Time is one of those subjects that songwriters love. It allows them to cover the deeper stuff, like watching your kids grow up too fast, wondering where the years went, and bracing for a world that won’t stop changing. The songs on this list all cover those same feelings from different angles, whether it’s dread, acceptance, grief, or the shock of realizing how much has already passed.
Be sure to check out the Songs About Time Playlist at the bottom of this page.
Best Songs About Time
1. “Cat’s in the Cradle” – Harry Chapin
Lyric Sample: “The cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man on the moon.”
“Cat’s in the Cradle” is a classic song that tells the tale of a father and son whose lives never quite align due to time and priorities.
Related: “Cat’s in the Cradle” Song Meaning
2. “Young and Beautiful” – Lana Del Rey
Lyric Sample: “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”
Del Rey wrote this for the 2013 film The Great Gatsby. In it, she wonders whether time will erode whatever makes her worth loving.
3. “Time in a Bottle” – Jim Croce
Lyric Sample: “If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do…”
Croce wrote this after finding out his wife was pregnant, wanting to save time so he could spend all of it with his son.
Related: Best Love Songs
4. “Stop This Train” – John Mayer
Lyric Sample: “Stop this train, I want to get off and go home again.”
Mayer wrote “Stop This Train” about the anxiety of watching his parents age and feeling like adulthood arrived before he was ready for it.
Related: Best Songs About Trains
5. “Vienna” – Billy Joel
Lyric Sample: “Slow down, you crazy child, you’re so ambitious for a juvenile.”
From his award-winning album The Stranger, Joel encourages listeners to embrace life’s pace and not rush through meaningful experiences. It came from a conversation he had with his estranged father in Vienna.
Related: “Vienna” Song Meaning
6. “Time Is on My Side” – The Rolling Stones
Lyric Sample: “Time is on my side, yes, it is.”
This 1960s hit is about believing that time favors whoever is willing to wait. It’s a song about someone who isn’t worried at all about how things will turn out.
7. “7 Years” – Lukas Graham
Lyric Sample: “Once I was seven years old, my mama told me, ‘Go make yourself some friends or you’ll be lonely.’”
“7 Years” moves through a life in stages, from age 7 to 60, and what each one looks and feels like. Lukas Forchhammer wrote it partly as a tribute to his late father.
Related: Best Songs with Numbers in the Title
8. “Time Stand Still” – Rush
Lyric Sample: “Time stand still, I’m not looking back but I want to look around me now.”
Rush’s classic is about wanting to actually feel things as they happen rather than realize later that they’ve passed.
9. “In My Life” – The Beatles
Lyric Sample: “All these places had their moments, with lovers and friends, I still can recall.”
John Lennon wrote “In My Life” about the people and places from his Liverpool childhood, thinking about which ones still mattered and which had faded.
Related: “In My Life” Song Meaning
10. “Out of Time” – the Weeknd
Lyric Sample: “Say I love you, girl, but I’m out of time.”
This R&B song is about being emotionally removed from a relationship for so long that by the time you notice, the other person has already gone.
11. “Forever Young” – Rod Stewart
Lyric Sample: “May you stay forever young.”
Stewart wrote this 1988 soft rock hit as a wish list for his son to have the courage and integrity to stay true to himself as time changes everything around him.
Related: “Forever Young” Song Meaning
12. “The Times They Are A-Changin’” – Bob Dylan
Lyric Sample: “And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again.”
Dylan’s iconic protest is all about the inevitability of progress. He was describing what he believed was already happening, whether anyone was ready for it or not.
13. “The Living Years” – Mike + The Mechanics
Lyric Sample: “Say it loud, say it clear, you can listen as well as you hear.”
Released in 1988, “The Living Years” is a moving song about the importance of communication and appreciating loved ones while they’re still here.
Related: Best Songs About Fathers and Best Sad Songs
14. “Time After Time” – Cyndi Lauper
Lyric Sample: “If you’re lost, you can look, and you will find me, time after time.”
Lauper co-wrote this classic about offering unconditional support to someone moving through difficult times, promising to be there no matter what happens in the future.
Related: “Time After Time” Song Meaning
15. “Clock Strikes” – One OK Rock
Lyric Sample: “Believe that time is always forever, and I’ll always be here.”
The 2013 Japanese rock song asks whether anything truly lasts, or whether time erodes everything, no matter how hard you hold on.
16. “Yesterday’s Gone” – Chad & Jeremy
Lyric Sample: “I loved you all the summer through, I thought I’d found my dream in you.”
Chad Stuart wrote “Yesterday’s Gone” in 1962 about the pain of a relationship ending and the acceptance that the past can’t be recovered.
