Written by Zoe Engels, Contributing Writer and Editor
We’ve previously written about our favorite movies, podcasts, and books on organ, eye, and tissue donation. We know what you’re probably wondering: But what about music!? Well, today’s the day. Here’s our list of the top 5 songs about organ, eye, and tissue donation to add to your playlist.
“Just Like That” by Bonnie Raitt
Released in 2022, singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt’s “Just Like That” won the 65th Annual Grammy Awards for Song of the Year (beating out superstars like Adele, Beyoncé, and Harry Styles) and Best American Roots Song—an impressive feat and much-deserved recognition for a song filled with this much meaning.
In an interview, Raitt told American Songwriter that she penned the song after watching a news broadcast about a woman who’d donated her son’s heart after he passed and was about to meet the recipient of his heart for the first time.
“I just lost it,” Raitt said, explaining the scene when the heart’s recipient allowed the woman to hear her son’s heart beat in its new home. “It was the most moving and surprising thing. I wasn’t expecting it. I vowed right then that I wanted to write a song about what that would take.”
In that same interview with American Songwriter, she added, “Every time I hear about a family donating organs when their child has been killed, or there’s some sort of sudden death—as if you’re not in grief and shock enough—to have the view and the compassion and the love to be able to pay it forward like that is so incredible.”
The lyrics are emotional and bring us goosebumps, like the lines: “I've spent years just trying to find you / So I could finally let you know / It was your son's heart that saved me / And a life you gave us both.”
“Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi
Lewis Capaldi is among musics’ best, and his songs are moving, heartfelt, and just absolutely stunning. There are two brilliant music videos for “Someone You Loved”—one about breakups, loneliness, and longing and another about loss, organ donation, and hope in collaboration with UK organ donation awareness charity, Live Life Gift Life.
We can’t stress enough how much we love the versatility of the song and how beautifully he and Live Life Gift Life use it to advocate for organ, eye, and tissue donation.
As you listen to the lyrics in the latter video (including the chorus of: “Now, I need somebody to know / Somebody to heal / Somebody to have / Just to know how it feels / It’s easy to say but it’s never the same / I guess I kinda liked the way you helped me escape”), you see Peter Capaldi, Lewis Capaldi’s real-life, distant cousin who also happens to star in the British TV series Doctor Who, embark on a journey as a bereaved husband.
It all begins with a heartbeat before the music plays. Peter Capaldi is alone and grieving. The music plays. When he receives a letter from a young mother, the recipient of his deceased wife’s heart, he goes to meet her and her family and gets to hear his wife’s heartbeat again in its new home. Her legacy lives on through this gift of life.
You can read the full lyrics to “Someone You Loved” here.
“Please Don’t Bury Me” by John Prine
John Prine released this important but fun, folksy song in 1973, and it remains relevant to this day. The singer, who passed away from coronavirus complications in 2020, knew the importance of organ, eye, and tissue donation and made sure to advocate for it through his music.
As American Songwriter reported, the song evolved for Prine as he worked on it.
“That song was originally about this character I had in mind called Tom Brewster,” Prine said in an interview. “He dies but he wasn’t supposed to, like that scene in those old movies. The angels have to send him back, but they can’t the way he is. So they send him back as a rooster, which is why his name is Brewster.”
He added, “I ended up trashing that whole part and came up with this idea of the guy just giving all of his organs away, and I made a whole song out of that. It’s the best organ donor campfire song I know of.”
The song begins with Prine’s own death as he postulates what happens next. He lists various organs throughout the song and, in a nice contrast between the serious and the lighthearted, postulates who can have them.
The chorus goes: “But please don't bury me / Down in that cold cold ground / No, I'd druther have 'em cut me up / And pass me all around / Throw my brain in a hurricane / And the blind can have my eyes / And the deaf can take both of my ears / If they don't mind the size.”
You can read the full lyrics to “Please Don’t Bury Me” here.
“Kind & Generous” by Natalie Merchant
This 1998 song by pop singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant isn’t directly about organ, eye, and tissue donation, but it could be. In it, Merchant expresses her gratitude for someone else’s generosity: “You've been so kind and generous / I don't know how you keep on giving / For your kindness I'm in debt to you / And I never could have come this far without you.” While not outright meant as such, the song could be an ode to an organ donor hero from a recipient who’s gained the gift of life.
We promise that’s not a stretch: Organ donation saves lives. After all, as the Health Resources & Services Administration affirms, one organ donor can save 8 lives and improve 75 more by donating tissue and corneas.
You can read the full lyrics to “Kind & Generous” here.
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by Judy Garland
This 1939 ballad written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg and popularized by the movie The Wizard of Oz is truly a classic as Garland sings the iconic lines: “Somewhere over the rainbow / Bluebirds fly / Birds fly over the rainbow / Why then, oh, why can't I?” As the movie progresses, we see that Dorothy (played by Garland) can and does get “over the rainbow.”
Like “Kind & Generous,” it’s not explicitly about organ donation but conveys so much hope—hope for what’s on the other side of the rainbow, past all the trials and tribulations of the present—which can resonate with everyone who’s ever been through a tough time. That includes organ donor families who’ve lost loved ones (but find comfort in knowing part of their loved one lives on in helping save or improve someone else’s life), living organ donors and organ recipients; in essence, sometimes the present moment and the journey aren’t easy, but there is hope on the other side of the rainbow through organ, eye, and tissue donation.
You can read the full lyrics to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” here.
Let us know in the comments below which songs you’d add to this organ, eye, and tissue donation playlist. ⬇️
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