The Spins – Mac Miller
The song is about being a kid and the transition to being an adult and finally having the freedom to do what you want. “Follow your dreams” and “I just graduated high school.”
Senior Skip Day – Mac Miller
A fun song to put your senior skip day to, like a soundtrack. A key moment of the school year, the song describes participating in senior skip day and hanging out with your friends instead. “Supposed to be in class but I aint goin’ let’s chill on the couch.”
We’re All In This Together – High School Musical Cast
The quintessential high school graduation song! Perfect for graduation day and making it feel like an ending credits scene. “Once we know that we are, we’re all stars and we see that we’re all in this together and it shows when we stand, hand in hands make our dreams come true”
Our Last Summer – ABBA
This song, seen in Mamma Mia is the perfect song for the summer after senior year when everyone is getting ready for college or whatever the next chapter holds and reminiscing about high school memories with friends. “I can still recall our last summer I still see it all… memories that remain, laughing in the rain, our last summer”
Slipping Through My Fingers – ABBA
This song, also from Mamma Mia, a classic coming-of-age rom-com, is told from the perspective of a mom watching her daughter grow up through all her years of school and thinking back to the memories they made together. It encapsulates the bittersweet feeling that comes with graduating and growing up. “Slipping through my fingers all the time I try to capture every minute, the feeling in it… each time I think I’m close to knowing she keeps on growing”
Rivers and Roads – The Head And The Heart
The song describes the fear of branching off and away from your friends and seeing them do the same similar to how everyone goes to different colleges after high school. “A year from now, we’ll all be gone, all our friends will move away, and they’re goin’ to better places, but our friends will be gone away.”
Where’d All The Time Go? – Dr. Dog
Portrays the feeling of a good part of your life becoming just a memory and ending a chapter of your life with people that you’ve spent so much time with. “Where’d all the time go? Starting to fly, see how the hands go, waving goodbye.”
As It Was – Harry Styles
This song describes the feeling of looking back and realizing that things are different now than they were before and appreciating the friends and family one still has even through all of the changing times. “In this world it’s just us you know it’s not the same as it was”
Landslide – Fleetwood Mac
This timeless song perfectly captures the feeling of being afraid of change and being unsure about the future. As seniors prepare for graduation, the many changes that will follow it can feel daunting as ‘Landslide’ describes. “Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? Well I’ve been afraid of changin’ ‘cause I built my life around you”
Scott Street – Phoebe Bridgers
Bridgers describes the feeling of getting older without one’s friends and the realization that they don’t know them as well as they used to because their lives have grown apart like high school friends leaving for college. “I asked you, ‘How is your sister? I heard she got her degree’ And I said that makes me feel old… Anyway, don’t be a stranger.”
Listen to the playlist on Spotify here.
