Songs About Losing a Wife

When you lose your wife, the ordinary things go first. The second cup on the counter. The person you told the small news to before anyone else. Most words feel too small for that, which is why so many husbands and families end up looking for a song instead.

There is no correct song. There is only the one that sounds like her, or sounds like what you cannot say out loud yet. The songs below are grouped by mood and by moment, so you can look in the direction that fits rather than reading through all of them.

Songs about a long marriage

If you had decades together, you may want something that holds the whole span of it rather than only the ending.

• "In My Life" — The Beatles
• "Grow Old with Me" — John Lennon (the Mary Chapin Carpenter version is gentler for a service)
• "The Luckiest" — Ben Folds
• "Annie's Song" — John Denver
• "My Love" — Paul McCartney and Wings
• "Unchained Melody" — The Righteous Brothers
• "Have I Told You Lately" — Van Morrison
• "At Last" — Etta James, especially if it was the first dance

Songs about who she was

Some songs work because they describe a person rather than a loss. These tend to be the ones people remember afterward.

• "Wind Beneath My Wings" — Bette Midler
• "She's Always a Woman" — Billy Joel
• "You Are So Beautiful" — Joe Cocker
• "The Rose" — Bette Midler
• "Wonderful Tonight" — Eric Clapton
• "Fields of Gold" — Sting, or the Eva Cassidy recording

Country songs for losing a wife

Country music tends to say the hard thing plainly, which is a comfort to some families and too much for others. Listen alone first before you decide.

• "Go Rest High on That Mountain" — Vince Gill
• "The Dance" — Garth Brooks
• "Believe" — Brooks & Dunn
• "If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away" — Justin Moore
• "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground" — Willie Nelson
• "Don't Take the Girl" — Tim McGraw (be careful with this one; the story is close to the bone for some)

Songs about missing her every day

These are less for the service and more for the long stretch afterward, when the cards have stopped coming.

• "Tears in Heaven" — Eric Clapton
• "I Will Remember You" — Sarah McLachlan
• "Fine" — Kacey Musgraves
• "The Night We Met" — Lord Huron
• "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" — from Les Misérables
• "Bridge Over Troubled Water" — Simon & Garfunkel

Hymns and songs of faith

If she had a church, the music there may already be decided for you, and that can be a relief. If it is your choice, these are the ones congregations can actually sing.

• "Amazing Grace"
• "How Great Thou Art"
• "It Is Well with My Soul"
• "Blessed Assurance"
• "On Eagle's Wings"
• "I Can Only Imagine" — MercyMe

Quiet music for the service itself

Instrumental pieces do useful work at a funeral. They cover the arriving, the walking, the settling, without asking anyone to hold themselves together through lyrics.

• "Ave Maria" — Schubert
• "Clair de Lune" — Debussy
• "Cavatina" — Stanley Myers
• "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" — Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
• "Time to Say Goodbye" — Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman

A few practical notes

Listen to any song all the way through before the service. Verses you have never noticed can turn sharply in the third minute. Tell whoever is running the sound which version and which recording, since a well-known song can have a dozen arrangements and only one of them is hers.

It also helps to decide in advance who will be standing where when the music plays. A song during a slideshow asks less of you than a song during a silent room.

And if a song is too much on the day, it is allowed to change it. Nobody in that room is keeping score.

When no song quite says it

Sometimes families look through every list and none of it fits, because the songs are about someone else's wife. That is the point at which some families ask for an original song written from her actual life: the way she answered the phone, the garden she fought with every spring, the thing she always said before you left the house. At Their Life Song that is the whole work, built from what her family shares. It is not for everyone, and a well-chosen song from this page may serve you just as well.

Whatever you choose, choose it for her, not for the room. The people who loved her will follow you there.

Related reading

• Songs About Losing a Husband
• Grief After Losing a Spouse: What No One Tells You
• Custom Memorial Songs: The Complete Guide