From happiness to heartbreak and heaven to hell, there are a lot of powerful words and themes that start with the letter H. So, it should come as no surprise that a lot of the very best tracks in history start off with this letter. In this article, we dive in to find 31 songs starting with H.
1. Hail To The King – Avenged Sevenfold
![Avenged Sevenfold - Hail To The King [Official Music Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DelhLppPSxY/0.jpg)
Avenged Sevenfold’s Hail To The King might have one of the best opening guitars in all of music. The title track of their 2013 album, it debuted live in concert at Ford Festival Park before becoming the official theme of WWE’s Wrestlemania 32. It would go on to win the Loudwire Award for Best Rock Song that year as well.
2. Halo – Beyoncé
Fans almost always appreciate a peek into their favorite artist’s life, free of their on-stage or public personas. Beyoncé’s Halo was meant to be just that, a look at her life without all the makeup and celebrity around her name. It appeared on her 2008 album I Am Sasha Fierce and earned her a lot of certifications. Twelve-times platinum in Australia and nine-times platinum in the US are just two of those such certifications, but it would also win her a Grammy Award and an MTV Europe Award.
3. Happy – Pharrell Williams
Sometimes, songs destined for film soundtracks become ridiculously popular. Pharrell Williams wrote Happy for the movie Despicable Me 2, but it would wind up becoming one of his biggest hit singles after serving as the lead single for his 2014 album Girl. The list of accolades for this track is frankly too long for the scope of this article, but it’s within the Top 10 of the best-selling songs in UK history and would win both a Grammy and an Academy Award.
Recommended: Top songs about being happy
4. Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon
There’s no shortage of tracks about the Vietnam War out there, it was one of the most polarizing events in modern Western history. John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over) was another one of the numerous protest songs written about that conflict but has since turned into a Christmas standard. A worldwide hit, it was the result of years of peaceful activism by both Lennon and Yoko Ono.
5. Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) – Jay-Z
Jay-Z turned to Broadway for the samples in Hard Knock Life, of course, borrowing from the production Annie. When it was released, it was the most successful single of his solo career, rising to number 15 on the Hot 100 and earning him a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance in 1999. The samples were an out-of-the-box choice, but he made them work, and everything about the song fit so well that it became one of his best works.
6. Hats Off to the Bull – Chevelle
Hats Off To The Bull was the title track and second single to come from Chevelle’s sixth album. An awesome rock song, the true message was really about taking off your hat for the bull as it was intended as a protest track for being against animal cruelty. One of the top rock songs of 2011 with an even better message, the track would rise to number six on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.
7. Havana – Camila Cabello Feat. Young Thug
Talk about songs that can get stuck in your head for hours after listening to them a single time. Havana by Camila Cabello would first be released as a promotional single but wound up serving as the lead single for her debut solo album in 2017. On top of taking the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100, it would take pole position on 23 other official charts outside of the US and sell over 19 million units while earning the artist several different high-profile awards.
8. Heartbreak Hotel – Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel was inspired by a newspaper article about a man who had jumped from his hotel balcony. It’s one of his most famous songs and earned him quite a lot of accolades. In short, the track is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, reigned over the Hot 100 for 17 straight weeks, and has been named by Rolling Stone to both their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
9. Heartbreaker – Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar’s version of Heartbreaker is probably the one that you’re most familiar with. It was included on her debut studio album in 1979 but had been recorded the year prior by another artist.
Some changes were made to lines that US audiences would have been confused by, such as removing the phrase ‘moonraker,’ but that didn’t stop it from being the breakthrough hit her career was looking for. It has peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100, been named to VH1’s list of the best hard rock songs, and appeared in countless other pieces of media from TV shows to video games.
10. Heaven – Bryan Adams
Heaven by Bryan Adams was likely a song that wound up being the background noise to quite a lot of 80s kids being conceived. Inspired by his time touring alongside Journey, he wrote the track that would eventually provide him with his first-ever number-one single on the Hot 100 and one of his best ever. It’s also a song that’s been covered by tons of other artists, so there are plenty of versions out there for us to choose from.
