young

Losing a brother or sister early carries a second grief inside it - all the years that were supposed to come. These songs sit with that without trying to fix it.

• "Who You'd Be Today" - Kenny Chesney
• "If I Die Young" - The Band Perry
• "See You Again" - Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth
• "Hear You Me" - Jimmy Eat World
• "Beam Me Up" - P!nk
• "Gone Too Soon" - Michael Jackson
• "Forever Young" - Bob Dylan, or the Rod Stewart version
• "Rivers and Roads" - The Head and the Heart

Quiet songs for the service itself

A memorial service asks something specific of a song: it has to hold a room of people who are all feeling different things. These tend to do that well - unhurried, wide enough for everyone, and not so raw that the family cannot stay in their seats.

• "I Will Remember You" - Sarah McLachlan
• "Somewhere Only We Know" - Keane
• "In My Life" - The Beatles
• "Landslide" - Fleetwood Mac
• "Bridge Over Troubled Water" - Simon and Garfunkel
• "The Parting Glass" - traditional
• "Songbird" - Fleetwood Mac
• "Time to Say Goodbye" - Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman
• "Wish You Were Here" - Pink Floyd

Songs of faith and comfort

If your family's faith is part of how you are getting through this, these carry well in a church, a graveside, or a living room.

• "Amazing Grace"
• "It Is Well With My Soul"
• "On Eagle's Wings"
• "I Can Only Imagine" - MercyMe
• "When I Get Where I'm Going" - Brad Paisley
• "You Raise Me Up" - Josh Groban
• "Held" - Natalie Grant
• "Ave Maria"

Songs that celebrate who they actually were

Not every part of a service has to be solemn. If your brother played one album on repeat for an entire summer, or your sister sang one song badly and joyfully at every wedding, that is the song. A track that makes people laugh and then cry is doing more work than a sad one.

• "Here Comes the Sun" - The Beatles
• "What a Wonderful World" - Louis Armstrong
• "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
• "Lean on Me" - Bill Withers
• "Ripple" - Grateful Dead
• "I Hope You Dance" - Lee Ann Womack
• "Three Little Birds" - Bob Marley

Their own favorites belong here too, whatever they were. Nobody at the service will mind that the song is not a funeral song. They will recognize it as theirs, and that recognition is most of the point.

For the days after, when everyone has gone home

The service ends and the casseroles stop and you are still a person whose sibling died. These are less for a room and more for a car, a kitchen, a long walk.

• "One Sweet Day" - Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men
• "My Immortal" - Evanescence
• "I Grieve" - Peter Gabriel
• "Fire and Rain" - James Taylor
• "Angel" - Sarah McLachlan
• "The Night We Met" - Lord Huron
• "Vincent" - Don McLean

How to choose without second-guessing yourself

A few things that help when the list starts to feel impossible:

• Listen alone first. Play a candidate all the way through by yourself before you commit to it. You will know within a minute whether you can survive hearing it in a room full of people.
• Read the lyrics on paper. Songs that feel right can turn on a line you had never quite heard. Better to find that now.
• Let a sibling's own taste win. If the choice is between a song that fits the occasion and a song that fits the person, choose the person.
• Two or three is enough. One as people arrive, one during the tribute or slideshow, one at the close. You do not need a full playlist.
• Ask someone else to press play. Give the phone or the file to a friend. You should not be managing audio while you are grieving.

When no existing song quite says it

Sometimes you go through every list and nothing lands, because the thing you want to say is too specific. The nickname only they used. The summer job. The way they answered the phone. A borrowed song can hold the feeling, but it cannot hold the details, and with a sibling the details are often the whole relationship.

That is the gap a custom memorial song is meant to fill. At Their Life Song, families share the stories and small particulars of the person they lost, and we shape them into an original song the family can play at the service and keep afterward. It is not a replacement for the songs above - many families use both, one borrowed and one written for them. If that sounds like something that would help, it is there. If a song they already loved says it better, use that instead. There is no wrong answer here.

A last thought

Sibling grief is often quiet grief. People ask how your parents are holding up, how the spouse is doing, and forget that you lost someone who shared your entire beginning. Whatever song you choose, choose it for yourself as much as for the room. You are allowed to grieve them as fully as anyone.

Related reading

• Custom Memorial Songs: The Complete Guide
• Songs About Losing a Father
• Songs About Losing a Mother, and Why They Help