Song association words are the whole game. Pick a good one and the room erupts with five different songs at once. Pick a bad one and everyone stares at the ceiling in silence. This list gives you 320 song association words that work, grouped into eight themed sets and ordered from easy to properly hard.
Every word below was chosen for one reason: it turns up in the lyrics of a lot of well-known songs. That matters more than anything else. A word with only one famous song behind it is a trivia question. A word with fifty songs behind it is a race, and races are what make song association fun.
How to use this song association words list
The rules are simple. Someone reads a word out loud, and the first player to sing a real song containing that word scores a point. If you need the full rules, house rules and variations, read our guide on how to play song association.
The sets are ordered by difficulty, so run them roughly in order:
1. Start with Easy Starters for the first round, while people are still deciding whether they are allowed to be loud.
2. Move into the themed sets once everyone has sung at least once. Colors & Nature and Love & Feelings are the friendliest.
3. Save Time & Seasons and Hard Mode for later. They reward the people who actually know a lot of music.
Two habits make a big difference. First, read the word once, clearly, and then start counting. A ten second limit is the classic choice and keeps the pace up. Second, cross words off as you use them. Repeating a word ten minutes later is the fastest way to make a game feel stale.
If you would rather not read from a list at all, the song association generator draws a random word from whichever sets you switch on, with a built in timer, and never repeats a word until you reset it.
Easy Starters
Words with so many songs behind them that nobody stays stuck for long. Start every game here, and hand these to anyone who swears they know no songs at all.
LOVE, BABY, HEART, NIGHT, DANCE, HOME, TONIGHT, FOREVER, GIRL, TIME
WORLD, LIFE, HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL, TOGETHER, MAGIC, LITTLE, GOOD, BAD, WRONG
RIGHT, TRUE, ONE, HIGH, BACK, AWAY, DOWN, CALL, COME, WANT
NEED, FEEL, HOLD, TOUCH, LIGHT, PLAY, TALK, KNOW, ROCK, BELIEVE
Colors & Nature
Colors, skies and animals. Half of these are in a famous song title, so the challenge is picking one fast instead of finding one at all.
RED, BLUE, GREEN, YELLOW, BLACK, WHITE, PURPLE, PINK, ORANGE, GRAY
GOLDEN, SUN, MOON, SKY, RAIN, SEA, WATER, EARTH, BIRD, ROSE
SUNSHINE, MOONLIGHT, STARLIGHT, WILD, SAND, FLOWER, TREE, WATERFALL, VALLEY, HORIZON
COLORS, TIDE, BREEZE, WOLF, EAGLE, TIGER, HORSES, DOVE, BLOOM, LION
Love & Feelings
The engine room of pop music. Expect big ballads, at least one dramatic key change, and somebody getting a little too emotional.
KISS, HONEY, ANGEL, TEARS, CRY, SORRY, LONELY, HURT, PAIN, SAD
HEARTBEAT, HEARTACHE, ROMANCE, PASSION, DESIRE, TENDER, SWEET, SUGAR, VALENTINE, CRYING
TRUST, LIAR, SECRET, PRETTY, LUCKY, SPECIAL, PERFECT, ADORE, DEVOTION, SURRENDER
EMOTION, JEALOUSY, MEMORIES, MAYBE, ALWAYS, NEVER, PLEASE, FORGIVE, LONGING, CHEMISTRY
Places & Travel
Cities, states and ways of getting there. Country fans tend to win this set, so keep an eye on whoever goes quiet during the pop rounds.
CITY, STREETS, HIGHWAY, TRAIN, BEACH, ISLAND, TEXAS, GEORGIA, TENNESSEE, MEMPHIS
ALABAMA, MIAMI, VEGAS, CHICAGO, MEXICO, AFRICA, TOWN, HOMETOWN, COUNTRY, MILES
WHEELS, BOAT, SAIL, DRIVE, RIDE, NORTH, WEST, HOTEL, WINDOW, DOOR
ROOM, PLANET, MARS, JOURNEY, EVERYWHERE, NOWHERE, SOMEWHERE, OUTSIDE, DOWNTOWN, UNIVERSE
Night Out
Loud, high-energy words that tend to pull out dance tracks and stadium choruses. Good for the middle of the night when the room is warm.
PARTY, MIDNIGHT, LIGHTS, RADIO, SATURDAY, FRIDAY, WEEKEND, DISCO, CLUB, BEAT
BASS, DRUM, GUITAR, PIANO, SONG, LOUD, FUN, DRESS, SHOES, DANCING
FLOOR, CELEBRATION, GLITTER, PHOTOGRAPH, TELEPHONE, TAXI, SUPERSTAR, FAMOUS, RICH, SHOW
JUKEBOX, ROCKSTAR, PARADE, CIRCUS, CARNIVAL, BOOM, BANG, FLASH, VIDEO, TICKETS
Body & Movement
Hands, eyes and everything you can do with them. These words practically force people to act out the song while they sing it.
