50 Best Rock Songs About Grief
Rock Songs That Capture the Feeling of Grief
There’s a strange quiet that hangs in the air when loss hits. The kind that makes everything sound a little duller, like the world forgot to turn the volume back up. You catch yourself replaying moments in your head, looping small things until they start to blur. And then a song cuts through the noise. Maybe it’s slow and unsteady, maybe it builds until it breaks. Either way, it catches that hollow feeling that sits behind your ribs when you realize something’s gone for good.
Not every track here spells out mourning in plain words. Some skirt around it, hiding the ache under distortion or a sharp riff. Others carry it in the way the vocals crack halfway through a line. These aren’t songs that try to fix anything. They sit in the fog, holding space for the heaviness that lingers. A few of them come from bands who never meant to write about loss, but somehow the sound landed there anyway. It’s what makes rock—and really pop, rock, country, and R&B songs in general—feel human. The mess leaks through no matter how polished the mix sounds.
Grief doesn’t move in a straight line, and neither do these tracks. Some burn out fast, some hang around longer than you want them to. But all of them manage to say what words tend to fail at. They pull the air tight around you for a second before letting it go again. Here are the best rock songs describing grief.
Top 10 Grief Rock Songs
1. 'Tears in Heaven' by Eric Clapton
2. 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' by Green Day
3. 'Hurt' by Nine Inch Nails
4. 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd
5. 'Black' by Pearl Jam
6. 'One More Light' by Linkin Park
7. 'My Immortal' by Evanescence
8. 'Everybody Hurts' by R.E.M.
9. 'Cemetery Gates' by Pantera
10. 'Here Today' by Paul McCartney
Essential Rock Songs About Remembrance and Loss #11 to 20
11. 'Brendan’s Death Song' by Red Hot Chili Peppers
12. 'Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door' by Bob Dylan
13. 'The Show Must Go On' by Queen
14. 'Gone Away' by The Offspring
15. 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor
16. 'The Last Goodbye' by Billy Boyd
17. 'Hear You Me' by Jimmy Eat World
18. 'Do for the Others' by Stephen Stills
19. 'Angel' by Sarah McLachlan
20. 'The Great Gig in the Sky' by Pink Floyd
Top Rock Songs on Coping With Tragedy #21 to 30
21. 'A Long December' by Counting Crows
22. 'Helena' by My Chemical Romance
23. 'Shadow of the Day' by Linkin Park
24. 'Comfortably Numb' by Pink Floyd
25. 'Nutshell' by Alice in Chains
26. 'I Will Follow You into the Dark' by Death Cab for Cutie
27. 'Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)' by Elton John
28. 'In Loving Memory' by Alter Bridge
29. 'Roll on John' by Bob Dylan
30. 'Forever Young' by Bob Dylan
Rock Music About Dealing With Death #31 to 40
31. 'I'll Be Missing You' by Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112
32. 'No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young)' by Queen
33. 'Dust in the Wind' by Kansas
34. 'The Last Carnival' by Bruce Springsteen
35. 'Yesterday' by The Beatles
36. 'The Needle and the Damage Done' by Neil Young
37. 'Goodbye Song' by Abandoned Pools
38. 'Fix You' by Coldplay
39. 'Who Wants to Live Forever' by Queen
40. 'Let It Be' by The Beatles
Rock and Alternative Songs on Emotional Pain #41 to 50
41. 'Changes' by Black Sabbath
42. 'The River' by Bruce Springsteen
43. 'Box of Rain' by Grateful Dead
44. 'Stairway to Heaven' by Led Zeppelin
45. 'The Sound of Silence' by Simon & Garfunkel
46. 'All Those Years Ago' by George Harrison
47. 'Behind Blue Eyes' by The Who
48. 'The End' by The Doors
49. 'Love of My Life' by Queen
50. 'Broken' by Seether featuring Amy Lee
© 2025 Carson McQueen
