Warning: this article contains discussion of suicidal ideation and gun violence, as well as depictions of self-harm.There are a lot of reasons to love hard rock music. As a genre, it's incredibly flexible and powerful, and it's always evolving; what we think of as just "hard" today would have been considered heavy metal back in the 80s, while much of what used to be metal has, through technology and tastes changing and the increasing homogenization of what gets radio play, lost a lot of its edge over the years. Yet hard rock lovers always come back to the rawness of the genre — how, sometimes at the cost of eloquence, it's about unfiltered emotion.
Lots of hard rock is uptempo and full of bravado, which is why it's commonly used in commercials for such macho products as lite beer and pickup trucks with beds that are too short to carry lumber. But plenty of hard rock is full of genuine grief and pain, stories of loss and fear, and even questioning if life is really worth living. Here are ten hard rock hits that are guaranteed to pluck your heartstrings and leave you wailing like a guitar solo.
10 Shinedown - "45"
Leave a Whisper (2003)
With a painful metaphor at its heart, Shinedown's "45" is an achingly powerful song that clearly resonated with a lot of listeners, as it made it fairly high on both the U.S. Modern Rock and U.S. Mainstream Rock charts when it released as a single (placing twelfth and third, respectively), as well as eventually being certified platinum by the RIAA. In fact the song's only detractors seemed to be MTV, who at first attempted to air the song's video in a censored form and then cut it completely due to concerns over the lyrics supposedly promoting gun violence.
Lead singer and songwriter of Shinedown Brent Smith disagreed with MTV's choice, pointing out that the song's lyrics are a metaphor and a warning. In a 2005 interview with FoundryMusic, he said:
[T]he song is basically about the day that you wake up and you look at yourself in the mirror and you finally decide that you want to try to become comfortable in your own skin, and realize that you’re gonna have to make yourself happy before you’re going to make anyone else happy. And basically, the 45 isn’t an actual literal term for a gun, I used it as a metaphor for the world… Because I’ve been in that situation where I didn’t know if I wanted to continue going on and I didn’t know how to necessarily make myself comfortable with who I was, trying to find a way of learning more about myself. And you come from a dark place sometimes, and that’s really the reality of the song. It’s about overcoming and about moving forward. (via the
Internet Archive
)
That darkness is clearly on display in Smith's voice throughout the song as his vocals ring with frustration and pain. The gentle guitar arpeggios in the verse serve as a delicate counterpoint to the plodding rhythm of the chorus, sonically reflecting that feeling of looking into the mirror and not knowing how to make yourself happy, or not even knowing if it's worth trying to go about your day.
Yet, like Smith said, at the core, it's about overcoming and moving forward. Grief is heavy, despair is heavier still, but the only way out is through.
9 Puddle of Mudd - "Blurry"
Come Clean (2001)
"Blurry" was Missouri-based rockers Puddle of Mudd's most successful song by miles, and in fact was the most successful rock song in all of 2002; it topped four of Billboard's genre rankings when it was released, as well as peaking at #5 on the Hot 100, and was #1 on the year-end Mainstream and Modern Rock charts to boot. It was also licensed for 2004's Namco flight simulator Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, where it was used as a key piece of character development to highlight the game's anti-war themes.
To this day, "Blurry" remains an instantly recognizable song, with its opening of shimmering guitar harmonics and singer Wes Scantlin's smooth vocals. The raw yearning in his voice on the recording is no affectation; when Puddle of Mudd was recording Come Clean, their debut album, Scantlin had only just met his bandmates, as label Flawless Records had changed the band's entire lineup in advance of the recording session. As Scantlin told American Songwriter, "'Blurry' was basically about being flown to freaking Los Angeles and y’know … I didn't know anybody at all. And I was just missing my family."
Loneliness and fear are powerful emotions, and the amount contained in "Blurry" clearly resonated with listeners worldwide with how successful the song was. It's a phenomenal ballad about loss and confusion, and even with how much play it has gotten, it still remains just as powerful as it was upon release.
