50 Best Songs About Not Being Able to Breathe
Songs That Capture The Feeling Of Gasping For Air
There are moments when breathing feels like a conscious effort. When everything tightens in your chest and your body keeps moving, but something’s caught behind your ribs. It creeps in during anxiety spirals, in the middle of packed trains, in silence that lasts too long. Or it hits when you’re talking to someone and realize you haven’t said what you meant for weeks. That airless stretch where your thoughts race but your lungs won’t play along. Some songs catch that tension perfectly. You’re not calm, you’re not panicking. You’re somewhere in the blurry static between.
It’s not all panic attacks and whispered verses either. There’s pop, rock, country, and R&B songs that come at this from all angles. Big, gasping vocals that explode on the chorus. Murmured lines that feel like they’re holding something back. Tracks that hit like a punch to the diaphragm and ones that feel like breathing through a straw. Sometimes the music swells so much it drowns the words. Sometimes the production pulls back like it’s scared to take up space. There’s no single way to sound breathless, and these songs don’t try to make it make sense.
They sit in that heaviness. That sharp edge of feeling like you're underwater in your own skin. Maybe the beat pulses like a heart that won’t slow down, or the vocal hits the note where everything breaks open. These aren’t songs for clarity. They’re the ones for when you’re lying on the floor staring at the ceiling fan or pressed against cold bathroom tile at 3 AM. These are the pop, rock, country, and R&B songs that sound like holding your breath for too long.
Top 10 Suffocating Songs
1. 'No Air'—Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown
2. 'I Can't Breathe'—H.E.R.
3. 'Breathless'—The Corrs
4. 'Harder to Breathe'—Maroon 5
5. 'In My Blood'—Shawn Mendes
6. 'Lose My Breath'—Destiny's Child
7. 'Take My Breath Away'—Berlin
8. 'Breathe'—Faith Hill
9. 'Trapped Under Ice'—Metallica
10. 'With or Without You'—U2
Songs on Breathlessness #11—20
11. 'Last Resort'—Papa Roach
12. 'Writing's On The Wall'—Sam Smith
13. 'Breathe'—Olly Alexander
14. 'Can't Breathe'—Llona
15. 'Better Man'—Pearl Jam
16. 'Chains'—Nick Jonas
17. 'My Own Prison'—Creed
18. 'Trapped in a Box'—No Doubt
19. 'Waving Through a Window'—Ben Platt
20. 'OK Not to Be OK'—Demi Lovato
Songs About Respiratory Distress #21—30
21. 'Hypnotized'—Purple Disco Machine & Sophie and the Giants
22. 'Keep Breathing'—Ingrid Michaelson
23. 'Under Pressure'—Queen & David Bowie
24. 'Demons'—Imagine Dragons
25. 'Last Breath'—Plain White T's
26. 'Breathe'—The Prodigy
27. 'You Take My Breath Away'—Queen
28. 'Breathin''—Ariana Grande
29. 'Breath'—Taylor Swift
30. 'Breathe On Me'—Britney Spears
Music for Feeling Suffocated #31—40
31. 'Burning Just Breathe'—Pearl Jam
32. 'Breathe Deeper'—Tame Impala
33. 'American Oxygen'—Rihanna
34. 'Breathe'—Michelle Branch
35. 'Breathe'—Jax Jones
36. 'Breathe'—Blu Cantrell ft. Sean Paul
37. 'Every Breath You Take'—The Police
38. 'Once More (With Feeling)'—Traffic Experiment
39. 'Breathe'—Pink Floyd
40. 'Breathless'—Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Sound for Breathlessness #41—50
41. 'There's No Way Out of Here'—David Gilmour
42. 'Nowhere to Go, Nowhere to Be'—Kenny Chesney
43. 'Prisoner'—The Weeknd ft. Lana Del Rey
44. 'Malibu'—Hole
45. 'No Way Out'—Cobi
46. 'However Much I Booze'—The Who
47. 'Tachycardia'—Conor Oberst
48. 'The Breathless Song'—The Breathless Singers
49. 'Gasping for Air'—Jungle Rot
50. 'Gasping For Air'—Grabbitz
© 2025 Carson McQueen
