Let me put something on. Start with Janelle Monáe's “Float,” and give those horns a moment.
I live with chronic illness and disability, and I want a playlist with room for all of me. That includes the difficult stuff: the uncertainty, the exhaustion, the effort of explaining something you wish somebody would just understand. It also includes wanting to flirt, have a laugh and argue about which Daft Punk track belongs on the list.
Some days you want a song that gets the tiredness right. Some days you want Paul Kelly.
So these are my songs about chronic illness and songs for the life around it. There are seventeen, grouped by the kind of company they offer. Some artists have spoken directly about writing from illness. Other tracks are here because of the connections I'm making as a listener. I'll tell you which is which, with links to the artists' accounts and the music.
The listening guide below is grouped by experience. The Spotify playlist at the end has its own running order, from “Float” to “Fragments of Time.” You can also skip straight to the song you need. I won't take it personally. Probably.
First, something that feels good
Janelle Monáe — “Float” featuring Seun Kuti and Egypt 80
This gets the first spot because I want pleasure in the room from the beginning.
In an Ebony interview quoted by ABC Audio, Monáe connected “Float” to the joy and freedom of the Everyday People parties, and to the possibilities opened up by embracing their queer identity. That's the artist's context. Its place on a chronic illness playlist is my choice.
What appeals to me is the swagger. Those horns sound like an entrance, and Monáe sounds entirely entitled to enjoy being there. A playlist about living in a body that gets so much anxious attention could use some of that. Let there be a little showing off.
Listen to “Float” on Janelle Monáe's official channel. Explicit language.
When you wish someone understood
BLÜ EYES — “you'd never know”
You know that awkward gap between how you look and how you're doing? This is the song I'd send someone who keeps getting stuck on the first part.
BLÜ EYES, also known as Katie Stump, discussed the unexplained health crisis behind the song in a Georgia Straight interview. At the time, she said she had no formal chronic-illness diagnosis other than anxiety. The physical episode remained unexplained.
That detail matters. A name for what is happening can take a long time to arrive, if it arrives at all. Meanwhile, you still have to get through Tuesday. “you'd never know” makes room for that limbo and for the loneliness of looking fine when you aren't.
Listen to BLÜ EYES' “you'd never know”.
Avril Lavigne — “Head Above Water”
This one is for when the situation feels frightening and you have very little interest in finding a clever way to describe it.
In a letter to fans reproduced by Vogue, Lavigne described lying in bed with her mother during her illness with Lyme disease, fearing she was dying. Her prayer to keep her head above water became the beginning of the song.
The religious language is central. You may connect with the prayer, or simply with the urgency of asking for help. Either way, I'd give this one room to be as big and emotional as it wants.
Watch Avril Lavigne's official “Head Above Water” video.
When you are tired of explaining the tiredness
Claire Rosinkranz — “Chronic”
“I wrote this song to feel understood,” Rosinkranz told Atwood Magazine. Honestly, that's a good enough reason to start.
She described sitting at a piano, trying to express the fatigue and repeated sickness that had left her feeling trapped in her body. She also spoke about the complicated familiarity of being ill: how something you want to escape can become the life you know.
I like that she leaves the awkward feeling in. It is her experience, and it doesn't explain anybody else's illness. But if you've ever struggled to explain how you can want change and still feel unsettled by it, there may be something here for you.
Listen to Claire Rosinkranz's “Chronic”.
AJJ — “Body Terror Song”
Being told to love your body can feel like another item on an already unreasonable to-do list. AJJ offers a little sympathy for the business of having one.
I'm including this as a listener's interpretation. The band's recording and published lyrics address bodily vulnerability; they don't establish a particular chronic-illness origin.
What draws me to it is the gentleness inside the bleakness. You can be thoroughly fed up with your body and still deserve some tenderness. If that is where you are today, try this one. It includes references to violence and bodily harm, so feel free to leave it for another day.
When you have had enough
Ren — “Seven Sins”
Here is where I'd turn it up.
Ren explicitly connects “Seven Sins” to living with chronic illness in his track-by-track account of Sick Boi. He describes an opening in a traditional Welsh folk style, followed by an orchestral passage and a turn into drill.
There are already enough occasions when an ill person has to make a difficult experience sound manageable for whoever is listening. A song gives you somewhere to put the less polite version. This much anger earns its place.
