I’m going to start this off by saying that there are way more than 15 songs that would be phenomenal to straighten your hair to. This list is specifically designed to take us back to early-mid 2000’s when having bangs that covered your entire face and teased hair with little plastic neon bows in it were absolute necessities to surviving this painful world. Put on your band t-shirts and skinny jeans. We’re firing up the flat irons and bringing out our inner emo kids!
(Note: These songs are listed in no specific order or ranking.)
15. "Sugar, We’re Goin Down" - Fall Out Boy
“A loaded god complex, cock it and pull it!”
Oh, Fall Out Boy. If most of you are like me, you listened to this song for most of your emo days and still never actually figured out if vocalist, Patrick Stump, was actually saying “gun complex” or “god complex” every time that line came around. Then again, Fall Out Boy is known for having a multitude of songs with commonly misheard lyrics. Love them or hate them, you can’t deny that you sang this song to your hairbrush (after putting on too much eyeliner to rival bassist, Pete Wentz) a time or two… or 800.
14. "Calling All Cars" - Senses Fail
“So will you scatter my ashes where they won’t be found?”
This song might be a little less known than some of the others on this list, but it’s still an emo lover’s classic. Senses Fail has always had a sound that’s super catchy for both pop punk and emo lovers alike (though, the crossover between these two “genres” is pretty obvious as it is). “Calling All Cars” makes the list because let’s face it, it speaks perfectly to the era of hopelessness and wanting to be overtly creative when expressing it.
13. "Check Yes Juliet" - We the Kings
“Run baby run, don’t ever look back. They’ll tear us apart if you give them the chance.”
If you’ve ever been to a We the Kings show, you’d know that this 2008 classic is still very much alive and well in a WTK setlist eight years later. While the days of lead vocalist Travis Clark’s straightened and undoubtedly matted hair are gone, this song still rings true to those desperate for their own modern-day Shakespearean romance. Just don’t drink the poison, okay?
12. "Dirty Little Secret" - The All-American Rejects
“You are the only one that needs to know. I’ll keep you my dirty little secret.”
Oh, the song that perpetuated the era of postsecret. I don’t know about you, but I completely missed the entire concept of postSECRET when my Myspace was filled with pictures of “secrets” written obscurely on a floral piece of paper and posted as an image on my profile so people knew just how I felt on the inside. “Dirty Little Secret” is a song that helped push pop punk into the hearts of mainstream music listeners and helped emo kids everywhere realize that their secrets could actually be kept a secret - or at least, believed they could.
11. "I Miss You" - Blink 182
“Hello there, the angel from my nightmare, the shadow in the background of the morgue.”
Did you really think we could get through an entire emo list without at least one Blink 182 song? Blink 182 is one of those bands that spoke to the hearts of everyone when songs like this were released. The rejects, dropouts, outcasts, goths, etc. all could get on board with this specific feeling. With vocalist Mark Hoppus repeating “miss you, miss you” countless times and former vocalist Tom Delonge countering with the iteration of our despair with “don’t waste your time on me, you’re already the voice inside my head,” this song is not only the perfect song to straighten your hair to, but to cry to - and wasn’t part of the beauty of the emo era to cry your feelings into your pillowcase at night to the song that best described your feelings when you couldn’t? (At the very least, it certainly helped with the smudged eyeliner look.)
10. "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" - Panic! At the Disco
“And yes, but what a shame - what a shame the poor groom’s bride is a ----- ”
Am I the only person that always wondered why - when censoring this song - they always covered up “God” but not “damn?” Perhaps I will never understand the rules of censorship, but I will say that this song was a staple in the emo era. With former member Ryan Ross at the forefront of writing the lyrics of the album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, the entire album is full of creative ways of making fun of the world and the way people react in it - a favorite pastime of the emo culture who hated the way the world worked anyway. This song is the song that had every emo girl fangirling over vocalist Brendon Urie and also had all of us using a new line to scream when our parents told us our music was too loud.
Parents barging in your bedroom: “Turn your music down!”
All of us: “Haven’t you people ever heard of CLOSING THE GOD **** DOOR?”
9. "The Kill (Bury Me)" - Thirty Seconds to Mars
“I know now, this is who I really am inside. I’ve finally found myself.”
Two words: Jared Leto. In all seriousness, Jared Leto was one of the kings of “guyliner” and seemed to just understand our daily struggles of getting through life. It was hard for me to choose just one Thirty Seconds to Mars song because quite a few of them would fit in the category of “best emo songs” for me. This song won because let’s face it - this is exactly how us wavy-haired humans felt when trying to get our hair stick straight like those Myspace models. This is a list about songs to straighten your hair to, after all.
8. "Pretty Girl (The Way)" - Sugarcult
“And that’s what you get for falling again, you can never get him out of your head.”
In all seriousness, some emo songs truly were meant to just put to words what you couldn’t figure out how to put into words yourself. Many of these songs cover heartbreak, sadness, fear and pain. Many songs turn it around and talk about how to get past it. This is one of those songs that sought the beauty in just letting yourself be hurt. “Pretty Girl” is a song about falling in love with someone, them hurting you, you realizing it and still going back to them. It’s a situation many of us find ourselves in as teenagers; some of us even find ourselves in those situations now. This song rings loudly in emo culture because it actually just really hits the nail on the head of how it feels to be heartbroken, but not yet ready to walk away.
