Graduation season causes a variety of emotions that music can help to express. Some graduates will be elated, happy to escape the confines of education. Others will feel saddened by or afraid of the prospect of leaving their friends and family. Others will simply be relieved they made it through. Their families, too, will have an array of feelings, from pride to worry and even melancholy. Almost everyone connected to a graduation will experience a mixture of these feelings, sometimes changing with remarkable speed.

For that reason, it's useful to have a collection of music ready to go to match any mood. If you want to jump around one moment and then have a good cry the next, your soundtrack should help you with your celebration or your catharsis. Graduation is a good time to look both forward and back, to indulge your brightest optimism and to reflect on everything that's led to this point. These songs can help you do all of that and more.

10 Days

The Kinks

"Days" could have disappeared. The 1968 non-album single didn't chart well, and never found its place at the time, but its stature grew over the years. Even if the initial release didn't take off, fans recognized the warmth at the center of the song. Ray Davies was inspired to write "Days" when his sister moved from England to Australia (and back then, with someone on another continent was much more limited), and the mixed feelings resonated with listeners watching a loved one leave.

Davies sings with clear sadness, but rather than dwelling on it, he instead turns to gratitude, thankful for the time they had together. He acknowledges that the subject of the song will always be a part of his life and who he is, singing, "You're with me every single day, believe me." This cut's for everyone at graduation: kids, parents, siblings, friends. Davies perfectly captured the complex feelings of a separation, and wrapped them up in a beautiful melody.

9 Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Green Day

The second single from change in sound for Green Day. The pop-punk band was known for singing with a sneer, their songs matched by down-strummed electric guitars. This gentle folk song didn't fit.

Despite being an atypical song in Green Day's catalog, "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" has become one of their biggest hits, going Platinum five times over.

Of course, Billie Joe Armstrong didn't write a simple goodbye song. Listeners missed the bitterness in the title and caught, instead, a genuine desire to wish someone well even as they leave you. Armstrong was angry with a girlfriend who was moving away; his fans understood that frustration came with a sincere hope that while things were good, they had been great. The song works whatever way you need it to, making it essential for this time of year.

8 Free Bird

Lynyrd Skynyrd

"Free Bird" should be played at every graduation ceremony, except s never think it's funny, and the ceremonies are already far too long (who needs to sweat through another 10 minutes?). The song - long a highlight of Lynyrd Skynyrd shows as well as a cliché audience request - gives voice to the desire to escape and head out into the world to find something new, a sentiment many graduates will feel at some point during the season.

Fans have long applied the lyrics to different situations. The singer seems to be thinking about a romantic relationship (indeed, one was the inspiration for the song), but listeners have applied them to any moment when they yearn to stretch their wings, so to speak. The slow opening gives the song a lovely bittersweetness until the wild instrumental section captures the experience of personal flight.

7 Don't Stop Me Now

Queen

Like "Days," Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" is another song whose importance has grown over time. Like "Free Bird," it's one that captures that pure desire for freedom. Unlike the Skynyrd track, though, the song has less to do with escaping restrictions and more about the push forward into a reckless joy. Freddie Mercury sings with abandon; he holds nothing back as he dives into any opportunity in front of him.

The song has less to do with escaping restrictions and more about the push forward into a reckless joy.

The track highlights immediate pleasure; there's little long-term planning or FAFSA applications in this one. Graduates getting through the end of that final year might need that immediate release, and Mercury knew how to celebrate. Parents might not love this one, with its embrace of hedonistic "ecstasy," but applied to a graduate, it makes sense. There's a whole exciting world to explore, and Queen perfectly nailed the sound of that desire.

6 Future

Paramore

"Future" closes Paramore's self-titled 2013 album in a most artistic way. The track starts slowly, Hayley Williams singing over a gently picked guitar, but it builds in intensity for nearly eight minutes until it becomes a dark, steady rocker. It's hard to know exactly what to do with the track, with its brooding instrumental section complicating Williams' guardedly hopeful meditations on the future. It certainly captures the need to move forward.

That progress provides the theme for much of Paramore, and "Future"completes it. "We don't talk about the past," sings Williams, as if there's something dark there, and she's open in the song about feeling empty, as if something's missing. But she's "writing the future," and establishing a new way of being for her. It's an encouragement graduates should have, and while the track is less bubbly sounding than "Ain't It Fun," it suits the needs of the time better.

