There’s an Irish proverb that says, “A good friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.”
“The core message for a platonic friendship that differs from a ‘love’ song is the feeling of reliability.
eric teel
Program director
WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina
Without close friends, many of us would not be the person we are today. From our best buddy in grade school to our closest confidant as an adult, friendships have shaped us in a multitude of ways. And did you know they have many benefits to our health and well-being?! No wonder we feel better after having a heart-to-heart with our best friend.
Given how important these people are to us, it’s no surprise that there are thousands of songs about friendship, from “With a Little Help From My Friends” by The Beatles to The White Stripes’ “We Are Gonna Be Friends,” and so many more. And the best ones have a lot in common with one another.
What makes a great friendship song?
The same components of any “good” song must be present in a song about friendship that strikes a chord, according to Eric Teel, program director at WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina. The melody must be pleasing to the ear, the lyrics need to be authentic, with a build-up of tension and release in the chorus, and the performance has to engage the audience.
Although friendship songs and love songs are very similar, there is one key difference: The former leaves out the carnal passion and lust most associated with the latter.
“The core message for a platonic friendship that differs from a ‘love’ song is the feeling of reliability,” Teel says. “That feeling that, no matter what, through thick and thin, this [friend] will have your back, will support you, will inspire you to be the best version of yourself.”
Our favorite friendship songs
With International Friendship Day on July 30, we’ve compiled a list of friendship songs for you to play at your next gathering. Cheers to long-lasting friendship!
1. “Thank You for Being a Friend” by Andrew Gold
2. “A Friend Like You” by Andy Grammar
3. “Friendship” by Cole Porter (from “Anything Goes”)
4. “My Best Friend” by Weezer
5. “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King
6. “Old Friends” by Ben Rector
7. “Friends” by Bette Midler
8. “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler
9. “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers
10. “Count on Me” by Bruno Mars
11. “You’ve Got a Friend” by Carole King
12. “That’s What Friends Are For” by Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder
13. “We Go Together” by Warren Casey and Jim Jacobs (from “Grease”)
14. “Through the Years” by Kenny Rogers
15. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
16. “Friends Are Friends Forever” by Michael W. Smith
17. “Hello Again” by Neil Diamond
18. “Circle of Friends” by Point of Grace
19. “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen
20. “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman
21. “Here’s to the Nights” by Ringo Starr
22. “Yo Sólo Quiero (Un Millón De Amigos)” by Robert Carlos
23. “Robin Hood and Lil’ John” by Roger Miller
24. “Come to Me High” by Rumer
25. “Sleep Walk” by Santo & Johnny
26. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel
27. “Bookends” by Simon & Garfunkel
28. “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge
29. “BFF” by Ethan Slater and Danny Skinner (from “SpongeBob SquarePants: The New Musical”)
30. “In My Life” by The Beatles
31. “With a Little Help from My Friends” by The Beatles
32. “I’ll Be There for You” by The Rembrandts
33. “What About Your Friends” by TLC
34. “For Good” by Stephen Schwartz (from “Wicked”)
35. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Rodgers & Hammerstein (from “Carousel”)
36. “We’re Going to Be Friends” by The White Stripes
37. “I’ve Got a Friend” by Maggie Rogers
38. “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper
39. “Best Friend” by Brandy
40. “Glad to Have a Friend Like You” by Marlo Thomas
41. “Graduation (Friends Forever)” by Vitamin C
42. “I’m Only Me When I’m with You” by Taylor Swift
Nearly every day I speak with my friend James White, who patiently listens to me kvetch.
Jim, who I’ve known for about 15 years, rarely tells me of his troubles. But he is a fountain of puns, and I’m the one who never groans. I giggle, chuckle, and roar with laughter at his words. The pleasure I receive, as he says, “reinforces everything that’s most important to me. To be enjoyed is to be validated.”
“Many people can be happy single, and families often live far away. But it is hard to be happy without friends.
Lisa Cohen
Licensed clinical psychologist
At 75, he is articulating what teens and twenty-somethings know: We need people who “get us” to feel authentic.
I don’t date much and barely notice Valentine’s Day. But I’ve already started scrolling for witticisms to send Jim on Palentine’s Day (it’s Feb. 13, the day before the more widely recognized holiday), and chortling as I scroll or chat on the phone sweetens many afternoons.
Friendship is necessary for optimal health
Science has established the benefits of connection in multiple ways, with big data sets and longitudinal studies over decades, and tools like biosensors and brain scans.