7. "Face Down" - The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
“Face down in the dirt, she said, ‘This doesn’t hurt.’ She said, ‘I’ve finally had enough.’”
Oh, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. You’ve always known how to just dive right into our feelings and rip our hearts out one song at a time. “Face Down” has and always will be a staple song in the emo era. It’s a song about a man abusing a woman and her finally having enough and being done with it. For me, personally, this song is one of the things that reminded me that I am not disposable. I am a human being. No one gets to push me around. I’m willing to bet many of you felt the same when singing this song into your hairbrush. I hope listening to it again reminds you just how powerful you really are.
6. "Misery Business" - Paramore
“Oh, I never meant to brag, but I got him where I want him now.”
Let’s start this by saying that vocalist Hayley Williams is one of the long-lasting queens of the alternative rock scene. She came onto the scene with bright orange hair, a gap in her teeth, and songs that made you dance with lyrics that hit you right in your teenage feelings. This song was an anthem for teenage girls who didn’t feel like they “fit in” and the music video is definitely one of the reasons so many of us decided to give up our blue/black straight hair in exchange for brightly colored straight hair. After all, solid black outfits need a pop of neon, right?
5. "Perfect" - Simple Plan
"'Cause we lost it all. Nothing lasts forever. I'm sorry I can't be perfect."
Simple Plan's release of this song in 2002 hit all of us when we were in that age that our parents didn't understand us, we didn't really understand ourselves and no matter how hard we tried - we couldn't really figure out how to keep our individuality and still make everyone happy. It was the time of our lives where we decided to either fit in or stand out. This song approached the lack of acceptance of the dropouts, the outcasts, the rebels, etc. - giving us a chance to be sad, but also to realize that their acceptance didn’t matter as much as our self-acceptance did.
4. "Hands Down" - Dashboard Confessional
“My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me, so won’t you kill me so I die happy?”
This was probably the hardest single song selection of this entire list. When you look back on your emo days and someone asks who your go-to band was, it was usually Dashboard Confessional. Most songs hit you in all the right feels as a young emotional teenager when vocalist Chris Carrabba started singing the lyrics that many of us had written in our journals, on our walls and in sharpie on our arms. “My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me,” can still relate to all of us when we get that feeling of meeting someone that just sends our hearts into overdrive. In the midst of so many songs about pain, this song reminds us that there are also good moments to celebrate. You have to admit - it’s still just as catchy as it was when you were a teenager, and it's still just as much fun to sing to.
3. "MakeDamnSure" - Taking Back Sunday
"I just wanna break you down so badly, when I trip over everything you say."
To make this list, I had my own songs in mind, but I also asked some of my friends to contribute their opinions. Every single person that gave me an opinion of songs to put on this list said, "MakeDamnSure by Taking Back Sunday." I'm not sure if it's the melody that gets stuck in your head or the lyrics that make you feel like you have the most power in the world, but Taking Back Sunday has and always will be at the very top of every emo list. Now and forever they're going to "make damn sure that you will never leave." Mission accomplished, guys.
2. "I’m Not Okay (I Promise)" - My Chemical Romance
"You said you read me like a book but the pages are all torn and frayed."
You know this list wouldn't be complete without a My Chemical Romance song. Each and every one of us wanted to be vocalist Gerard Way at some point in our lives. Every MCR song is something we sing in front of our mirrors, into our hairbrushes and while making our hair perfectly unique. This song spoke to all of us when we felt like we didn't belong. This song was, and still is, an anthem about being yourself - as weird, different, out of the ordinary or strange you may be. I want every single person who knows this song to stop what you're doing, turn the volume up and scream this song at the top of your lungs. We're not okay, we promise! (Also, how in the world was Gerard's makeup so flawlessly smudged?)
1. "Ohio is for Lovers" - Hawthorne Heights
"Sparing just three last words, 'I love you,' is all she heard."
It took a lot of reflecting before I added this song to the list. When you think of emo music, this is one of the first songs you'll think about. This song, however, approaches a subject that many of us don't exactly like to bring up. It's a song about desperation, about loving someone so much that you don't care if you live if they're not with you. It screams pain and heartbreak - something that has and always will be the center of anything considered a part of the "emo" world. Mostly, though, with the lyrics "so cut my wrist and black my eye so I can fall asleep tonight or die," it brings up the subject of self-harm, something that became somewhat of a trend among teenagers at the time of this song's popularity. Personally, I look back on this mindset and am thankful that I had music to scream lyrics to instead of actually committing the act. I hope this song brings the same positive light to you when you hear it. Also, I hope you always remember that you are important, you're worth it, and so many of us are here to talk to you if you need it.
As I said before - these are definitely not the only songs to take us back to those beautiful hair days, and I definitely want to do a part two sometime soon! Leave me a comment below about what you agreed with, what you hated and what you think should’ve made the cut!