8 Disturbed - "The Sound of Silence"
Immortalized (2015)
The original version of "The Sound of Silence," released in 1965 by legendary folk duo Simon & Garfunkel, was a wildly successful single. While Disturbed's cover, released almost exactly fifty years after the original, never quite reached the same heights on the charts, it was a landmark release for the nu-metal band, and even garnered praise from Paul Simon himself after the band performed it live on Conan O'Brien's talk show in March of 2016.
Frontman and singer David Draiman has always been renowned for his unique and powerful voice – so intense he damaged his vocal cords, requiring reconstructive surgery in 2001 that forced him to change his singing technique for the recording of their second album, Believe – but with "The Sound of Silence," something came alive inside him, bringing out a vocal dynamism fueled by grief that drips out of every second of the performance. While the original is a thoughtful cautionary tale about social apathy, Disturbed's cover is redolent with grief for every real tragedy that has happened in the interceding half-century.
The live performance from Conan is even more powerful; there was no recording studio to take shelter in, no production tricks to cover up any flaws, just Draiman onstage, on national television, backed by his bandmates and a small chamber orchestra. It's a beautiful, genuinely transcendent performance.
7 Frank Turner - "Plain Sailing Weather"
Tape Deck Heart (2013)
English hardcore-turned-folk-punk musician Frank Turner has an incredible career given how little media buzz he's gotten in the U.S. From London's tiny indie venue of Nambucca to the 2012 Olympics pre-show to launching the Lost Evenings festival, which has already scheduled its eighth year running for September 2025, he has always been one of the hardest-working men in rock and roll. He described his 2013 release, Tape Deck Heart, as a break-up album "about what happens when something that was supposed to be timeless runs out of time" (via Dance Yrself Clean).
The album as a whole explores that from every angle, but "Plain Sailing Weather," buried in the middle of the first side, is the rawest song there, full of not only grief but self-recrimination and frustration. "Amélie lied to me," the first verse says, referencing the quirky 2001 French romantic comedy. "Plain Sailing Weather" is the final plea from someone who knows there's no chance they'll be heard, but still are compelled to make it. It's a high-octane prayer for forgiveness to a goddess long gone.
6 Seether (featuring Amy Lee) - "Broken"
The Punisher: The Album (2004)
"Broken" was first recorded as a simple drums-and-acoustic-guitar ballad that was used as the closing track on Disclaimer, Seether's debut album. While genuinely sad – singer Shaun Morgan wrote it when he moved to the United States from his home country of South Africa in 2002, leaving his wife and daughter behind – the original cut garnered little attention compared to the band's grungy singles.
All that changed when "Broken" was rerecorded for the soundtrack of 2004's The Punisher, with Evanescence singer Amy Lee brought on to make the track into a duet, and the instrumentation was reworked for the full band and augmented with a full string section. Here, the originally subdued lyrics explode with tragic power, as the vocalists shift from harmonizing with each other to singing in unison, yet never find each other. It's a memorable ballad of love, loss, and painful hope for a better future that's unlikely to arrive.
5 Linkin Park - "Numb"
Meteora (2003)
While some critics decried Linkin Park's second album for sounding too similar to their debut, Hybrid Theory, there's no question that Meteora delivered exactly what fans wanted when it went right to the top of the Billboard 200 upon its release. Moreover, the album stayed on that chart until 2006, and returned to it when the 20th anniversary edition was released in 2023. The song was also included in the setlist for the streamed show that served as the official debut of the band's new vocalist, Emily Armstrong.
"Numb" is one of Linkin Park's most enduring songs, and was their second to pass one billion streams on Spotify; Billboard ranked it as the 59th-biggest hit in the history of their Alternative Airplay chart in 2023. The track is the perfect distillation of Linkin Park's early sound, with Chester Bennington's vocals that so effortlessly switch from an almost gentle insisting need for affirmation to his signature roar of frustration, Mike Shinoda's backing rap (surprisingly understated here compared to other parts of Meteora), and the electronically-infused metal riffs of the band all coming together for a perfect, tragic epic.