Good relationships are linked to longer lives. A trailblazing 2010 meta-analysis, followed up with research on more than 3.4 million people, concluded that meaningful relationships boost survival rates by 50%. Isolation, it revealed, is about as dangerous as alcoholism or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Similarly, a famous study tracking Harvard graduates from the classes of 1939 to 1944 concluded that strong relationships are the key to a long, healthy, happy life — and having happy friends nearby is especially helpful. A friend who lives within a mile who becomes happy increases the probability that you will be happy by 25%, according to the Framingham Heart Study, which followed more than 4,700 adults for 20 years.
Feeling heard even helps keep us sharp. In a study published in 2021, researchers compared brain scans of more than 2,000 adults over a four-year period to scores on cognitive tests. Respondents who answered positively to the question “Can you count on anyone to listen to you when you need to talk?” did better on cognitive tests than their brain scans would predict. “Supportive listening was associated with cognitive resilience,” the researchers said.
The need for people is hardwired
Isolation and loneliness are both detrimental to our health. An underlying cause of this may be unhealthy levels of inflammation. In effect, feeling too alone makes our bodies react as if we have the flu or another illness.
Why might this be? In the early days of humanity, being alone on the savanna, say, put you at risk of attack. As infants, we can’t survive alone. Now, our bodies react to disconnection as if we’ve been abandoned — or are sick or running from a lion — and over time the stress wears us down. In the groundbreaking 2008 book “Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection,” psychologist John Cacioppo described outfitting volunteers with beepers that prompted them to answer about their sense of connection while biosensors at their hips measured their heart responses. Lonely people had more measurable stress in this and later research tracking the levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
Isolation and loneliness raise the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, alcohol abuse, smoking, sleep issues, suicide, and weakened immunity. Your perception of support and contact with friends may have as much effect on your aging as your body mass index, one study found. The quality of a tie matters, too: Stress in friendship is linked with chronic health problems as we age.
The science is also quite clear that romantic relationships or marriages are not substitutes for friendship. The idea that intimacy with one person can keep you from ever feeling lonely is a mistruth.
“We can have many friends, and many different kinds of friends,” notes psychologist Lisa Cohen, author of “The Handy Psychology Answer Book.” “Many people can be happy single, and families often live far away. But it is hard to be happy without friends.”
Celebrate friendship
In the NBC hit comedy “Parks and Recreation,” Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler, and her gal pals leave the men at home and gather at a restaurant for “Galentine’s Day.” She gives each friend a gift bag that includes hand-crocheted items, mosaic portraits made from the crushed bottles of their favorite diet soda, and a 5,000-word essay about their magnificence. To amuse the crowd, she tells the story of a summer romance. The point is clear: He’s not there, and they are.
Palentine’s Day (same day, just a different name) includes men and nonbinary folk as well.
Gift ideas for Palentine’s Day
Widen your circle
Loneliness can make us doubt our charm. If reading about the benefits of friendship inspires fear — “Nobody likes me, and now it’s going to destroy my health as well!” — then take a deep breath. You can boost your friendship skills. To assess your strengths and areas for improvement, you might try Franco’s questionnaire.
Franco has gathered together science-based secrets to expanding your social circle as an adult and healing loneliness. Here are four of them.
Ask friends to create group gatherings or put you in touch with someone with whom they think you would gel. We’re less lonely when we share friends.
Put a connection into a new context. Invite a neighbor or coworker to play pickleball, for example. The more contexts you share, the deeper the friendship.
Act in ways that demonstrate to new people that you already like them. Nobody wants to risk rejection. Applaud them. As Oscar Wilde wrote, “Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.”
My own tip: Don’t worry about age differences. Several of my friends are more than a decade older than me, and I also have friends decades younger. And don’t use age as an excuse; making friends as you get older may seem daunting, but with the right approach, you can find meaningful connection.
Be willing to reach out
Perhaps you can put all these tips together with a Palentine Day’s celebration. Invite old friends and ask them to bring another person. Also include neighbors, coworkers, or people you met volunteering. In your invitations, don’t be shy about saying in, one way or another, I like you. You might emulate Leslie Knope and give your attendees a gift: a plant, plush bear, mini cupcakes, or pink roses. Spending money on other people actually boosts happiness more than treating yourself.
My book group has a tradition modeled on Secret Santa: Once a year, we each bring a wrapped book from our own collection. When we’re gathered, we have a system to randomly, anonymously distribute the gifts. I once received a book brought by a woman I didn’t know well. That started a conversation, and I invited her to another gathering.
Years later, the pandemic forced her to move away. She has three small children and a demanding job, so I assumed she didn’t have a moment to spare. But when I sent her an email, she quickly wrote back a generous reply, saying “I love hearing from you. Write any time.” It felt so lovely to hear that from her.
It’s easy to take our friends for granted, but two special days every summer help make sure these friendships are front and center.
National Best Friend Day is Wednesday, June 8, and International Friendship Day is observed each year on July 30. The United States has celebrated National Friendship Day on the first Sunday in August for more than 100 years. Make sure these days are on your calendar!