5 Breakaway

Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson's massive hit "Breakaway" doesn't have the same sort of ambivalence. This cut tells the story of a girl who "grew up in a small town," feeling trapped there and always "dreaming of what could be." It's a classic tale of a youth stuck in a small place learning for a bigger life, and Clarkson uses archetypal imagery to express that feeling. In the soaring chorus she sings, "I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly."

Unlike Paramore, Clarkson doesn't wish to forget her past. She might be breaking away, but she just needs something bigger, not an escape from trials. She wants to travel, to take chances, and to see cities, but she doesn't want to lose her roots. "I won't forget the place I come from," she says. It's a moving way to think about adventure, staying connected to what makes you who you are without sacrificing who you're able to become, and Clarkson's vocals, as always, effectively convey the sentiment.

4 Forever Young

Bob Dylan

"Breakaway" focuses on a child growing up and leaving home. It's a joyous moment, but it's a little bit different from the parents' perspective. Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" helps guardians express some of what they might be feeling. Dylan wrote the track for a young child; you can imagine the slower version of this song working as a lullaby or a blessing, but parental concerns don't change at heart, even if they shift in perspective.

Much of the song speaks of how the singer hopes his child will grow up, but one moment specifically points to a time of graduation or departure. Dylan sings, "May you have a strong foundation / When the winds of changes shift," and that's something every graduate faces, and every parent hopes for. Dylan, backed by The Band, wrote directly and avoided treacle, but it's a cut that's likely to pull at the heartstrings. A number of artists have covered the song, but no one ever did it better.

3 My Future

Billie Eilish

Growing up and leaving home requires a certain amount of fortitude. On the jazzy "My Future," singer Billie Eilish finds just that by putting her own plans first. She heads off, knowing she's "supposed to be unhappy without someone" (she addresses a possible romantic partner, but the general concept could apply to anyone being left behind). She doesn't feel lonely, though, because she's "in love" with her future, and that's exactly what she's going to pursue.

"My Future" was the lead single from Happier Than Ever, an album that saw Eilish turn more toward jazz and torch songs. The album received two Grammy nominations and reached #1 on the Billboard 200.

Eilish has the strength to go into the unknown because she's coming to love herself. She intends to take some time to learn more about herself, and to invest in a future that allows her to become the best version of herself. She'll make sacrifices now - she's "not coming home" - and if she returns in a few years, she'll be all the better for the time she's spent. Graduates can embrace her idea of self-empowerment as part of a new venture, and take confidence from Eilish's confident depiction of moving forward.

2 Good Old Days

Macklemore feat. Kesha

Maybe graduation is too late for "Good Old Days." Maybe it's better for first-years, that time when everyone tells you to pay attention and appreciate each moment. It's a lesson you can only learn through experience; youth really is wasted on the young. Come graduation time, many students will be feeling what Macklemore and Kesha express, a mix of pleasure in ing these years coupled with regret at not having properly lived or appreciated the times.

It's a lesson you can only learn through experience; youth really is wasted on the young.

Macklemore breaks it down: "Been scared of the future, thinkin' about the past / While missin' out on now." The secret that these artists only sort of recognize is that it's always true. You can miss the good old days, but you can create new good old days. Listen to Kesha say what she wishes someone had told her, and take stock of the magic now, and the magic yet to come.

1 Lean On Me

Bill Withers

As graduates take flight (as several of our artists would put it), they need a simple message: You are not alone. You might be striving individually, you might be moving to a place where you don't know anyone, you might be taking on a job that scares you, but you are not alone. No one in pop music has ever said that better than Bill Withers did in "Lean On Me," those few piano chords opening the way for a universal invitation.

Graduation is surely a time to celebrate, but it's not easy, and not much that follows will be easy to undertake in isolation. Even the freest birds and the most gleeful escape artists know they face uncertainty, and many will question whether they're up for what lies ahead of them. What better way to find inspiration than by knowing you don't have to do it alone? Bill Withers says, "Call me if you need a friend," and that's a line in music that everyone should be willing to say and to hear, graduates especially.