For thousands of years, people have coped with their troubles through music. Like music, health is universal. So it’s not surprising that health issues show up in many songs, whether as a subject or metaphor. Here are some health-inspired tunes to shake up your listening.

Songs About Health

Content warning: mental illness, suicide, self-harm, sexual assault, cancer, death

“Cancer” – My Chemical Romance (2006)

Theme: Cancer, dying

Favorite lyric: “‘Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you”
This song captures the physical and emotional devastation of dying.

“How to Save a Life” – The Fray (2005)

Theme: Suicide

Favorite lyric: “I would have stayed up with you all night/Had I known how to save a life”
One of my all-time favorites, this powerful song deals with the unfathomable pain and guilt experienced after the loss of a loved one to suicide.

“Hospital Beds” – Cold War Kids (2006)

Theme: Hospitalization

Favorite lyric: “Put out the fire boys, don’t stop, don’t stop”

This song describes the powerlessness of being in a hospital with an incurable illness.

“Breathe Me” – Sia (2004)

Theme: Self-harm, depression

Favorite lyric: “Be my friend, hold me”
This melodic piano piece captures the loneliness of self-harm and depression.

“PINK” Song  – Dolly Parton, Monica, Jordin Sparks, Rita Wilson, & Sara Evans (2020)

Theme: Breast cancer

Favorite lyric: You gotta keep going, keep breathing

The gorgeous vocals in this song inspire hope for a day when “pink is just another color.”

“The Drugs Don’t Work” – The Verve (1997)

Theme: Addiction

Favorite lyric: “the drugs don’t work, they just make me worse”
In this song, Richard Ashcroft describes the hopelessness experienced while facing addiction: the drugs can’t cure the deeper pain inside.

The Cancer Song – Andrew Cunningham (2020)

Theme: Cancer

Favorite lyric: “Cause we’re not promised tomorrow and today was a gift”

Written for his wife, Andrew Cunningham’s piano melody offers loving reassurance that you don’t go through cancer alone.

“Unwell” – Matchbox Twenty (2002)

Theme: Mental health, stigma

Favorite lyric: “But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see/A different side of me”
This tune captures the disconnect between a struggling human in need of help and the stigma surrounding mental health.

“Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu” – Huey “Piano” Smith & His Clowns (1959)

Theme: Influenza

Favorite lyric: “I got a rocking pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu”

This playful tune compares love to a rockin’ fever.

“Quiet” – MILCK (2017)

Theme: Sexual abuse, trauma

Favorite lyric: “No, I won’t keep quiet.”
MILCK wrote this song to help heal from her experience of sexual assault as a teenager. 

“Pneumonia” – Björk (2007)

Theme: Pneumonia

Favorite lyric: “To shut yourself up/Would be the hugest crime of them all”

This haunting song describes how tuberculosis ravages the lungs, making it hard to breathe.

“Down With Disease” – Phish (1994)

Theme: Illness

Favorite lyric: “And the jungles in my mind/They’re climbing up my waterfalls and/Swingin’ on my vines”

This high-energy beat describes the mental confusion that comes with prolonged sickness.

“Dust Pneumonia Blues” – Woody Guthrie (1940)

Theme: Illness

Favorite lyric: “I got that dust pneumony, pneumony in my lung,”

This folk ballad describes the respiratory disease caused by breathing in particles from dust storms.