Sometimes in life, you have to live apart from the ones you love. Here are some of the best songs about missing someone that can help you get by.
Missing someone may just be one of the toughest feelings you have to go through. Whether you miss someone who went to a faraway place, you haven’t seen for a while, you haven’t talked to, or someone who passed away, the bittersweet feeling is strong enough to wrench, tug, squeeze, and break your heart.
While technology can make it easier to stay connected despite geography and time, nothing compares to being close to someone dear to you, feeling their warmth, and touching them in return.
If you ever find yourself in a position where you badly miss someone, how do you cope? You know very well that phone calls, video chats, and even handwritten mails can satiate your longing for a while. However, they are not enough. They can never be substitutes to the actual person you are missing.
20 heart-wrenching songs about missing someone
The following songs are carefully curated to help you cope when you are badly missing someone. And they can also serve as a salve to soothe that breaking heart, or be a companion to you on those lonely nights. Check out these top songs about missing someone—and sing along with all your heart. [Read: How does it really feel when you miss someone a lot?]
#1 Better Together -Jack Johnson. “It’s not always easy, and sometimes life can be deceiving, I’ll tell you one thing: It’s always better when we’re together.”
From the first couple of lines, you’ll know this is a long-distance love song, the kind that is still happy and hopeful. You can take a listen to this to raise your spirits up and keep you holding on to the time when you’ll finally be together, like in the song.
#2 Leaving on a Jet Plane -John Denver. “Oh babe, I hate to go… “
You know it—that feeling when you’re packing your bags and your feet feel like lead. You can’t bear to leave, but you know you have to. This is the anthem of people who part ways because of some other obligation like work or study.
#3 A Long December -The Counting Crows. “I can’t remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin,’ Now the days go by so fast.”
This is a bittersweet song for a friend, family, or loved one whom you just really miss. It could be you are missing someone, or you miss the way things were. After all, this song is based on a girl’s passing from a car accident.
So this song makes you sad, but in the end, also a little bit more hopeful about how things can still be better. [Read: Really depressing songs to make you cry and heal you]
#4 Wish You Were Here -Avril Lavigne. “Damn, damn, damn; What I’d do to have you here, here, here; I wish you were here.”
This song says it simply, but you know very well just how frustrating wanting—and needing—someone to just be close to you.
There will just be moments when, no matter how much you try to stop yourself, you’ll find your mind wandering to that beautiful past when you two were together. Then you think how you would give everything to be with them, but there’s no way.
#5 Blame it on September -All Star Weekend. “I’m lost without her, as summer starts to end.”
Nothing is as pure and fun as young summer love; nothing is more heart-wrenching than seeing summer end and you two going your separate ways. This is your song. [Read: 10 signs you’re lovesick and 10 ways to overcome it]
#6 A Year Without Rain -Selena Gomez. “I’m missing you so much, can’t help it I’m in love. A day without you is like a year without rain.”
Well, except your pillow is always wet from all that crying. Whether you’ve broken up or just gone separate ways because of a LDR, the pain is quite similar to missing someone so much that everything’s just not the same. [Read: Perfect songs for long distance relationships]
#7 I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing -Aerosmith. “I don’t wanna close my eyes, I don’t wanna fall asleep.”
For those brief moments when you see each other, this song is for you. When you finally can be together, you want to experience everything and keep even the smallest details, so you can carry it in your heart when you part again.
#8 Come Home -One Republic. “Come home, ‘cause I’ve been waiting for you, for so long.”
So you’ve been fighting, and it got so nasty you have to throw them out of your place. Now you regret everything, and hope they’ll take you back and show up on your doorstep once again.
#9 Here Without You -Three Doors Down. “All the miles that separate, disappear now when I’m dreaming of your face.”
One of the most popular LDR love songs, this basically embodies how it feels when you’re far away from the one you love, and how miserable it feels to have distance separate you. [Read: Songs about cheating to help you heal the pain]
#10 I Miss You -Incubus. “You have only been gone ten days, but already I’m wasting away.”
When you miss someone so badly and everything reminds you of them. The empty pillow, the smell of their clothes, their pictures, all the little reminders just make the feeling of longing worse. But you are still hopeful that you’ll see each other again.
#11 Right Here Waiting -Richard Marx. “Oceans apart, day after day, and I slowly go insane.”
And who wouldn’t go crazy with longing? You wonder what your loved one is doing, where they are, and how that they know you stopped your world just to wait for them. This classic song about missing someone never gets old.
#12 Kiss Me Thru the Phone -Soulja Boy feat. Sammie. “Girl you know I miss you, I just wanna kiss you, but I can’t right now so baby kiss me thru the phone.”
This is for those lonely nights when you just miss them and so you put this song on loop as you sext or go at it on the phone *or video chat*. [Read: Awesome songs to dedicate to someone special]
#13 Kiss the Rain -Billie Myers. “If your lips feel hungry and tempted, kiss the rain, and wait for the dawn.”
For those times you lay awake in the middle of the night thinking about them, calling them, and mildly paranoid with all the longing. This is the song for you—the type you’d want to blast on your speakers while you’re singing along with your lungs out *or sobbing in the shower*.
#14 Broken -Seether and Amy Lee. “‘Cause I’m broken when I’m lonesome, and I don’t feel right when you’re gone away.”
This is for those people who have parted ways from you, whether they left or because they have passed away. It hurts so much to have the person gone, but you are learning to let go. Still, you know nothing is the same anymore.
#15 Your Call -Secondhand Serenade. “And I’m tired of being all alone, and this solitary moment makes me want to come back home.”
You know you’re meant to be together, but it hurts to have to leave and be away from your love. If you could only stop time and be there for them. [Read: Upbeat songs to get over your lost love]
#16 Need You Now -Lady Antebellum. “It’s a quarter after one, I’m all alone and I need you now, said I wouldn’t call, but I lost all control.”
When the world doesn’t seem right, and you know your love is the only one who can make things alright. The only problem is, they’re far away, so all that you can do is call and hope that it’s as good as having the person actually without you—but it’s not.
#17 Officially Missing You -Tamia. “But I fronted long enough to know, there ain’t no way, and today I’m officially missing you.”
That time when you get into a fight and you broke up with them, but later on you walk into your place and everything you see just reminds you of them. That’s how you know you miss them and hope you can get back together. [Read: How does it really feel when you miss someone?]
#18 No Air -Jordin Sparks. “But how do you expect me to live alone with just me, ‘cause my world revolves around you, it’s so hard for me to breathe.”
You ever had that feeling? Like the weight of the world is on you and you can’t breathe? All because you’re so lonely and you just don’t know how you’ll go on without the person you love.
#19 Long Distance -Brandy. “It’s so hard, you’re so far… this long distance is killing me.”
Sometimes, life forces you to go to directions you can’t help but go, and that can mean you have to be apart from the person you love. Time seems to take a longer course, and you count the days that feel like years until you see each other again. [Read: How to stop feeling ignored by the one you love]
#20 When You’re Gone -Avril Lavigne. “When you’re gone, the pieces of my heart are missing you.”
Often you may start out with your LDR on a high note, full of hope that everything’s for the best, and you’ll get through. However, the loneliness catches up and you’ll find yourself belting out this song.
[Read: 3 stages to embrace and overcome loneliness]
Being apart from someone you love is so hard that you probably wouldn’t even wish it on your worst enemy. These songs about missing someone are just a few of those heart-wrenching tunes that can help you get by when you feel like you can’t anymore.