11. Heaven Is A Place On Earth – Belinda Carlisle
Heaven Is A Place On Earth was the lead single for Belinda Carlisle’s second studio album Heaven On Earth in 1987. It would become her first and only single to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and would become her signature song. In the years since, it’s been remixed quite a lot, even making an appearance on the Pop Goes Punk series of albums, which is rather impressive, as the original version is an acoustic ballad that would seem hard to add any screamo or punk elements to without ruining the point of the track.
12. Helena – My Chemical Romance
![My Chemical Romance - Helena [Official Music Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UCCyoocDxBA/0.jpg)
Speaking of punk, let’s turn to My Chemical Romance. Helena is easily one of the most famous songs the band has ever released, coming from their 2004 album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. Taking heavy inspiration from the Misfits’ Helena, they would earn their first crossover hit with this song, seeing it rise to number 11 on the Modern Rock charts and number 33 on the Hot 100. It became a goth anthem in the process of helping revolutionize the rock music world and wound up being one of the standards of the emo genre.
13. Hells Bells – AC/DC
The Back In Black album from AC/DC is widely regarded as one of the best albums of all time, so why not throw in one of the best songs from that album? Hells Bells was the second single to come from that album, and in hindsight has been labeled one of the best tracks the band ever produced. While it wasn’t a chart-topper by any means, it oddly saw a resurgence in 2022—despite a 1980 release—making it to number 32 on Hungary’s Top 40 chart.
14. Hello – Adele
Here are two songs you probably never thought you’d see back to back in any list. Hello is one of those tracks that got a lot of free publicity on the internet thanks to how easy it was to make memes out of, but it remains to this day one of the best things Adele has ever put out. It was also the song that helped push her to international fame and showcased exactly how amazing she was as a vocalist. It’s emotional, raw, and powerful. A global success commercially but an even better artistic representation of the artist who wrote it.
15. Help – Papa Roach
Papa Roach released Help in 2017 and found one of their best-charting songs in years. It sat on top of the Mainstream Rock charts for six consecutive weeks, but the commercial performance of the track was the least impressive thing about it.
The content of the song discusses mental health issues in a call-for-help sort of way—obviously with a title like that—that bluntly describes what it feels like to be struggling with those issues and the need for someone to help keep you from drowning. It’s accurate, poignant, and an infectious song to boot.
16. Help Is On The Way – Rise Against
As if answering Papa Roach’s call six years before they made it, Rise Against comes storming in to let you know that help is on the way. While it got a mixed bag of critical analysis, the track very much had a solid inspiration.
Drawing on and mentioning Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it served as the lead single to the 2001 album End Game. Its best chart performance was on the Hot Rock Songs chart, peaking at number two. It did make it onto the Hot 100, but it only rose as far as 89 on that chart.
17. Here Comes The Sun – The Beatles
Here Comes The Sun was one of the most memorable entries to The Beatles’ Abbey Road album. Becoming one of their most streamed, most played, most bought, or most anything is an achievement unto itself, and it has made a charge at all of them. It served as the last single for the reissue of the Abbey Road album as well, which unto itself was an honorous distinction.
18. Here I Go Again – Whitesnake
Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again is one of those songs that fits in just fine on any of the old Monsters of Rock CDs I grew up listening to. It originally appeared on their 1982 album Saints And Sinners, but would reemerge for their 1987 self-titled album. A radio mix of it would take the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, but its distinction as one of the best hair metal tracks of all time is undeniable. It remains one of the best power ballads ever written and is still their most well-known song.
19. Here Without You – 3 Doors Down
From doing it all over again to sitting in a place alone, Here Without You is one of 3 Doors Down’s best early songs. Another power ballad—but a much newer one—this track would reach number five on the Hot 100 in 2003.
The inspiration for the song was essentially all the lonely nights the band spent on the road touring, being away from loved ones and wishing they could be there for them more. Missing someone is a feeling a lot of people can relate to, and that’s one of the reasons why this track rose as high as it did in popularity.
