Whether you’re a free spirited single-and-proud kind of person who looks at the single life as a time to enjoy yourself, or you’re a hopeless romantic dreaming of the day when you will find that perfect match, chances are you have come across at least one of these ballads about being single. Throughout our lives we will pass through different stages of love, heartbreak and self discovery and every person deals with those experiences in their own ways. Music is one of the many avenues people commonly use as a way of expressing their emotions in regards to love, especially when words seem to fail at capturing how it truly feels. Here are my top 10 tracks dedicated to the journey of love and relationships and everything in between.
- “Ridin’ Solo” By Jason Derulo
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We start off the list with a nostalgic song from 2010, when we all thought we were in our own music videos when this song came on the radio. “I’m feeling like a star, you can’t stop my shine, I’m loving cloud nine my head’s in the sky, I’m solo,” lyrics like this showed listeners that being single means being free and without limits. We all sang along like we were old enough to even be in serious relationships at the time, but now it is just a fun song that we still manage to remember all the lyrics to and makes us think of simpler times.
- “Shake It Off” By Taylor Swift
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This song is perfect for someone who is trying to have an upbeat jam session where everyone is singly along (it may be bad and loud) but no one cares about what anyone else thinks when this song is playing. For many it is a guilty pleasure song, they say “It’s just so catchy” and you can’t help but dance when you hear it. It is a twist on Taylor Swift’s previous music, but it does the job all the same: it gets anyone and everyone to jump in singing lyrics like, “’Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play. And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, I shake it off, I shake it off.
- “Since You’ve Been Gone” By Kelly Clarkson
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Kelly Clarkson delivers yet another empowering song besides her other hit single “Stronger” for listeners who need that boost to feel powerful and remember that better days have yet to come. She goes through her entire experience of being with someone in this intense relationship that eventually ended in heartbreak, but it transitions quickly from this sob story into a fight song about her release from this awful relationship. And now she finds herself in the single world where she finally feels like herself again. I believe most people that hear this song instantly relate to it and its strong message.
- “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” By Cyndi Lauper
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Another classic song that professes the need for young girls to let loose and live their lives freely without being tied down by anyone. Despite its seemingly frivolous title, it is an empowering ballad for girls: “Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world, I want to be the one to walk in the sun…” showing listeners that they are their own person and no one else can define who they are.
- “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” By Whitney Houston
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This song is yet another woman’s ballad of the rush she feels from finding a new person to fall in love with (and dance with)! It describes a night of searching for that one new love interest who will sweep her off her feet and love her just like she wants. This is another one of those classics that you hear during some of your favorite romance flicks like “13 Going on Thirty”, and “Dirty Dancing.” It is simply one of those feel-good songs that just makes you feel butterflies in your stomach.
- “Free Bird” By Lynyrd Skynyrd
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“Free Bird” is a song that makes me think of one of my favorite movies growing up: “Forrest Gump”. Even though it isn’t associated with the pleasantest scene in the movie, it still represents a time when my parents were growing up and it is one of the classic rock ballads that we would sing in the car. Lyrics like, “But, if I stayed here with you girl, things just couldn’t be the same, cause I’m as free as a bird now,” portrays one recently single man’s experience of the transformation into the single life to be liberating despite the sadness he caused the subject of this song.
- “Free Falling” By Tom Petty
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This is the song that reminds me of my Uncle, as he loved the song so much he would sing it often (much to the disliking of his significant other), so it brings back happy memories of him to me. It has always been a song that I can’t resist singing when I hear it. It is all about a man who loves the people he comes to be in relationships with but can’t seem to settle down. He compares his dating like to the act of free falling through the sky which most people imagine to be these invigorating experiences of great fun and excitement.
- “Irreplaceable” By Beyonce
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Beyonce is renowned as the “Queen Bee” of the pop industry especially for her incredibly empowering lyrics for women everywhere. “I can have another you by tomorrow, so don’t you ever for a second get to thinking you’re irreplaceable,” proving to everyone that there is nothing keeping you in a bad relationship, and loving yourself as a happily single person is infinitely better than anything a person like this could ever hope to offer. She helps convince people that there is nothing wrong with being single and that you should never accept anything less than you deserve in a relationship.
- “I Will Survive” By Gloria Gaynor
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The perfect “I’m better off without you” and “I won’t let you hurt me again” song depicting a woman’s inner struggle to fully push this toxic person out of her life. Turn this song on when you are happily single but still bitter from the emotional turmoil that this person put you through. Use it as a motivational shove to never let a person like this into your life and break you down. Despite being from 1978, it is a timeless song that can make even the most shy person break into song and dance.
- “Somebody to Love” By Queen
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Not only does this song tell the testimony of a lonely love-seeking individual who just wants someone to share his life with, but it also comes with a lot of implicit suffering from the lead vocal. Freddy Mercury struggled to love himself for exactly who he was for a long time and it is easy to see how much he dreamed of finding someone who could love him as he was, insecurities and all. This song is easy for many people to relate to because just about everyone can at some point emphasize with wanting to have someone to love that loves them just as much in return.
There is nothing like the experience of being a single individual in a world with endless opportunities out there for you to explore. The moments of anticipation we experience throughout our time on this Earth is what makes life exciting. The not knowing what will come in the future is what makes people both scared and exhilarated. Being single is a special experience that can have its ups and downs, but at least we have music to get us through them all.