HANDS, EYES, LIPS, FACE, HAIR, SKIN, BONES, BLOOD, BODY, SOUL
MIND, HEAD, FEET, ARMS, VOICE, BREATHE, FINGERS, KNEES, SHOULDER, WALK
RUN, SPIN, TURN, SWING, ROLL, FALL, CLIMB, STAND, SLIDE, SWAY
TWIST, CLAP, BOUNCE, HUSTLE, FLY, FLOAT, CRAWL, KNOCK, SHIVER, SHAKE
Time & Seasons
Days, months, ages and moments. Sneakily tricky, because everyone knows the obvious answer and nobody wants to sing the same one twice.
SUMMER, WINTER, SPRING, AUTUMN, MONDAY, SUNDAY, TUESDAY, YESTERDAY, TOMORROW, TODAY
SEPTEMBER, DECEMBER, NOVEMBER, JULY, JUNE, APRIL, CHRISTMAS, SUMMERTIME, HOUR, MINUTE
CLOCK, YEARS, SIXTEEN, SEVENTEEN, TWENTY, NOW, LATER, SOON, FIRST, LAST
SEASONS, MOMENT, HISTORY, FUTURE, CENTURY, LIFETIME, ETERNITY, YOUNGER, OLDER, TWILIGHT
Hard Mode
Distinctive words with fewer obvious songs behind them. Save them for later rounds, once the group is warmed up and happy to get creative.
MIRROR, PAPER, CANDLE, CHERRY, PEACHES, GHOST, MONSTER, ROBOT, ALIEN, ZOMBIE
SOLDIER, COWBOY, PREACHER, DOCTOR, TEACHER, SUPERMAN, KINGDOM, GRAVITY, GALAXY, ROLLERCOASTER
CHAMPION, HEARTBREAKER, MILLIONAIRE, TELEVISION, HALLELUJAH, SATELLITE, ELECTRICITY, CINDERELLA, CHOCOLATE, STRAWBERRY
CADILLAC, TRUCK, MIRACLE, MYSTERY, VAMPIRE, GASOLINE, CANDY, LOLLIPOP, BUBBLEGUM, VOODOO
What makes a good song association word
You might want to add your own words, especially for a group with a strong shared taste in music. A few rules of thumb keep a homemade word playable.
It appears in many songs, across genres. Love, night and fire are perfect because pop, rock, country and R&B all fight over them. A word that only lives in one genre gives that genre's fan a free point every time.
It is short and common. Single words that real people say out loud work far better than poetic vocabulary. Nobody can find a song for a word they would never use in a sentence.
It is not a song title by itself. Words like Hello are fine because many songs contain them, but avoid words that point at exactly one hit. Then the game becomes "who remembers that one song first" rather than song association.
Variants are a house rule. Decide before you start whether dance also accepts dancing, and whether stars counts for star. Most groups allow plurals and simple verb endings, because it keeps the game moving.
Song association words for different groups
For kids and family gatherings, stay in Easy Starters, Colors & Nature and Body & Movement. Those sets lean on words that turn up in movie soundtracks, nursery favorites and the pop songs everyone hears in the car.
For a party of adults, mix every set and draw at random. The jumps between a soft word and a loud one are where the best moments come from.
For music lovers, go straight to Hard Mode and Time & Seasons, and add a rule that you cannot sing a song someone else already sang tonight. That one rule turns a casual game into a real contest.
How to print the list or save it as a PDF
If you want a paper copy of these song association words, open this page in your browser and use the Print option. On a computer, press Ctrl+P on Windows or Cmd+P on a Mac. On an iPhone, tap the Share button and choose Print. To get a PDF instead of paper, pick "Save as PDF" as the printer. You can then cut the list into strips and pull words from a bowl, which is a nice way to run the game without a phone in sight.
Playing with one phone instead of a list
Lists are great, but someone has to be the host, read the words, keep time and settle arguments, which means that person barely plays. If you want everyone in the game, our app does the hosting for you. In Grab The Phone Karaoke, a word lights up on the screen, whoever grabs the phone first sings for 15 seconds, and the rest of the group votes thumbs up or down. A leaderboard keeps score. It is free, works for 2 to 8 players and needs no account. You can get the app here.
Want more? Our post on karaoke words that cause chaos covers the ten words that start the most arguments, and the song association game guide has every variation worth trying.
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