20. Hero – Skillet
I knew I’d get a Skillet song on one of these lists one day. Hero is one of their most fun tracks, describing the desperate need of the narrator(s) for a hero to come and save them from themselves. It’s a song about struggling that can relate to any number of issues, from mental health to conflicts of faith. At some point, when you’re on the edge, you just need someone to come to rescue you from whatever choice you’re teetering on making.
21. Hey Jude – The Beatles
Back to The Beatles for a song that didn’t release on any of their vaunted albums. Hey Jude was a non-album release single that came out in 1968. It was the band’s first single to be released with Apple and wound up being the best-selling single in several different countries that year, including both the US and the UK. There isn’t another track out there that you’ll find more often on a music critic’s list of the best songs of all time, and I have to agree that it’s one of the most influential tracks in music history.
22. Hey, Soul Sister – Train
Train has produced several super successful singles in their time, but none charted as well as Hey, Soul Sister. On top of winning a Grammy Award and earning a six-times platinum certification, the song would make it to number three on the Hot 100 and remains one of the group’s most successful singles to date. While not everyone loved the track, its catchiness would help carry it over the hump into fame and turn it into a song that could run on a loop in your head for days.
23. High Cost Of Living – Jamey Johnson
With all this inflation going on, you’d think someone would write a song about how high the cost of living has gotten around here. Wait, Jamey Johnson did. High Cost Of Living does talk about how prices keep rising, but it deals with addiction in one of the cleverest ways you’re going to see. While the cost of working and living takes a toll both financially and mentally, it’s nothing compared to the cost of always having to stay high.
24. High Hopes – Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra’s version of High Hopes is the one we all know and love, but it was meant to be used in the 1959 film A Hole In The Head. While not a signature song of his, it would earn him a Grammy nomination and win an Academy Award, all while describing the impossible tasks and the right kind of can-do attitude it takes to achieve them.
25. Holy Diver – Dio
![Dio - Holy Diver (Official Music Video) [HD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2lvs2FzF64o/0.jpg)
If you look at Holy Diver and focus on the lyrics, you realize how out there the song actually seems. According to the band, the track was about a Christ-like figure on another planet. I don’t really care much about the meaning of this one; when I think of it, I think of one of the coolest rock songs out there.
26. Honey Bee – Blake Shelton
Blake Shelton’s Honey Bee is as cheesy as you can get when it comes to a country love song. But that’s okay, it was a ridiculous success and despite the cheese, it remains endearing.
27. Hopelessly Devoted To You – Olivia Newton-John
I’m partial to the film Grease because it’s one of my mother’s favorite movies, so I naturally grew up watching it every time it came on TV, and I could sing to you every song in the film. One of the best though is when Olivia Newton-John performed Hopelessly Devoted To You.
28. Hot In Herre – Nelly
Nelly released quite a few successful singles, but none had the staying power in the minds of millennials that Hot In Herre did. You still can’t tell someone that a room is hot today without someone else blurting out that you should take off all your clothes.
29. Hot n Cold – Katy Perry
Katy Perry’s Hot N Cold was a repetitive and simple pop song, but it was also quite catchy and earned her a top 40 hit. While nothing you need to write home about, this wound up being a fun track that had some decently quotable lyrics hidden inside of it.
30. Hotel California – Eagles
The Eagles’ Hotel California is one of the eeriest rock songs you can listen to today. From being stuck in purgatory to the very polite ghosts that run the hotel, this track is an all-time classic.
31. The House of the Rising Sun – The Animals
The House Of The Rising Sun is, frankly, a masterpiece of a song. You’ve likely heard it, but if you haven’t I urge you to go give it two or three listens. You’ll catch something different and interesting every time.
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As a contributing writer for Music Grotto, Dakotah writes and produces professional music/media content. He works closely with editorial staff to meet editorial standards and create
quality content for the Music Grotto website. Dakotah is passionate about music in a wide variety of genres, from hip-hop to country and lo-fi to metal, and he enjoys creating music pieces for Music Grotto.
