High school graduations are the perfect metaphor for how sad endings can flow seamlessly into exciting new starts.
Whether you’re a high school success or a last-minute drop out, our list of songs about graduation covers it all, from tracks celebrating hard work, to songs about not getting the recognition you deserve for your achievements.
Songs About Graduation
1. Modern Baseball – Your Graduation
Modern Baseball’s pop punk track, Your Graduation, tells a story of a high school couple who have broken up by the end of the school year.
Against a youth-fuelled backdrop of gritty, high-energy guitar distortions, Modern Baseball use the theme of graduation to illustrate the moment you’re finally able to let someone go; “I never thought that I would see the day, where I’d just let you walk away.”
Your Graduation’s lyrics run thick with teenage despair, crafting a song for anyone stifled by heartbreak during graduation;
“Sitting drunk on the sidewalk, I guess I’ll get up, I guess I’ll go for a walk, press my shoes against the pavement, I swear this has got to be the hundredth time I’ve thought of you tonight.”
2. Third Eye Bling – Graduate
Rooted in the resounding line, “Can I graduate?”, Third Eye Blind devote their pop/post-punk track Graduate to the half-pessimistic teenage wonder of what lurks after high school.
An array of rhetorical questions plaster their lyrics including, “Can I look at faces that I meet? Can I get my punk ass off the street?”, all stemming from their first line which perfectly embodies the strange existentialism of leaving high school; “Will the song live on after we do?”
Third Eye Blind’s harmony is impeccably nostalgic, drawing influence from eras of rock far predating Graduate’s 1997 release. By far the crowning piece of the song is the guitar solo, the band dissolving into sleazy, unkempt rock’n’roll with the pure energy of a live performance.
3. Kanye West – Graduation Day
A snippet track featured on Kanye West’s debut album, Graduation Day is completely void of Kanye’s own vocals, instead placing lyrical control in the hands of DeRey Davis and a budding John Legend.
This satirical track details a dressing down of Kanye by a headmaster, expelling him from school without a chance of graduation;
“You can give me your motherf****** graduation ticket right now! You give me this motherf****** robe before you catch some senioritis! You will not walk across that stage!”
This short track comes clad with the context of West’s apparent glorification of drug dealing in one of his prominent debut tracks, We Don’t Care; “What in the f*** was that, Kanye? I told you to do some s*** for the kids! … See, I told you to do something uplifting!”
4. Teyana Taylor – Made It
Teyanna Taylor’s graduation-themed track, Made It, puts the spotlight on the concept of hard work and achievement using a number of colourful graduation metaphors such as;
“Head up and my heels high, this what life suppose to feel like … Looking like I’m in the gym right, taking side pics looking thick like.”
Made It is an R&B/pop-style celebration of earning your blessings through positive persistence, streaked with feminine power; “Pretty face with a bad attitude, working like I got too much to lose … Self love is the best love.”
5. Mackenzie Sol ft. Hannah Grace Colin – Graduation
Mackenzie Sol & Hannah Grace Colin’s pop collab, Graduation, tells a cosy tale of two teens ditching high school to be with each other, painting their love story with mesmerising descriptions such as, “your lipstick on my t-shirt.”
Mackenzie weaves the graduation concept into his pre-chorus whilst drawing on the time-bending nature of new love, where two hours feels like two minutes; “But now I’m eight semesters late, we’re too old to celebrate, we missed our graduation ’cause we were fucking wasted.”
Mackenzie admits this track is a shot at the people who brought him down, creating an anthem for anyone who’s ever achieved outstanding high school success in love more than in their school lessons.
6. Yellopain- Graduation
YelloPain’s rap track Graduation uses his title concept in a very discreet, artistic way.
Focused on the toxic nature of child favouritism, graduation evolves into a metaphor for the ‘black sheep’ of the family ceaselessly over-achieving in a desperate attempt to win their parents’ attention, who praise their underachieving siblings instead;
“Remember recitals, I played the piano, I waited and you never came, you said you was working but got off from work for my brother, went to every game, he really never scored but you was just there to support, but I know basketball’s more fun than watch piano, I’m sure.”
Whilst this dark track is anchored in forgiving the unforgivable, Graduation is driven by a life-time’s worth of resentment for a neglectful parent; “You really showed me how much a parent could love their child, so much that they forget they got another child.”
7. Maroon 5 – Memories
Maroon 5’s 2019 single, Memories, harbours a message about raising a glass to those that didn’t make it to the end of a cycle. Founded in a catchy radio pop vibe, Memories is a clean and sentimental track resonant of any occasion you’re forced to say ‘goodbye.’
While Memories is obviously intended for the departed, Maroon 5’s celebratory message translates beautifully across the board to whichever graduation day, new year celebration or leaving-do you attend;
“Toast to the ones here today, toast to the ones that we lost on the way, ’cause the drinks bring back all the memories and the memories bring back, memories bring back you.”
8. OneRepuplic – I Lived
OneRepublic’s 2016 single, I Lived, is a warm-hearted pop track about striving for success, living in the moment and making the most of your youth while it remains; “I, I did it all, I owned every second that this world could give, I saw so many places, the things that I did, with every broken bone, I swear I lived.”
OneRepublic devote their lyrics to listing hopes for the future, their uplifting harmony setting the perfect scene for realising your limitless potential after graduation;
“Hope when the crowd screams out, it’s screaming your name, hope if everybody runs, you choose to stay … Hope that you spend your days, but they all add up, and when that sun goes down, hope you raise your cup.”