12 Songs About Lost Lovers (Losing A Lover Never Sounded So Good)

It doesn’t matter how.

Losing a lover is never easy.

Whether they die, or they just leave you for someone else, the mourning period is painful.

Luckily, we have music.

Music has always helped us get through difficult periods in our life and heartbreak is no different.

Listening to songs about lost lovers is one of the best ways to mourn, and then to heal.

To that end, here are some great songs about losing a lover. Hopefully one of them speaks to you and helps you through a difficult time in your life.

 

Songs About Lost Lovers

If you have recently lost someone you love and are feeling down, give the following songs a listen. They come from artists who have experienced the same feelings and figured out a way to express them beautifully.

 

Someone Like You by Adele

Her heart was broken, she felt miserable and abandoned, and then she sang. Her story of abandonment and depression led Adele to write her best song.

“When I wrote it I felt very miserable and very alone. The song is about everything I was going through and the situation changed me in a really good way. He made me who I am. What happened upset me in every way, but it definitely changed me,” said Adele.

At the time of writing Someone Like You, Adele imagined herself being 40 years old and going to look for him, only to discover that he had married, that he had carried on with his life, while she was still destroyed, while she had been composing in her head love songs about growing old together.

More than anything else, the song talks about the fear of not being able to get over who you think is the love of your life. Someone Like You is one of the saddest songs of all time, as Adele recounted in an interview that this relationship left her devastated.

She was young, naive, and believed in fairy tales and a simple life with the man she loved. Back then she would have taken anything he said for absolute truth. She would have followed him anywhere.

 

Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran is an English singer-songwriter who grew up influenced by Van Morrison, and who decided to turn professional following the trail that Van Morrison opened for him.

He published several EPs and one of them fell into the hands of Jamie Foxx, who invited him to play on his radio show and put him in contact with the people at Atlantic Records.

His concerts are almost always acoustic, though he does use a more varied band when opening for the likes of Snow Patrol or Taylor Swift.

The lyrics of Give Me Love tell us about the fight for love in danger. They talk about how sadness and tears make you think you’ll find in alcohol, the courage to make that night call to get it again.

And you need that love even more than before, because time has not finished with your feelings. And although maybe you should let them go, you only want love, you only want what the taste of kisses looks like.

The music starts with the guitar and the drums, which are joined by the bass. The wind section forms a melancholic background that only rises in the chorus, in which sometimes only Sheeran and the guitar remain.

In the end, the choirs take control of the song, with rhythms that remind us of African songs, along with heart-rending cries pleading for that love.

 

Summertime Sadness by Lana del Rey

In the video of Summertime Sadness, they show us a Lizzy Grant (Lana del Rey) and her lover (who was actually played by the director’s wife) in a swing of strong emotions.

The video is tinted with a Vintage filter and has some beautiful scenery. It also has a dog to reflect the good memories of the protagonist with her beloved, her travels, as well as her arguments and moments of crying.

The video culminates in a double suicide, with both Lizzy and her lover taking their own lives. In the end, her soul departs.

In her past, Lana del Rey suffered from alcoholism and she lived with a man that she decided to abandon in search of a better future. She dedicates several songs to him and has said that she is going to love him all her life and hopes to meet him again in another life.

A very utopian way of loving someone that surely no one will ever understand. But one that leads to loneliness and sadness, which is why this song also made our list of songs about depression and loneliness.

 

When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars

Bruno Mars fans have etched in their memories the first time they saw the singer in a suit with sunglasses and a prominent afro, walk on stage to sit in front of a piano.

He began to play the melancholic chords of When I Was Your Man, while the attendees sang the opening verses of the song. Nobody imagined that the melody was dedicated to a lost love that broke the heart of the musician.

The song’s lyrics portray the repentance of a man who tells a woman that he was too young and immature to realize that he should have given her flowers, held her hand, and dedicating his time to her when he had the opportunity to take her to parties because he wanted to.

All she wanted was to dance. But that is no longer possible because she now dances with someone else.

Throughout the almost 4-minute duration of the song, Bruno Mars expresses his regret and nostalgia through his voice. The singer said that when he recorded the ballad, he couldn’t help but feel identified because he remembered a love that he once let go.

 

Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O’Connor

Nothing Compares 2 U is a song in which the singer (Sinead O’Connor) basically says that she misses very special people in her life. In most of it, the lyrics are about her unresolved love for an ex-boyfriend. But her deceased mother also enters the equation.

And what she is telling these people is that ‘nothing compares’ to them. There is no activity she can engage in that will take away the depression caused by their absences.

As for her partner, when they separated, she would go out and fulfill her heart’s desire with her newfound sense of freedom. However, she is totally incapable of forgetting him, and to some extent, he is not interested in her.

Meanwhile, her mother is only briefly mentioned during the bridge. But the symbolism Sinead uses in that sense is probably the most moving part of the song.

More importantly to the outside audience, it gives the song general applicability. It does this by broadening the type of relationships to which an individual can apply the sentiments of the song title.

In general, this is not a very complex song. That is, the idea that is being raised is very frank and understandable.

The singer misses certain people. Through the resulting suffering, she has come to realize that they occupied irreplaceable roles in her life. And to some degree, she wants to make them aware of this reality.

 

Beloved Wife by Natalie Merchant

Beloved Wife was the third track from Natalie Merchant’s solo debut album Tigerlily. The album made it up to number 13 on the Billboard Top 200, but the song was not released as a single and did not see any notable success.