A beautiful way to show a friend that you care about them and appreciate them — any time of the year — is by sending an arrangement of flowers that specifically symbolizes friendship.
7 types of friendship flowers
These seven types of flowers convey emotions that only a special relationship like friendship can evoke.
1. Yellow roses
Yellow roses are the quintessential friendship flower. They symbolize friendship, happiness, and new beginnings, and are the perfect way to rekindle a friendly relationship. Reach out to an old friend and send a vase full of fragrant yellow roses or a potted rose plant for their garden. They are a delightful way to show that you care and want to continue your friendship. There are more than 300 species of roses, with many thousands of cultivars.
2. Alstroemeria
Also called Peruvian lily, alstroemeria symbolizes the strong bond between two people that transcends romantic love. Send this elegant flower to a special friend to celebrate the strength and devotion of your friendship. Alstroemerias are tuberous perennials native to the cold, mountainous regions of South America. They are popular as cut flowers and also in the garden. Their delicate flowers come in many colors, and they bloom every summer and fall.
3. Chrysanthemums
Chrysanthemums (or mums, as they are commonly known) symbolize many things the world over: optimism, joy, longevity, and well wishes, for example. Honor a happy, upbeat friendship that looks forward to the future with a vase or pot full of chrysanthemums. Most of the species are native to East Asia, where they have been cultivated since 1500 BC. Mums are often sold as annuals in the fall, but if you start them in the spring, they will be established enough to overwinter and truly be perennial.
4. Sunflowers
Bright yellow sunflowers make a cheery statement any time of the year. Their flower heads move to faithfully follow the sun across the sky, and, as a result, they are thought to symbolize adoration and loyalty. Send a bouquet to a favorite person to show how highly you think of them and remind them that you’re a forever friend. Sunflowers for the garden are usually grown as summer annuals.
5. Pink tulip
Pink tulips are a delightful way to symbolize your affection and good wishes for a special friend. Send a bouquet “just because,” for a happy event, or for Friendship Day. You can supplement the flowers with pink tulip bulbs for the garden that will continue to share that affection year after year as they bloom in the spring.
6. Daffodil
Cheerful yellow daffodils carry the hope and positivity of new beginnings, joy, and good fortune. These jaunty perennial spring bulbs are the perfect gift to celebrate a new friendship or to send wishes of good fortune to a friend who is beginning a new venture. Daffodils can be sprouted in a pot, planted in the garden, or arranged in a vase. They are native to Northern Europe and bloom in early spring in much of the United States.
7. Zinnia
Cheerful, colorful zinnias brighten up a garden and are wonderful in a bouquet. They are perfect “cut and come again” flowers, since they keep blooming even after the blossoms have been cut. Zinnias symbolize endurance, lasting affection, and friendship. A bouquet of these bright flowers will send a message that you care and will always be there as a friend. Zinnias are annual flowers native to Mexico, South America, and the southwestern U.S.
Friendship Day gift ideas
Celebrate the ones who always know how to make you smile with Friendship Day gifts, including truly original Friendship Day flowers, food, and unique keepsakes for your besties!
Like flowers, friends are a colorful addition to our lives, adding beauty, inspiration, and happiness to all our days. To celebrate this unique bond, we’ve collected some of the most inspiring quotes about friendship, from everywhere from Hollywood to literature.
International Friendship Day is July 30 this year, so grab your favorite pals and celebrate your special relationships and memories! If your friends are close at heart but far in distance, pick your favorite quote about friendship and pair it with a heartfelt card about friendship delivered straight to their inbox!
Friendship quotes
“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” – Aristotle
“Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…’” – C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” – Mark Twain
“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” – Linda Grayson
“’We’ll be Friends forever, won’t we, Pooh?’ asked Piglet. ‘Even longer,’ Pooh answered.’” – A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
“’Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.’” – E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” – Muhammad Ali
“There’s not a word yet, for old friends who’ve just met.” – Jim Henson, Favorite Songs from Jim Henson’s Muppets
“A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.” – Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.” – Mario Puzo, The Godfather
“Friends are the family you choose for yourself.” – Author unknown
“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” – Jim Morrison
“Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.” – Vincent van Gogh
“Friends are like walls. Sometimes you lean on them, and sometimes it’s good just knowing they are there.” – Author unknown
“A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.” – Winnie the Pooh
“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” – Oprah Winfrey
“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” – Henry Ford
“But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.” – Thomas Jefferson
“True friends are like diamonds – bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style.” – Nicole Richie
“False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.” – Richard Burton
“Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.” – William Blake
“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” – Woodrow T. Wilson
“Things are never quite as scary when you have a best friend.” – Bill Watterson