Give it some attention. There is a lot happening here.
Listen to “Seven Sins” on Apple Music. Explicit language.
Ian Dury — “Spasticus Autisticus”
Dury's anger points toward the people doing the patronizing. He wrote this as a protest against the 1981 International Year of Disabled Persons, which he considered condescending. Access2Arts recounts the song's history and his explanation.
The title deliberately uses an ableist slur. This is a specific act of disability protest, and the language is part of that confrontation.
Being disabled involves dealing with other people's ideas about your life, too. Dury has plenty to say about that arrangement. He is also making music with bite and humor, which is a much more interesting invitation than being asked to admire how brave somebody is.
Listen to the label-provided recording of “Spasticus Autisticus”.
When you want someone close
Halsey — “The End”
This one deserves a quieter moment.
Halsey released “The End” alongside material about their treatment, then publicly disclosed lupus and a rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder. Their statement, reported by ABC News, gives the song its personal context.
It brings love into the middle of medical uncertainty, where the enormous questions sit beside the practical business of getting to treatment. It belongs next to the love songs. Illness is already in the relationship; affection has to find its way around the appointments and the fear.
If you are wondering how much to tell someone, or how to ask them to stay close, there may be something painfully familiar here.
Listen to Halsey's official “The End”. Treatment and mortality themes.
Olivia Rodrigo featuring Robert Smith — “what's wrong with me”
Rodrigo starts with that awful feeling of not being yourself, while people around you insist you're fine. Then the song turns toward a relationship, and the possibility that love isn't making you feel as good as you'd hoped.
That first feeling may ring true if you've ever had unexplained symptoms or struggled to put them into words. I'm adding it as my listening connection to that confusion. Rodrigo has described the album as exploring the harder, more broken parts of romantic love, so this is a relationship song; it isn't evidence about her health. Keeping those things clear lets both readings have their place.
And the Robert Smith connection is a lovely bonus. In her PBS interview, Rodrigo said she was nervous to ask the Cure frontman to join the track, and called it one of her favorite songs. The official credits list Smith as a background vocalist and engineer.
Listen to “what's wrong with me” on Olivia Rodrigo's official channel.
Rob Thomas — “Her Diamonds”
Now listen from the other side of the relationship.
Thomas told NPR interviewer Alison Stewart that he wrote “Her Diamonds” for his wife, who had an autoimmune disease. “This song was written on a bad day,” he said.
That is the detail I'd want you to know before pressing play. Underneath the familiar pop song is somebody watching the person he loves have a terrible time, and wanting to help.
Listen to it alongside “The End” and you get two different positions within a relationship affected by illness, with no neat solution available to either person. Sometimes being there is difficult and still matters enormously.
Watch the “Her Diamonds” video on Apple Music.
Russian Red — “Loving Strangers”
Russian Red lets the conversation drift toward desire.
Lourdes Hernández explained to Europa Press that “Loving Strangers” concerns meeting a stranger and wanting that person, even when their heart may already be occupied. My reason for including it is separate from her account: there is room here for wanting somebody, as well as wanting somebody to understand illness.
There is something lovely about that distinction. A person can have medical concerns and still be distracted by someone across the room. A chronic illness playlist should remember that part of life, too.
Listen to “Loving Strangers” on Russian Red's official artist channel.
When life keeps going and illness comes along
Jonas Brothers — “A Little Bit Longer”
Nick Jonas was filming Camp Rock in Canada when a difficult day with type 1 diabetes sent him to the piano. He wrote “A Little Bit Longer” there, a moment he later described in an interview with STAT.
I like knowing where it began. Underneath the celebrity story is a teenager who has things he wants to do and a body requiring a great deal of attention. The food, injections and blood sugar checks are part of the day whether he feels like dealing with them or not.
That everyday frustration earns the song its place. You can be getting on with life and still be annoyed about how much extra work it takes.
Listen to the label-provided recording of “A Little Bit Longer”.
Belle and Sebastian — “Nobody's Empire”
If you only try a handful of these songs, make this one of them.
Stuart Murdoch told The Line of Best Fit that he had spent years writing from the perspective of someone with ME before writing directly about it in “Nobody's Empire.” He described becoming seriously ill at nineteen and also spoke about a later relapse.
