My Grief Playlist

GriefmusicBereavementwellbeingDestigmatising death

2 Dec

As part of National Grief Awareness Week 2023, we invited guest blogger, Amy Jackson to share her Grief Playlist.

We’ve also added Amy’s top 5 tracks to our new Part of Life Playlist in our Wellbeing Library.

I’ve always found comfort in music. Whatever the mood, I have a playlist for it. It was only in June 2022 that I found myself creating a playlist that I didn’t really want to be creating – a Grief Playlist.

Shortly after my 30th birthday in early May, my dad went into hospital after weeks of being unwell. He died on 31 May 2022 from what we found to be a form of blood cancer.

I don’t remember much of the few weeks that followed, but I remember finding certain songs comforting, because the lyrics matched exactly how I was feeling. It was only one evening where I felt particularly numb, that I found myself listening to these songs, trying to get myself to “cry it out.” I’m not sure how healthy that is, but for me, it really helped. That’s when I started to form my “Grief Playlist.”

What is a Grief Playlist?

There are no rules to the Grief Playlist. It can be songs your loved one liked or that remind you of them, it can be songs about grief, or it can simply be sad songs that just get you feeling something. For me, as you’ll read on, it’s a mixture.

Top Five Grief Tracks

Track 1: Visiting Hours – Ed Sheeran

It wasn’t until my dad’s death that I realised just how much you can long for the opening lines of this song to be true:

“I wish that heaven had visiting hours.”

He would always say to me “come over anytime, my love, I’ll be here,” and even 18 months on, it still hurts to know that he’s not here.

Any Ed Sheeran fan will tell you of his song writing talents, and *Visiting Hours* was indeed inspired by his own experience of grief after the death of his close friend. In the months after my dad died, I got promoted at work and I became a godmother. More than anything, all I wanted was to be able to drive over to his house, tell him my good news and put the world to rights. For me, *Visiting Hours* sums up that feeling perfectly.

Track 2: Joanne – Lady Gaga

Gaga wrote Joanne about her late aunt. While she died long before Gaga was born, she’s the inspiration behind the 2016 album of the same name, with the song writing process helping Gaga to deal with her father’s pain after losing his sister.

While it’s a deeply personal song, it’s filled with elements that anyone who has experienced grief will relate to. For me, it’s this line that hits the hardest:

“I’ll still love you even if I can’t see you anymore”

Track 3: Marjorie – Taylor Swift

Marjorie is a tribute to Swift’s late grandmother, who died in 2003. It’s a beautiful celebration of the advice her grandmother gave her – “never be so kind you forget to be clever, never be so clever you forget to be kind” – and her longing to have had the opportunity to know her better.

After my dad’s death, Marjorie was a song that suddenly became even more powerful to me. There were things about him I hadn’t known until after he died, and I felt a lot of guilt around, in hindsight, not knowing much about him. Additionally, the song also talks about holding on to even the most miniscule of their things:

“Should have kept every grocery store receipt, ‘cos every scrap of you would be taken from me.”

Holding on to a few of Dad’s things has really helped my grief. His fleece hangs in my wardrobe, his Spitfire pin sits on my jacket, and one of his model planes rests on my bookcase. However, the most special is the pendant I wear, made from one of his beloved cufflinks that he wore back in the 70s. My sister has the other one, also made into a pendant.

Track 4: Monsters – James Blunt

Blunt wrote Monsters as a tribute to his dad, who at the time was living with late-stage kidney disease and in desperate need of a kidney transplant. Faced with his father’s mortality, Blunt wrote the song as a way of expressing how he felt towards him, and it’s presented as an emotional goodbye. The line “no need to forgive, no need to forget, I know your mistakes and you know mine” shows the importance of letting go of past mistakes and telling our loved ones how we feel about them.

Track 5: Blackbird – The Beatles

While not a song about grief, Blackbird features on my Grief Playlist for another reason. Myself, my step-mum, and my siblings were planning Dad’s funeral and trying to decide on music. I had no idea that he was such a big fan of The Beatles when he was younger, and it was my brother who suggested Blackbird as one of the songs we played. I’d heard the song before but hearing it knowing it was a song he loved suddenly gave me this extra connection to him that I’d not had before. We did indeed play it at his funeral, and we think he would have approved. To this day, every time I hear the song, I think of him.