17. “Yesterday” – The Beatles
Lyric Sample: “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.”
“Yesterday” is a classic ballad about the sudden shift from happiness to loss, and the cruelty of looking back at a time when things were way simpler and more certain.
Related: Best Songs About Nostalgia
18. “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” – Green Day
Lyric Sample: “It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right.”
Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this with some bitterness after a relationship ended, but audiences took it as sincere, and it became one of the go-to songs for graduations.
19. “When You Were Young” – The Killers
Lyric Sample: “He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman.”
This 2006 alt-rock hit describes the difference between who someone was when you fell for them and who they’ve turned out to be as time passed.
20. “Life Goes On” – BTS
Lyric Sample: “Like an echo in the forest, the day will come back around.”
BTS wrote this during the COVID-19 lockdowns about the strangeness of a world that had stopped and the belief that things would eventually move at a normal pace again.
21. “Memory” – Sugarcult
Lyric Sample: “This may never start; we could fall apart.”
Sugarcult’s 2003 pop-punk track is about holding onto someone in your memory long after the relationship itself has ended.
22. “Time” – Pink Floyd
Lyric Sample: “And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking.”
This 1970s progressive classic is about waking up in the middle of your life and realizing you spent the early years assuming you’d get to the important things later.
23. “100 Years” – Five for Fighting
Lyric Sample: “I’m 15 for a moment, caught in between 10 and 20.”
“100 Years” is a series of snapshots from a single life at different ages, each one a different vantage point on the same question of what to do with the time you’re given.
Related: Best Songs with Numbers in the Title
24. “Time Will Fly” – Sam Tompkins
Lyric Sample: “Time will fly, run away from you, and it’s alright, it’s what you’re made to do.”
Tompkins wrote this as a letter to his younger self, tracing his life from busking in Brighton at 16 to performing at major venues, while also covering the losses and heartbreaks along the way.
25. “Que Sera, Sera” – Doris Day
Lyric Sample: “Whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see.”
In this Academy Award-winning classic, a girl asks her mother about the future, then her partner, then her own child asks her the same thing. The song is about how life just keeps moving, and the future stays a mystery no matter how old you get.
Related: “Que Sera, Sera” Meaning
26. “Landslide” – Fleetwood Mac
Lyric Sample: “Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you.”
Stevie Nicks wrote this legendary tune while trying to decide whether to stay with Fleetwood Mac or leave and pursue a solo career. The “landslide” is change itself.
Related: “Landslide” Lyrics Breakdown.
27. “Always Remember Us This Way” – Lady Gaga
Lyric Sample: “Lovers in the night, poets tryin’ to write.”
Written for A Star Is Born, this song is about wanting someone to remember you at your best, before time or circumstances change what you are to each other.
28. “Forever Young” – Alphaville
Lyric Sample: “Forever young, I want to be forever young.”
Alphaville’s synth-pop hit was written in 1984 during the Cold War, and it asks whether it’s better to burn out young or to grow old in a world that might not be worth growing old in.
29. “Turn! Turn! Turn!” – The Byrds
Lyric Sample: “To everything (turn, turn, turn), there is a season.”
The lyrics in this folk-rock classic are almost entirely from the Book of Ecclesiastes. The message is that nothing is permanent, but that’s by design, not a tragedy.
Related: Best Cover Songs Ever
30. “Young Forever” – Jay-Z ft. Mr. Hudson
Lyric Sample: “Fear not when, fear not why, fear not much while we’re alive.”
Built around a sample of Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” Jay-Z uses the song to question legacy and what lasts. He’s looking at what he’s built and asking whether any of it persists beyond his time.
31. “Time” – NF
Lyric Sample: “Even if we both break down tonight, and you say you hate me, and we go to bed angry.”
In this 2019 track, NF tells his partner that time will fix their broken relationship, and their fighting and other issues will eventually stop getting in the way.
32. “Blink Twice” – Shaboozey & Myles Smith
Lyric Sample: “We laugh or cry just to feel alive.”
“Blink Twice” is a 2025 country-folk tune about how fast life moves and the struggle to stay grounded in the moment.
Related: “Blink Twice” Song Meaning
33. “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” – Chicago
Lyric Sample: “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?”
This 1960s rock track pushes back on the idea that time is something to be tracked and managed. The song’s answer to the title question is essentially that it doesn’t matter as much as people think.
Conclusion
Time is the one subject that never runs out of material, because everyone is living through it differently, and none of us gets enough. These are just some of the many great songs that cover this subject.
If you enjoyed this list, you might also like these: Best Sad Songs, Songs About Nostalgia, and Songs About Missing Someone.