That history helps explain my choice. A life can grow around illness without leaving it behind. There can be work, friendship and things you are proud of, with the illness still present.
Murdoch also gives us a song full of images to spend time with. You don't need to match every one to your own experience. Let a few find you.
Watch “Nobody's Empire” on Belle and Sebastian's website.
fanclubwallet — “Guts”
Hannah Judge, who records as fanclubwallet, connected “Guts” to the frightening prospect of being cut open for surgery in her interview with The Luna Collective. She described it as one of the darkest songs on Living While Dying.
But stay with that interview a little longer. Talking about life with Crohn's disease after surgery, she also recalls swimming and wanting to linger in a grocery store, looking at everything. Her collaborator wanted to hurry up.
I love that detail. The appointments continue, flare-ups remain possible, and someone is getting impatient because you are taking too long at the shops. “Guts” belongs to a life big enough to contain all of that.
Listen to “Guts,” track ten on fanclubwallet's Bandcamp album. Surgery and bodily fear themes.
And when you would quite like a good time
Daft Punk — “Fragments of Time” featuring Todd Edwards
Here is my choice from Random Access Memories. We can argue for “Touch” another time.
I hear “Fragments of Time” as a song about wanting to hold on to an experience you know cannot last. You can read the words on Daft Punk's own album page. I'm bringing the chronic illness connection to it as a listener.
For this playlist, I hear it as a place for the good afternoon, the unhurried conversation, the occasion you wish had a few more hours in it. When plans are uncertain, those moments can carry a lot of feeling. There is room to enjoy them without turning every pleasant thing into a lesson about gratitude.
Also, this is an excellent point to stop explaining the playlist and let Todd Edwards sing.
Listen to Daft Punk's official “Fragments of Time” audio.
Paul Kelly — “Dumb Things”
I couldn't leave Paul Kelly out. “Dumb Things” is my pick.
He told triple j's Linda Marigliano that the song began with something he overheard someone say to a friend in a pub. He wrote it down. There is your reminder to watch what you say within earshot of a songwriter.
The illness connection is mine. I don't want being chronically ill or disabled to require a spotless character. There should still be room to be foolish, get carried away or misjudge a situation. “Dumb Things” brings that messy company to the playlist, along with a chorus you may already be halfway through singing.
Watch Paul Kelly's official “Dumb Things” video.
Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande — “Rain on Me”
And one more before we finish.
Gaga's explanation of this song concerns tears and alcohol used to numb herself, as she described in an Apple Music interview quoted by ABC News. I'm choosing it for this playlist; I'm not treating it as a documented song about fibromyalgia.
It has the scale I want for the final stretch: a big dance-pop song with difficulty still inside it. After all the explaining, I'd like to leave some room for simply enjoying the music. Listen through Lady Gaga's official “Rain on Me” page.
Here, take the playlist
Here is the full seventeen-song playlist, about an hour of company. Turn shuffle off to hear it in this order: a little swagger, some anger, a quieter stretch, then room to enjoy yourself. Listen to the playlist on Spotify.
- Janelle Monáe featuring Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 — “Float”
- Ian Dury — “Spasticus Autisticus”
- Paul Kelly — “Dumb Things”
- Ren — “Seven Sins”
- fanclubwallet — “Guts”
- AJJ — “Body Terror Song”
- Claire Rosinkranz — “Chronic”
- BLÜ EYES — “you'd never know”
- Olivia Rodrigo featuring Robert Smith — “what's wrong with me”
- Halsey — “The End”
- Russian Red — “Loving Strangers”
- Jonas Brothers — “A Little Bit Longer”
- Avril Lavigne — “Head Above Water”
- Rob Thomas — “Her Diamonds”
- Belle and Sebastian — “Nobody's Empire”
- Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande — “Rain on Me”
- Daft Punk featuring Todd Edwards — “Fragments of Time”
If seventeen songs feels like a commitment, start with “Float,” “Chronic,” “Nobody's Empire” and “Fragments of Time.” Four songs. We can negotiate the rest later.
And if you're sending one to a friend, tell them why. It can be as simple as: this gets close to what I mean when I say I'm tired. Or: I think you'd love this. A song doesn't have to explain your entire life to be worth sharing.
For another way into the less easily explained parts, our piece on chronic illness and humor is good company, too.
That's my playlist. Now tell me what you'd put on next.
