The Greatest Hair Songs In History

There are thousands of love songs about various admirable features - eyes, legs, and, ah, glutes, to name a few. But there’s nothing like a distinctive head of hair to really keep you thinking about your whatever. Especially when you find said hair in your sink/pillowcase/mouth. Which is why we started creating a playlist that’s hopelessly devoted to hair.

1. Willow Smith, "Whip My Hair"

We'll start with a fairly obvious and generally irresistible track from the Jada and Will progeny, Willow Smith. An ode to self-acceptance and forging your own path, "Whip My Hair" also has one of the happiest videos around. It's a tween version of that Good Hair documentary....right? Right? Or maybe Willow just didn't want to shoot Karate Kid II.

2. The Who, "Cut My Hair"

We can’t really make fun of this song, because 1) it’s by the Who and 2) it contains lots of very relatable lines about trying really hard to fit in with your phony dance hall friends and simultaneously appease the blues-hating parents who “let” you live with them. We get it, man. You shouldn’t have to cut your hair. And it’s okay to care.

Kidding! This guy looks “just right for a beach fight” in his “zoot suit”. He’s a wacky motherfucker, and he knows it.

3. Larry the Cucumber, "The Hairbrush Song"

We include this track for the interwebs surfers under the age of 10...and those who want to appeal to that demographic. (Raffi, we're looking at you. If you’re still alive, anyway.) From the Christian series Veggie Tales, the song is really an existentialist musing on the futility of … everything, if you ask us: Larry can't find his hairbrush; Larry realizes that he has no hair and expresses both shock and frustration; a peach shows up with the hairbrush in question, and Larry implores him to take care of the brush. Okay, we'll cut the shit: it's an animated cucumber that’s never so much as sniffed vinegar, singing about his pointless grooming tool. But it's damn catchy.

4. Beck, "Devil's Haircut"

We won't pretend that we can deconstruct this jumble of a jam. "Coming to town with the briefcase blues"? Really? But we can sing along. Sort of. And we can tell you for sure that this guy's got a devil's haircut in his mind. If we're going off of the video, perhaps this coif resembles a shaggy starter mullet, Stetson optional.

5. Devendra Banhart, "Long-Haired Child"

Much like the Stepford suburbanites that are scared of him, freak folk beardman Banhart has a plan for his progeny. And it involves Samson-long hair - hair that will know no barbershop. It seems that Banhart's really in this because he himself has a head with "no hair on it at all." Yep, just another case of living vicariously through your innocent hippie children. And you know he's serious because he's told all his friends about it already. Tough luck, Devendra Jr.

6. Kiss, "Shout It Out Loud"

Don't get upset with us just yet - this is a song by a hair band. Bam! Hair metal / glam rock was A Thing, and it was comprised of in-your-face power chords and sticky aerosol products. And if you ask us, the whole movement was a platform-stomping, eye shadow-smearing homage to the elaborately sculpted dead skin cells on all of our noggins.

7. Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, "Hair"

Of all the songs on this list, this is the most hair-centric - and that’s saying something. Hair is a 1967 rock musical that takes place in the sexy, hippie-fied 1960s - and has since become a sort of icon of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement. The show’s two leading men, Claude and Berger, wax poetic - okay, maybe it’s not exactly poetry - about their long hair and what exactly they’re able to do with it. Oh, and it draws parallels between Claude and Jesus. Because the Big Man’s heir sure had a great head of hair...right? We’ll stop.

8. Traditional, "Black is the Color (Of My True Love's Hair)"

Nina Simone made this folk song famous, though it most likely originated in Scotland. And guess what? This song is sad. In fact, it makes us want to curl up in our kilts and bleat like a herd of just-shorn sheep. It’s unclear whether or not the singer is addressing a dead lover or a lost lover or a not-so-in-love wannabe-lover, but the point is: it’s a mournful motherfucker. Grab your bagpipes and a tall drink, laddies.

9. Pavement, "Cut Your Hair"

In a corrupted industry that pays more attention to sales figures and appearances than actual quality....ugh. Wait a sec. Blargh.

Sorry - we were about to throw up in our mouths. Pavement’s did a snarky, punky, killer track about the music industry wanting musicians to change their appearances. Whatever, fuck the message, it’s a great song. In fact, it might be the best song on this list. And, what the hell, the video takes place in a barber shop. Try not to sing along, capitalist pigs.

10. Lady Gaga, "Hair"

The queeniest of drag queens sings about her coif. Disclaimer: we’re not totally sure what the Fame Monster’s actual mane looks like, but, according to her, “I am my hair / I’m as free as my hair.” According to the transitive property, if Hair = Senorita Ga, then the woman (?) in question could thus be

a. constricted by false conceptions of selfhood, like her hair is smooshed underneath horsehair wigs,

b. a significant, aerosol-scented threat to the ozone layer, or

c. a dull and uninteresting shade of brown.

Choose your own adventure, paper gangstas.

11. INXS, "Suicide Blonde"

This synth-tastic ode to self-destructive damsels was released in 1990, and we can tell. Glory to you, hot platinum-headed ladies of the 80s. You were devastating then, and we bet you’re mortifying now.

All not-so-great jokes aside - the song rocketed into “ouch” territory when INXS frontman Michael Hutchence committed suicide in 1997, closely followed his girlfriend Paula Yates’ fatal overdose in 2000.

12. Unlike your Uncle Bob, we've got more hair where that came from...

…but for now, that's the end of the hairline for us, folks. You can thank us for not including Dylan's Blonde on Blonde or any songs about Biblical-Super-Saiyan Samson. Or anything Biblical, for that matter.

Just like that wad of hair that slowly accumulates but never disappears from your shower wall, the mane-inspired music is sure to keep coming. We'll stay on it.