Theme
Songs about grief
Interpretations from our editorial team that explore this theme.
-
NELL
The Time of Walking On Remembrance
A song about how grief refuses to stay in the past, ambushing the mourner through every ordinary sight, sound, and object of the day
-
Rylo Rodriguez
Endless Cups
A dispatch from inside a lifestyle Rylo can't quit, where opioid dependency, grief for dead and jailed friends, and the paranoia of the trap all bleed into the same slurred verse
-
42 Dugg & Rylo Rodriguez
It Is What It Is (feat. Lil Baby)
A grief-and-grind ledger from Detroit and Alabama, counting dead friends and made money in the same breath because stopping to feel either would break the count
-
Noah Nine
Mama, I still call your name
A grown child's ballad about the small domestic habits that keep grief alive after a mother's death, and the refusal to stop speaking to her
-
Kim Na Young
A Letter for You
A quiet ballad addressed to someone lost, promising that next time the singer will be the one to run first
-
Lil Baby
Grace
A gratitude prayer disguised as a flex, where survival, dead friends, and Rolls-Royce receipts share the same table
-
Drake
Jimmy Cooks (feat. 21 Savage)
A surprise rap closer on a dance album, where Drake and 21 Savage pivot from house grooves back to street posturing and tributes to fallen friends
-
Ariana Grande
thank u, next
A breakup song that skips the bitterness, treating each former partner as a lesson and the singer herself as the relationship worth keeping
-
Kendrick Lamar
Money Trees (Feat. Jay Rock)
A teenage daydream of escape through robbery and rap, set inside a Compton afternoon where money is the only shade from a relentless sun
-
YoungBoy Never Broke Again
Kacey Talk
A flex record shadowed by grief, where every brag about cars, houses and chains keeps returning to a dead brother and the streets that took him
-
Whiskey Myers
Broken Window Serenade
A Southern elegy for a childhood love who chased Hollywood, ended up dancing in a Texas strip club, and died of meth addiction
-
Big Thief
Not
A song that tries to name an unnameable feeling by listing everything it isn't, circling a center that language can't reach
-
Drake
2 Hard 4 The Radio
A Bay Area victory lap and shot-fired flex where Drake stages himself as too uncompromising for pop radio while name-checking enemies, lost friends, and his West Coast loyalties
-
Taylor Swift
my tears ricochet
A funeral song sung by the ghost of a business partnership, where the betrayer mourns the very person they buried