Songs About Headaches and Migraines
A song list · 15 songs · updated October 2026
Hardly any well-known rock songs are about an actual headache. The few that are made the list. The rest are about pain, numbness and nights without sleep, plus some quiet ones that won't make a bad head worse. Three are mine, under the ZN Rock tag, and those are about the real thing: a pain behind the eye that keeps its own hours. Every entry gets a short note on the song and a link to it.
Migraine · Twenty One Pilots
From Vessel (2013). Tyler Joseph uses a migraine as the picture for what's going on in his head, the dark thoughts that get loudest on Sundays, and sets it to one of the band's brightest tunes.
Headache · Frank Black
The only single from Teenager of the Year (1994), Frank Black's second solo album after the Pixies, and a No. 10 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. Under three minutes, loud and bright, with the headache right there in the title.
One Good Hour · ZN RockZN Rock
A spike behind the eye that turns up at the same time every night, as reliable as a clock. It starts out ready to hand over the house for one hour without it and ends up learning to spend one good hour, then another.
Comfortably Numb · Pink Floyd
From The Wall (1979). Roger Waters wrote the words after a 1977 show in Philadelphia, when stomach cramps from hepatitis were so bad he had an injection just to get through it. He called it the longest two hours of his life.
Brain Stew · Green Day
From Insomniac (1995). Billie Joe Armstrong first called it Insomniac: a new baby, nights without sleep and a head that felt scrambled into stew.
You Don't Get My Day · ZN RockZN Rock
A pain that moved in behind the eye with no schedule and no day off, there first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The song gives it the room and the chair but not the wheel: it gets the pain, never the day.
Novocaine for the Soul · Eels
Eels' first single (1996), from Beautiful Freak. E said it sounds detached because it's about detachment, and about having too much feeling.
Give Me Novacaine · Green Day
A track from Green Day's American Idiot (2004). The album's main character wants something to take the pain away and leave him feeling nothing at all, an anesthetic for everything at once.
Not a Word I Own · ZN RockZN Rock
A fist inside the temple that comes in like a season and sets up camp behind the bone, and a faster way of shutting it out that never knows when to stop. It ends with no promises, only being up and awake.
Pennyroyal Tea · Nirvana
From In Utero (1993). Kurt Cobain lived for years with a stomach pain no doctor could pin down, and he said it rubbed off on this song, whose sick narrator is down to warm milk and antacids.
Everybody Hurts · R.E.M.
From Automatic for the People (1992), mostly written by drummer Bill Berry. It was aimed at teenagers going through a hard time, and it's as plain as a song can be: hold on, you're not the only one.
The Sound of Silence · Simon & Garfunkel
Paul Simon has said the opening line goes back to playing guitar in the bathroom with the lights off and the tap running, for the echo off the tiles. It became a US No. 1 in 1966 and stays quiet all the way through.
Breathe (In the Air) · Pink Floyd
The first full song on The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), slow and full of space. A 2018 paper in the journal Headache Medicine even read the whole album as a migraine, sensitivity to light and noise included.
Fix You · Coldplay
From X&Y (2005). Chris Martin wrote it for Gwyneth Paltrow after her father died, on an old keyboard her father had bought shortly before. It's for the nights you're worn out and still can't sleep.
Blackbird · The Beatles
Paul McCartney alone with an acoustic guitar on The White Album (1968), his foot tapping out the time. About as gentle as rock gets, and McCartney has said the civil rights struggle in the US was on his mind when he wrote it.
Play the whole list
Questions
Are there songs about headaches and migraines?
A few. Migraine by Twenty One Pilots and Headache by Frank Black have it in the title, and Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd came out of a night of playing through real pain. One Good Hour and You Don't Get My Day by ZN Rock are about a pain behind the eye that keeps coming back.
Is Migraine by Twenty One Pilots about real migraines?
Not exactly. Tyler Joseph uses a migraine as a picture of depression and of the thoughts that get loudest on Sundays.
What music is good to listen to with a migraine?
It's different for everyone, and plenty of people want silence. If you do want something, quiet songs like Breathe by Pink Floyd, Blackbird by The Beatles or The Sound of Silence keep the volume and the tempo low.
A headache that's sudden and severe, or new and different from your usual ones, is worth getting checked by a doctor.
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