10 Best Goth Rock Songs

The list below contains the Top 10 Best Goth Rock Songs. This list is based on research and on my own personal opinions.

This is the fourth single released off the “Disintegration” album. It was voted #283 on Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. The single features a picture of Robert Smith’s Wife Mary on it. This song is haunting. “I have been looking so long at these pictures of you. I almost believed they were real. I have been looking so long at these pictures of you. The pictures are all I can feel.”

This song is the first single released off of the “Pretty Hate Machine” album. The album came out in 1989. This song was originally only available on vinyl but after its popularity it was also released on CD. This song is about suicide. Though some fans believe it’s about heroin or bipolar disorder. “Kind of like a cloud I was up way up in the sky. And I was feeling some feelings you wouldn't believe. Sometimes I don't believe them myself. And I decided I was never coming down. Just then a tiny little dot caught my eye. It was just about too small to see. But I watched it way too long. That dot was pulling me down.”

This song was released in 1985 and was the first single off the “Tinderbox” album. This track reached number twenty one on the UK Singles Chart. This song is about a volcanic eruption that happened to the city of Pompeii. “We found you hiding. We found you lying. Choking on the dirt and sand. Your former glories and all the stories. Dragged and washed with eager hands.”

This song is featured on the “Confessions of a Knife” Album and there is also a remix of it featured on the “Naïve” album by KMFDM. This song hit number twenty one on Billboard’s Dance/Club Chart list in 1991. It is also number sixty one on COMA Music’s “101 Greatest Industrial Songs of All Time” list. “You drag me across your open wound. I am on my last limb. I'm on my last limb. Stuck in the mainstream pseudo dude. You are on your last limb. You're on your last limb. The day I die will mean nothing to you. The days of swine and roses.”

This song was released as a single in 1983 and is featured on the “Burning from the Inside” album. This was Bauhas’s last commercially released single. The track was written by Daniel Ash, David J, Kevin Haskins and Peter Murphy. Some fans believe this song is about Marilyn Monroe where others believe it’s about a girl who is only really known when she is in the drinking scene. “Learning lines in the rain. Special effects by lunatic and Drinks. The graveyard scene. The golden years. She's in parties. It's in the can. She's in parties. It's in the can.”

This song was released in 1989 as the second single off Love & Rockets self-titled album. This track was number three on the “Billboard Hot 100” chart and is the biggest hit in the US for Love & Rockets. This song was written by Daniel Ash. This song is about lust. “I don't know what color your eyes are, baby. But your hair is long and brown. Your legs are strong, and you're so, so long. And you don't come from this town. My head is full of magic, baby. And I can't share this with you. The feel I'm on a cross again, lately. But there's nothing to do with you. I'm alive, huh, huh, so alive I'm alive, huh, huh so alive”

This song is featured on the 1985 album “Love”. It peaked at number 15 on the UK Singles Chart. This was the last song to be recorded with drummer Nigel Preston as he was fired not long after the release of this track. This song was written by Ian Robert Astbury and William Henry Duffy. “The sparkle in your eyes. Keeps me alive. And the sparkle in your eyes. Keeps me alive, keeps me alive. The world and the world turns around. The world and the world yeah. The world drags me down. Oh, the heads that turn. Make my back burn. And that's heads that turn”

This track was the first single off Tubeway Army’s 1979 album “Replicas”. This song was written and produced by the bands front man Gary Numan. Numan often times plays this song live at his shows. This song was influenced by the dystopian science fiction concept and is about a futuristic park where androids with human skin and machines kill humans for entertainment. “Down in the park where the machmen Meet the machines And play 'Kill by numbers'. Down in the park with a friend called 'Five'. I was in a car crash or was it the war. But I've never been quite the same. Little white lies Like 'I was there'.”

This song was released in 1984 as a single off of the “Ocean Rain” album by Echo & the Bunnymen. This song reached number nine in the UK Singles Chart and is the bands most successful song. This song was written by Ian McCulloch Will Sergeant, Les Pattinson, and Pete de Freitasand. The cords are based on David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” played backwards. This song is about death. “Under blue moon I saw you. So soon you'll take me. Up in your arms. Too late to beg you or cancel it. Though I know it must be the killing time. Unwillingly mine. Fate Up against your will. Through the thick and thin. He will wait until you give yourself to him.”

This song was written in August of 1979 by Ian Curtis. The title is an ironic twist on “Love Will Keep Us Together”. This song is about his marriage and is one of the few Joy Division songs that Curtis plays guitar on live. This song also shows how he was feelings before his suicide in May of 1980. This song became the band’s first hit and reached number 13 on the UK Singles Chart. It also peaked at number 42 on the American dance chart. This song is also number 179 on Rolling Stone Magazines list of “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. The name of this song is also inscribed on Ian Curtis’s grave marker. The song is about a failed relationship. “When routine bites hard. And ambitions are low. And resentment rides high. But emotions won't grow. And we're changing our ways. Taking different roads. Love, love will tear us apart again.”

In conclusion, there are many great Goth Rock songs out there with heartfelt lyrics. If you are new to this scene, these tracks are some great classics to check out. I hope you enjoyed this list! Be sure to check out my other lists!