When all becomes ruined around you, the incessant swell of negativity and anxiety builds a cage of anxious, ceaseless thought, clouding your outlook with pessimism. But not all songs about overthinking are as depressing as you’d expect.
Our playlist skips some of the most famous tracks about overthinking, collecting some stand-out songs from the obscure side of contemporary pop, slowing and soothing those hurtling thoughts with a positive perspective.
Songs About Overthinking
1. Zoe Wees – Overthinking
Zoe Wees’ 2021 release, Overthinking, is a pop power ballad about feeling hopelessly locked inside yourself.
Upon a lush, warm ambience, Zoe’s vocals resonate with the pure passion needed to lift yourself far above the self-inflicted darkness which keeps you stunted in time, using ceaseless confidence to surmount all sign of crippling, unending thought.
This track is an anthem for anyone struggling to move on through their day to day life, let alone start dealing with the root cause of their problems with a positive perspective.
However, Zoe’s chorus message captures the impulsive spark needed to finally escape your burdens and re-enter reality for good; “I’m so done with all these sleepless nights, I got all these demons in my mind… Need to get out of this burning cae, wanna find the key and run away, ’cause I’m over overthinking.”
2. The Astronomers – Overthinking
The Astronomers’ track Overthinking puts a bright and summery spin on the downcast concept of gradually losing your mind.
Set against themes of heartbreak, this track touches upon the moment mindless distraction slips into self-destruction, igniting a new wave of negative overreaction to trouble with a soul-trapping effect;
“I’m still over, over, overthinking, that’s the price you pay for over drinking, how did I get high in the bathroom … It’s the 3rd night in the hotel room, and I’m getting sick of this whole damn song.”
Padding their slightly eccentric harmony with an inherently youthful, upbeat ambience, The Astronomers shape their track’s sound to reflect the disorienting, offbeat nature of finding your way alone after a break up.
3. Jake Scott – Overthinking
Jake Scott’s 2021 pop release, Overthinking, is about replaying a past relationship over in your head until the film is tangled and ruined, displaying a picture far dissociated from the truth.
Scott litters his track with prominent themes of anxiety and loneliness, whilst showcasing the disastrous effect which overthinking has upon a relationship;
“Thinking about you and I can feel you pull away, now I’m obsessed with obsessing over the words I wish I didn’t say, everything was feeling perfect with you up until I said way too many words, now I’m still thinking over.”
One of Scott’s stand-out lyrics completely contrasts the common, incessant brain fog of overthinking, the narrator crash landing in a place of silent emptiness rather than erratic internal noise;
“Now the silence is the only sound in my head and I can’t get it out, what did I not do right? I’m all alone and I’m overthinking.”
4. Livinglikeiso – Overthinking
This one’s our favourite. Centred in an overwhelmingly nostalgic harmony bearing semblance to a distant, unplaceable memory, Livinglikeiso uproots ukelele-based music from its gratingly cheesy nature, placing it instead within a breathtaking modern evolution of the early 2010s sound it became synonymous with.
Against a reverb-doused soundscape flickering with sleekly minimalist synth hooks, the wavering and echoing auto-tuned vocals conjure a crowning layer of disreality upon the track, styled as if to display unknowing separation from pure, clean being after being slowly dragged away by the currents of overthinking.
Overthinking’s lyrics read like the open diary of someone lost in the perpetual flood of anxious thought, its truthfully depressive outlook cleverly disguised by the track’s upbeat sound;
“I’m so tired of all the thoughts in my head, feel so down I lay alone in my bed, all through these long days, long nights, I just keep on looking back, but I don’t wanna do that. Sometimes I feel so low, sometimes I lay and cry… I think to myself a ton, I think but I’m never done, It just keeps on going on and on.”
5. Marina Lin – This Is What Overthinking Feels
This 2020 pop track by Marina Lin makes no attempt at concealing the curses summoned by an unstoppable, accidental addiction to overthinking.
This Is What Overthinking Feels Like captures the sheer sensation of entrapment within your own faltering existence.
Based around a simple but striking piano harmony, Marina’s harmony carries the disorientated ambience of standing on the edge of an impassable chasm, unable to cross to the utopia of free thought.
Clustered with lyrics revealing the bitter truths of overthinking, this track is for anyone who can’t tunnel out of their dismal mindset, demonstrating the pure pessimism that latches naturally onto overthinkers;
“I can’t get these thoughts out of my mind, I fall behind, I think I’m hurting, it’s all uncertain … I’m lost inside my mind, I overthink every god-damn time, telling myself that it won’t be fine.”
6. Suriel Hess – Overthinking
Suriel Hess crafts his 2020 track Overthinking into an open-ended piece bearing no specific details about what led to the narrator’s overthinking crisis, instead letting you place the back-story of your own life within the lyrics.
Blending a fresh R&B twist within its radio pop sound, this track harbours a stunning metaphor of how overthinking summons a dreamlike trance riddled with false illusions and despair; “Sky goes from blue turning pink, fading into nothing.”
Hess’ chorus is stylistically cyclical, revolving almost ceaselessly around the title word, cleverly mirroring the brutal endlessness of thought;
“I think I’m thinking, overthinking, overthinking about, I’m overthinking I don’t wanna be alone in this house, I’m overthinking, overthinking’s always bringing me down, I’m overthinking, overthinking about thinking about.”
7. Mabel ft. 24kGoldn – Overthinking
Mabel & 24kGoldn’s club style pop collab covers the art of overthinking during an impulsive relationship.
Overthinking waltzes the fine line between being wholeheartedly in the moment and feeling used, discarded and regretful over someone who once covered you in love.
This song hosts an array of anxiety-ridden lyrics illustrating the ceaseless back and forth of ideas without a conclusion in sight; “I burn all day without you, I can’t feel those butterflies, I fade away, I’m overthinking, I think I’m overthinking.”
Threaded throughout this track are countless subtle references to being consumed in the paranoia of overthinking, the narrator fearing what her party peers might assume about her, whilst shaping a song for anyone in two minds about their drug-hazed decisions;
“This should be the time of my life, this could be a glamorous occasion, woke up in the dress I wore last night, how you got me acting this way?.. You’re giving me quite the reputation, you got me stepping out of line.”