But it was a beautiful song. It just happened to be on an album full of beautiful songs and might have gotten overlooked a bit. But I remember it well. I remember the whole album. I bought it when I was in college, back when it first came out. On CD.

I often listened to the entire album from start to finish back then. Now I rarely find time for that, but I still try to do it wit my favorite albums at least once a year. I just listened to this one again yesterday, because of this article. If you haven’t heard it, it is worth a listen for sure.

Natalie wrote Beloved Wife about her grandparents and their devotional love. When her grandmother dies, her grandfather passed not long after, dying from a broken heart.

 

Last Kiss by Pearl Jam (Cover)

Last Kiss was originally released by Wayne Cochran back in 1961, but Pearl Jam did it much better. It is a rare example of a cover being better than the original.

Pearl Jam included the song on their 1999 charity album No Boundaries: A Benefit for the Kosovar Refugees and on Lost Dogs from 2003. They also featured it on rearviewmirror, their greatest hits album that was released in 2004

Last Kiss was Pearl Jam’s most successful single. It peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Top 100. Pretty amazing for a song Eddie Vedder found in a used record store and that wasn’t even included on a regular studio album.

The song tells the story of a couple that set out in the narrator’s father’s car on a date. They get in an accident and the narrator wakes up to find his girlfriend dying. He holds her in his arms and gives her one last kiss as she slips away.

 

Ghost by Justin Bieber

Ghost was written by Justin Bieber, producers Jon Bellion, Jordan K. Johnson, and Michael Pollack. Bellion has said he actually wrote the lyrics about his grandmother, but since the video depicts Justin’s grandmother (Diane Keaton) dealing with the loss of her husband, it made sense to include it on this list.

Ghost was released as the sixth single from Bieber’s sixth studio album, Justice. The song rose to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 after heavy promotion, giving Justin Bieber his 26th top ten hit and his 20th top five hit.

The lyrics are fairly straightforward. They depict someone dealing with the grief of having lost someone. As mentioned, Bellion wrote them thinking about his grandmother.

In the video, the lost one is a lover, and Bieber mentions that it could also be about someone who is not dead but simply far away in quarantine (an attempt to boost sales during the quarantine period?) Either way, I also included this song in my list of great songs about missing someone who died.

 

Even In Death by Evanescence

Evanescence released Even in Death in 2000. It is one of only 5 songs to get airtime on the radio from before Fallen, the band’s debut studio album.

Evanescence remade the song in 2016, because singer and co-songwriter Amy Lee felt that the original production was too amateurish. She liked the lyrics though, which is why she felt the song warranted reworking.

The new version was included on the EP Lost Whispers and the compilation album The Ultimate Collection. Like the original version, the lyrics are about loving someone so much that you would bring them back from the dead.

Specifically, Amy sings about a woman whose husband died suddenly. His death tears her up and she is so distraught that she goes to the graveyard to dig him up and take him home with her.

 

Gone Away by The Offspring

Gone Away was released in 1997 as the second single on Offspring’s fourth studio album, Ixnay on the Hombre (1997). It was also included on the band’s 2005 greatest hits album.

Singer Dexter Holland wrote the lyrics. They deal with someone in the throes of grief after losing their lover. They are so distraught they wish to take the deceased’s place.

There are actually two versions of this song. The original was fast and heavy and filled with anger at the loss of a loved one. The remade version features a piano and is much slower, calmer, and sadder. It was released on the band’s tenth studio album, Let The Bad Times Roll.

Surprisingly, the song was Offspring’s first number one hit on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks. I say surprising, because I remember several other hit songs from them back in the day.

 

Cemetery Gates by Pantera

Pantera released Cemetery Gates back in 1990, as part of their 5th album, Cowboys From Hell. It was only their second album with lead singer Phil Anselmo and it really showed off his vocal ability. Toward the end of the song, he and guitarist Dimebag Darrell trade off screaming and playing high notes.

The lyrics look back on the death of a female lover and with regret about the way the narrator grieved her loss. This includes contemplating suicide in order to rejoin his lover in the afterlife.

If you think you wouldn’t like this song, because you don’t like heavy metal music, do yourself a favor and listen to it anyway. You will be surprised and realize what an incredible song it is.

I saw Pantera live several times in my youth and some of the friends I went with were not fans (at least not at first, but that changed once they saw how incredible this band was live). But all of them loved Cemetery Gates.

 

My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion

I would wager to say that everyone on earth is familiar with Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On. You could not escape it back in 1997, when it was released on the Titanic soundtrack. It was also included on Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love.

The song saw huge success. It hit number one on the charts in over 25 different countries and it was one of the best-selling singles of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts included on their list of Songs of the Century.

The lyrics talk about a lost love that is still with the singer and in her heart, despite having departed this world. The overall message of the song in that love is stronger than death.

 

Songs About Losing A Lover: Final Thoughts

Did any of the above songs about lost loves speak to you? Are there any additional songs that have helped you heal after losing a lover? If so, please feel free to let us know in the comments below. We are always looking for great suggestions to add to this list.

And you know what helps more than anything when you lose the one you love? Someone else you love. As in a best friend. If you have someone like that, maybe one of these songs about best friends can help motivate you to call them.

We also have a list of songs about daughters growing up here. You’re not losing your daughter, but it certainly can feel like it considering how quickly they go from little children to full-grown adults.

Finally, check out our list of 18 songs about beautiful women here. If the lover you lost was a beautiful woman, perhaps some of those tunes can help you heal.