4 The Protomen - "Breaking Out"
Act II: The Father of Death (2009)
Although The Protomen may seem like a gimmick band, with members having stage names like Raul Panther III, Shock Magnum, and K.I.L.R.O.Y., beneath the silver body paint and copious Mega Man references lies the beating heart of the greatest thing to happen to rock opera since Meat Loaf. While their first album, 2005's self-titled The Protomen, had a straightforward rock sound, 2009's follow-up Act II: The Father of Death expanded their approach.
While explaining the plot of the still-incomplete rock opera that Act II is a part of would be an article unto itself, "Breaking Out" is self-explanatory. With a sound that's part Bat Out of Hell and part Born to Run, it's a race against time to get free of a dying world. With a driving bass drum evoking a heartbeat, the song builds and builds as the protagonist finds their resolve to escape the confines of their everyday life, throw off the shackles of conformity, and find freedom in the face of all the odds.
3 The Smith Street Band - "Throw Me In The River"
Throw Me In The River (2014)
Melbourne, Australia's Smith Street Band are one of the Southern Hemisphere's hidden gems of rock and roll, with a relentless Springsteen-meets-Pat-the-Bunny rawness that explains why they've been such a mainstay of the Australian indie-rock scene since the release of 2011's No One Gets Lost Anymore. Throw Me in the River was their third studio release, and while the title track was never released as a single, it definitely serves as the album's emotional core.
"Throw Me in the River" is another breakup song, an ode to having your heart broken, and resonates with that part of anyone who has been left feeling so useless, the only thing they could be good for anymore is food for the fishes. After all, when you're "already in the process of getting chewed up and spat out," a little drowning can't make it much worse.
2 The Gaslight Anthem - "The Backseat"
The '59 Sound (2008)
Another heavily Springsteen-influenced group, the Gaslight Anthem are heirs to a rich tradition of New Jersey punks, having once been described in a review for their second release, 2008's Señor and the Queen EP, as "what pop music would be if Springsteen hadn't listened to his producer, let the Ramones record the song, and launched the C.B.G.B.'ers into megastardom" (via Sobriquet Magazine).
"The Backseat" is another song very much in this musical vein, heavily evoking the similarly-titled "Backstreets" off Springsteen's seminal Born to Run without ever feeling like a direct copy. But that unmistakably New Jersey yearning for finding one's place in the world, for eking out what little bits of joy and life and space you can, rings loud, even all the way in the back seat.
1 The Offspring - "Gone Away"
Ixnay on the Hombre (1997)
While The Offspring's first release with Columbia Records wasn't nearly the commercial success their previous album Smash was, Ixnay on the Hombre marked an evolution in sound for the punks from Garden Grove, with tighter production and more of a post-grunge approach. The following year's Americana would further improve on this formula, but Ixnay has still endured, and "Gone Away" remains a hallmark of the Offspring's live sets to this day.
Aside from the CMAs, Kerrang! Awards, OC Music Awards, and Billboard Music Award he has won from his work with The Offspring, frontman Dexter Holland also has a PhD in molecular biology, putting him in an esteemed category of famous rock musicians and scientists that also includes Queen's Brian May.
Rumors about the inspiration for "Gone Away" circled for years, mostly centered around the theory that it was written about the tragic loss of a loved one, but it wasn't until a 2021 interview with Los Otros Records that Dexter Holland explained that the song's genesis wasn't quite so dark. Specifically, it was from a brush with death from a possibly gang-related drive-by shooting in a Baskin-Robbins where Holland and his wife were waiting to buy ice cream.
I knew I wanted the song to be heavy, but I didn't know what it was going to be about yet, but it was kind of like the feeling of - in a weird way, I know it's not a direct connection, if you know what I mean, but it made you think about dying, about grief and about what that would feel like, and what if my wife had been the one?
Custom image by Zahra Huselid.
English (US) ·