griefTunes playlist: Songs for Navigating Grief Through Music (MHTI Edition)
Like food, music hold powerful memories and connections that can be helpful for coping, processing, celebrating, confessing. It can express things we can’t, won’t, or don’t have the words to say. In GetSomeJoy’s Literary Therapy Writing Workshops and Mental Health Check-Ins, we tap into this universal tool to connect, center joy, and reckon with big emotions and complex experiences.
While facilitating a Literary Therapy breakout session on navigating grief will creative wellness practices and tools at the 2025 Mental Health at the Intersections Conference, Alex invited attendees to share a song or performance attached to a joyful memory or tradition involving a person, place, or thing you’re grieving in some way. As we did when collecting griefTunes and playlists to feature in the griefKit, we clarified that it can be someone’s favorite song or a song about love, celebration, loss of life, cherishing time spent with someone, a promise, or anything that brings a cherished memory to mind.
Participants shared love-filled stories, poems, and a few impromptu performances that inspired smiles, tears, and joyful reflections.
Here are the songs attendees came up with (links below):
Listen to the MHTI Edition griefTunes Playlist:
“River” - Leon Bridges
“Amazing Grace” - Anne Murray
“Te Busco” - Celia Cruz
“La Gloria Eres Tú” - Tito Puente
“Andar Com Fé” - Gilberto Gil
“Inner Peace” - Beautiful Chorus
“Amor Eterno” - Rocio Durcal
“Fast Car” - Tracy Chapman
“Wild Eyes” - Mariee Siou
“Never Forget You” - Zara Larrson + MNEK
“Angeleyes” - ABBA
“Look at the Sky” - Porter Robinson
“Somewhere Only We Know” - Keane
“Come Fly With Me” - Frank Sinatra"
“Confieso” - Kany Garcia
“A Change is Gonna Come” - Sam Cooke
“Give Love On Christmas Day” - The Temptations
“Unforgettable” - Natalie Cole
“Memories” - Maroon 5
“Que Sera Sera” - Doris Day
“In the Summertime” - Mungo Jerry
“Parting Glass” - The High Kings
“Povo Que Lavas No Rio” - Amália Rodrigues
"O que é? O que é?" - Gonzaguinha
more From the griefKit
View our original crowdsourced griefTunes playlist from the griefKit:
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