Graduation Ceremony Songs
Thirty-four graduation songs, sorted by the part of the day. A ceremony has four musical jobs and they are not interchangeable: walking in, the slideshow, walking out, and the party. Most lists ignore that and hand you thirty songs for one of them.
Updated September 202634 songs
Ten that show up at every graduation
- Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1Edward Elgar · 1901
The processional, everywhere in America, from the trio section of a British march Elgar wrote for a coronation. Nobody involved intended this.
- Graduation (Friends Forever)Vitamin C · 2000
The graduation song for anyone who left school between 2000 and 2015. Built on Pachelbel’s Canon, which is why it sounds like a ceremony.
- Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)Green Day · 1997
Written as a bitter break-up song and adopted as the leaving anthem anyway. Nobody minds.
- Forever YoungAlphaville · 1984
Grand, absurd and completely sincere. The last dance at a leavers’ ball on two continents.
- My WishRascal Flatts · 2006
A parent listing everything they want for a child. The default at American graduations and it earns it.
- ViennaBilly Joel · 1977
Slow down, you have time. The single most useful thing anyone can say to a graduate, and increasingly the one they pick themselves.
- I LivedOneRepublic · 2014
Big and hopeful, and it builds on a count you can time a procession to.
- UnwrittenNatasha Bedingfield · 2004
Corny and effective. It has carried these slideshows for twenty years because it works.
- Rivers and RoadsThe Head and the Heart · 2011
About friends scattering. The honest song about what actually happens after a graduation.
- Here Comes the SunThe Beatles · 1969
Three minutes, hopeful, and every generation in the room accepts it. Good for the recessional.
Four jobs, four songs
A graduation needs a processional, something under the slideshow, a recessional and a party set, and the requirements conflict. The processional has to be long enough to walk two hundred people in and must loop cleanly. The slideshow needs a real ending. The recessional should be brief and cheerful. The party is somebody else’s problem entirely and should be handed over.
On the processional: “Pomp and Circumstance” is used because it loops without anyone noticing, not because anybody loves it. If you replace it, choose something with a steady pulse and no dramatic structure, and have the sound operator ready to fade rather than let it end. A song that finishes while forty graduates are still walking is the classic failure.
For the slideshow, pick the song first and cut the photographs to it. Three to four minutes is about sixty images at a readable pace. A montage that runs out before the song leaves everyone watching a black screen through the last chorus, and one that overruns ends in silence.
Read the lyrics of anything modern before a ceremony. Several standard graduation songs are about heartbreak, drinking or leaving somebody, and a school hall full of parents will hear the second verse even if nobody noticed it on the playlist.
By the part of the day
The processional and the recessional
Walking in and walking out. The first must loop; the second should be short and cheerful.
- Canon in DJohann Pachelbel · c. 1680
The alternative processional. Loops indefinitely and sounds like an occasion without demanding attention.
- Trumpet VoluntaryJeremiah Clarke · c. 1700
Brighter and more ceremonial than Elgar. Good for a smaller hall where the march feels overblown.
- Ode to JoyLudwig van Beethoven · 1824
For the recessional. Everyone recognises it and it moves people out of a room efficiently.
- Here Comes the SunThe Beatles · 1969
The modern recessional. Three minutes, and the mood on the way out is exactly right.
- Beautiful DayU2 · 2000
Big and uncomplicated. Good as people leave, less good while they are still seated.
- Don’t Stop Believin’Journey · 1981
The recessional if you want the hall singing on the way out. It will happen.
- Best Day of My LifeAmerican Authors · 2013
Bright, brief, and nothing in the lyric will embarrass anybody.
- RoarKaty Perry · 2013
For a school that wants the recessional to feel like a send-off rather than a dismissal.
For the slideshow
One song, sixty photographs, three to four minutes. Choose the song first.
- 7 YearsLukas Graham · 2015
Ages a person through a whole life in four minutes. Made for this exact job.
- PhotographEd Sheeran · 2015
Literally about keeping someone in a picture, and it does not overplay it.
- Slipping Through My FingersABBA · 1981
A mother watching a daughter leave for school. The most quietly devastating song here.
- The Best DayTaylor Swift · 2008
Written about her own mother and given to her as a present. Right for a parent-made montage.
- Humble and KindTim McGraw · 2016
A list of rules for being decent. If those were the school’s values, this is them set to music.
- In My LifeThe Beatles · 1965
Gentle and short. Looks back without sounding like a eulogy, which matters at eighteen.
- LandslideFleetwood Mac · 1975
About change and being afraid of it. Short enough not to outstay itself.
- Dog Days Are OverFlorence + The Machine · 2008
If the slideshow should end on a lift rather than a tear, this is the one.
For the party afterwards
Hand this list to the graduates. They know what their year group will dance to and you do not.
- Uptown FunkMark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars · 2014
The one song at a mixed-age party that gets everybody up at once, teachers included.
- Mr. BrightsideThe Killers · 2003
Older than the graduates and screamed word for word regardless. Non-negotiable in Britain.
- Blinding LightsThe Weeknd · 2019
The most-streamed song of its era. Everyone in the year knows every bar.
- Party in the U.S.A.Miley Cyrus · 2009
Anyone graduating now was small when it came out and knows every word anyway.
- Shut Up and DanceWalk the Moon · 2014
Bright and uncomplicated. Useful for pulling people back onto a thinning floor.
- SeptemberEarth, Wind & Fire · 1978
The reliable choice when the room spans three generations.
- Sweet CarolineNeil Diamond · 1969
The last song of the night, every time. Nobody has to be told the shouted part.
- Time of Your LifeGreen Day · 1997
For the very end, when everybody is hugging in a car park. It has done this job for thirty years.
Three demonstration songs
What a song for this graduate sounds like
We wrote these from made-up answers to the same five questions you would fill in. They are not customer work. A ceremony has hundreds of graduates and one generic playlist; a song written about one of them is the only thing in the day that is not shared.
Start their song- Priya at DawnPop · the first in her family to finish2:27
- Ruth’s Yellow KitchenCountry · a grandmother who fed everyone who came to the door3:39
- Biscuit Tin ElaineAcoustic · a mother who worked eleven years of night shifts2:50
How it works
Three steps. The first one is the only hard part.
- 1Tell the storyFive questions. Who it’s for, the occasion, three details only you two know, the feeling you want, and the names that have to be in it.
- 2Pick the soundCountry, pop, acoustic, R&B, gospel or rock. A man’s voice or a woman’s.
- 3Listen, then unlockA 30-second preview in about two minutes. Pay only if you love it. You get the full song, the lyrics, and a page you can send.
Common questions
- What song is played at graduation?
- “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1” by Elgar, or rather its trio section — a British march written for a coronation and adopted in America at Yale in 1905. It is used because it loops cleanly, not because anybody loves it.
- What is a good graduation slideshow song?
- “7 Years” ages a person through a whole life in four minutes, which is the job. “Photograph” and “Slipping Through My Fingers” are the other two that reliably work. Choose the song first and cut the photographs to it.
- Can we use a pop song for the processional?
- Yes, if it has a steady pulse and no dramatic structure, and if the sound operator is ready to fade rather than let it end. A processional that finishes while forty graduates are still walking is the classic failure.
- What should parents play for a graduate?
- “My Wish” or “Vienna”, and privately rather than at the ceremony. A song sent that morning is heard properly; the same song in a hall of six hundred people is background.
- Can I get a song written for a graduate?
- Yes. Answer five questions — their name, the achievement, three things only your family or their class would know, the feeling you want and the music they like — and you will hear a 30-second preview in about two minutes. The full song is $19.