Rock Songs About Friends Drifting Apart

A song list · 13 songs · updated October 2026

Nobody decides to lose a friend. It goes quiet, and then it stays quiet. These are rock songs about that, most of them ones you'll know, plus three of mine marked ZN Rock. You get the story behind each one and a link to play it, and the playlists are at the end.

1. Photograph · Nickelback

   From All the Right Reasons (2005). Chad Kroeger has said it's about growing up in Hanna, Alberta, and saying goodbye to the friends you drifted away from.

   Official video

2. The Kids Aren't Alright · The Offspring

   From Americana (1998). Dexter Holland wrote it after a trip back to his hometown of Garden Grove, California, where he found out how badly life had gone for a lot of the kids he grew up with.

   Official video

3. Nine Years In · ZN RockZN Rock

   Nine years of not speaking to a friend of twenty years over something said at a birthday, while he got on with his life. It ends on the plain advice: if the reason's worn away, call them while they'll still pick up.

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4. Wish You Were Here · Pink Floyd

   The 1975 title track, sung by David Gilmour with lyrics by Roger Waters, and shaped by the band's founder Syd Barrett, who had drifted out of the band and out of reach years before.

   Official video

5. Bobby Jean · Bruce Springsteen

   From Born in the U.S.A. (1984). Friends since sixteen, and one day the call comes too late and they've already left town. It's widely heard as a goodbye to Steven Van Zandt, who left the E Street Band that year.

   Official video

6. The Thing I'd Never Say · ZN RockZN Rock

   The friends you've never told how much they matter: a late-night online room of people who argue, joke and never ask how you are. It's the thank-you you'd never say out loud, said once.

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7. In My Life · The Beatles

   From Rubber Soul (1965). John Lennon started with a list of Liverpool places from his childhood, then dropped them for the people: friends and lovers, some still around and some gone.

   Official video

8. The Only Living Boy in New York · Simon & Garfunkel

   From Bridge over Troubled Water (1970). Paul Simon wrote it while Art Garfunkel was away in Mexico filming Catch-22, calling him Tom, the name from their teenage duo Tom & Jerry. The two split up the same year.

   Official video

9. I Keep Saying I'll Be Happy When · ZN RockZN Rock

   A man you came up with goes early, and at the service nobody mentions his work, only the way he stayed. You go home, put a date on the list and call somebody up.

   Lyric videoLyricsSpotifyApple MusicYouTube Music

10. Blood on Blood · Bon Jovi

    From New Jersey (1988). Three kids who swore they were blood brothers grow up into three very different lives, and the narrator still means every word of the promise.

    Official video

11. Glory Days · Bruce Springsteen

    Also from Born in the U.S.A. The first verse is a real night in 1973, when Springsteen ran into Joe DePugh, his old Little League teammate, at a bar and they talked for hours about school and baseball.

    Official video

12. Nightswimming · R.E.M.

    From Automatic for the People (1992), with Mike Mills on piano. It looks back on a group of friends sneaking into a swimming hole outside Athens, Georgia, on summer nights, a time none of them can get back to.

    Official video

13. Here Today · Paul McCartney

    From Tug of War (1982). McCartney wrote it after John Lennon was killed, as the conversation he never got to have with him, the part where you finally say you loved them.

    Official video

Play the whole list