Falling in love with your best friend can be either the most disastrous or the most blessed experience of a lifetime. But it can be impossible to convey the most simple message of love to that one person you can usually open up to about anything.
Our list of pop songs about falling in love with your best friend covers it all, whether you’re young and hiding your love for your high school bestie or regretfully attending their wedding to another man.
Songs About Falling In Love With Your Best Friend
1. Mariah Carey – I’ve Been Thinking About
This early Mariah Carey track is about gathering all your strange feelings towards your best friend into a clear realisation of love.
I’ve Been Thinking About You styles its lyrics conversationally to mimic the casual yet deep bond between friends who are soon to be lovers, whilst focusing on the indescribable elation of attraction;
“You’re the one that’s right for me, all the while I couldn’t see, and now I feel so strange … I’ve been thinking about you, in the most peculiar ways, I’ve been thinking about you, it’s unbelievable to me, but suddenly I think I’m falling in love with you.”
I’ve Been Thinking About You is a song for those who still can’t believe their new-found feelings which should have been obvious from the start;
“I had a revelation that finally opened up my eyes: the one I spent a lifetime searching for was right here all the time, I was oblivious, so very out of touch, all the while I couldn’t see, you’re the one that’s right for me.”
2. Thomas Rhett – Marry Me
Thomas Rhett’s country track is a breathtaking illustration of what it’s like to be in love with your best friend for as long as you can remember, knowing that they’ve never looked at you once under the same rosy light.
Marry Me reaps its title from its wedding ceremony setting, the narrator plastering a brave face upon his heartbreak as he watches his best friend settle down with someone else;
“I’ll wear my black suit, black tie, hide out in the back, I’ll do a strong shot of whiskey straight out the flask, I’ll try to make it through without crying so nobody sees, she wanna get married but she don’t wanna marry me.”
Through every crushing reminiscence of the narrator nearly confessing his love, Rhett’s bridge hosts the track’s most profound sentiment of finally realising your chance of true happiness is long gone, whilst continuing to keep love at the centre of your friendship;
“She got on her dress now, welcoming the guests now, I could try to find her, get it off of my chest now, but I ain’t gonna mess it up, so I wish her the best now.”
3. The 1975 – fallingforyou
The 1975’s track Fallingforyou is flooded with a trance-like synth pad, blanketing their soundscape in the hypnotic, dreamy sense of sinking irretrievably into the depths of love.
Fallingforyou follows a night-time teenage adventure, its lyrics capturing the sweet innocence of blossoming, untold adoration; “I’m caught on your coat again, you said, ‘Oh, no, it’s fine.’ I read between the lines, and touched your leg again, I’ll take it one day at a time, soon you will be mine.”
Revolving their chorus endlessly around the line, “I think I’m falling for you,” The 1975 craft their track for anyone feeling inescapably tangled in their feelings, whilst painstakingly hiding the truth from someone who clearly doesn’t feel the same way back.
4. Ed Sheeran – Friends
Appearing as an obscure bonus track on Ed Sheeran’s ground-breaking #1 album ‘x’, Friends gives a clean insight into falling in love with your best friend, whilst refusing to expose your feelings at the risk of ruining the bond you’ve built;
“We just try to keep those secrets in a lie, and if they find out, will it all go wrong? And Heaven knows, no one wants it to.”
This acoustic track was made for any situation where two friends are realising each other’s feelings, but wouldn’t dare actually take the first step into the relationship they’re dreaming of;
“Friends don’t treat me like you do, well I know that there’s a limit to everything, but my friends won’t love me like you.”
5. Paul Baribeau – Falling In Love With Your Best Friend
Falling In Love With Your Best Friend is an obscure acoustic punk track anchored in an addictively characterful, uplifting energy.
Centred in themes of escapism and the search for lifelong happiness, Paul Baribeau devotes each short verse to a different occasion of trying to find yourself again, whether you perceive the narrator to be running from a recent break up, or avoiding the thought of true love for his best friend;
“I heard a song once about falling in love with your best friend, I’d give about anything to hear that song again … And I wanted to call you or just show up at your house or something, even though I knew it wouldn’t make me feel any better.”
Baribeau’s track carries that irresistibly invigorating feeling inherent to 2000s pop punk music, using its subtle erraticism to convey a poignant message about recovery, no matter what your situation is;
“I already knew I’d fallen apart, but that was the first time I’d noticed, that I was slowly but surely coming back together.”
6. Tyler Ward – Falling In Love With My Best Friend
Tyler Ward’s 2020 release, Falling In Love With My Best Friend, is a cute pop track flushed with heart-warming clichés spawned by that butterfly feeling of falling helplessly in love with the person closest to you.
Ward’s chorus summons the sweetest moments of an inevitable blossoming romance, detailing best friends acting like lovers while keeping their secrets safe;
“Now we’re telling jokes and you’re wearing my sweater, late night down laughing until we cry on the living room floor, morning coffee at the cafe… I’ve been falling in love with my best friend.”
With a subtle country ambience beneath its radio pop sound, Ward’s clear-skied track carries an abundance of lines as deeply relatable as they are sweet, each simple message resonating profoundly with anyone whose heart has been stolen by their closest friend;
“If I had to be anywhere with anybody, you can believe I’d choose you.”