10 Best Songs With The Word 'Walk' In The Title

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The word “walk” can mean almost anything in a song: standing tall, falling in love, getting out, moving forward, or simply carrying yourself with a little more attitude. These ten songs take that one word through pop, soul, metal, new wave, reggae-rock, and classic rock, from The Four Seasons and The Ronettes to Pantera, The Police, Dire Straits, and Aerosmith. Some are enormous hits, some changed the direction of popular music, and one of them even needed its title corrected before it could make this list properly. What they all have in common is that once the music starts, every one of them knows exactly where it is going.

# 10 – Walk Like A Man – The Four Seasons

“Walk Like a Man” gave the Four Seasons their third consecutive number-one single in 1963, following “Sherry” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and for a brief stretch they were about as unstoppable as any American group on the charts. Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio wrote the song, Crewe produced it, and Frankie Valli’s falsetto turns a father’s advice about dignity and heartbreak into something much bigger than the story itself. The record spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, with Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, and Gaudio surrounding Valli with the harmonies that made the Four Seasons instantly recognizable. It is tough advice delivered with one of the most joyous sounds in early-1960s pop.

# 9 – Walking In Memphis – Marc Cohn

Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis” is one of those songs where a place becomes part of the singer’s emotional life. Cohn wrote it after traveling through Memphis and immersing himself in the city’s musical and spiritual history, and the song became the centerpiece of his 1991 self-titled debut album. It reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, while “Walking in Memphis” earned Grammy nominations for Song of the Year and Male Pop Vocal Performance and Cohn himself won Best New Artist. The piano riff carries the whole record, but the song lasts because Cohn isn’t just sightseeing. He is trying to understand why this city and its music can move him so deeply.

Read More: Top 10 Marc Cohn Songs

# 8 – Walking On Sunshine – Katrina And The Waves

Katrina and the Waves first recorded “Walking on Sunshine” for their 1983 album of the same name, but the version that became a worldwide hit was a complete re-recording made for their 1985 major-label album Katrina and the Waves. Guitarist Kimberley Rew wrote the song, Pat Collier worked with the band on the production, and Katrina Leskanich’s huge vocal turns the whole thing into three and a half minutes of pure forward motion. The 1985 single reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and number eight in the UK. Plenty of records try to sound happy; “Walking on Sunshine” sounds as if happiness has become physically impossible to contain.

Read More: Top 10 Katrina And The Waves Songs

# 7 – Walkin’ On The Sun – Smash Mouth

Fush Yu Mang (20th Anniversary Edition) [Explicit]

Smash Mouth’s song is “Walkin’ on the Sun,” not “Walking in the Sun,” and that title correction matters because this is the breakthrough single that introduced the band in 1997. Written by guitarist Greg Camp and released on the debut album Fush Yu Mang, the track sounds loose and cool on the surface while the lyric takes a much more cynical look at a culture that has forgotten the ideals of the 1960s and replaced them with consumerism and empty style. Steve Harwell’s vocal, Camp’s guitar, Paul De Lisle’s bass, and Kevin Coleman’s drums give the record that strange combination of garage rock, psychedelic pop, and loungey groove that made it impossible to mistake for anybody else on the radio.

# 6 – Walking In The Rain – The Ronettes

“Walking in the Rain” begins with thunder and rain before Ronnie Spector’s voice enters, and from that point on the record feels like a teenage dream being played on a giant movie screen. Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, and Phil Spector wrote the song, with Spector producing it in the Wall of Sound style that defined so many of his greatest records. Released by The Ronettes in 1964, “Walking in the Rain” reached number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. The lyric is simple—Ronnie imagines the boy she wants beside her in the rain—but the production makes that fantasy sound enormous, romantic, lonely, and just a little unreal.

Read More: 10 Ronettes Songs We Love So Much

# 5 – Walk – Pantera

Pantera’s “Walk” may be built around one of the simplest riffs in metal, but Dimebag Darrell made that riff sound heavy enough to stop traffic. The song appeared on 1992’s Vulgar Display of Power, with Pantera crediting the entire band—Philip Anselmo, Dimebag Darrell, Rex Brown, and Vinnie Paul—with writing and arranging the album. Terry Date and Vinnie Paul produced the record, and “Walk” became one of the clearest statements of the band’s groove-metal sound: slow enough to feel massive, precise enough to hit like machinery, and built around Anselmo demanding respect from people who pretend to be friends. More than thirty years later, the opening riff still gets the same reaction because there is absolutely nowhere for it to hide.

Read More: Top 10 Pantera Songs

# 4 – Walk Like An Egyptian – The Bangles

“Walk Like an Egyptian” is one of the strangest ideas ever to become a number-one pop single, which is part of why it still works. Liam Sternberg wrote the song, David Kahne produced it, and The Bangles released it from their 1986 album Different Light. Instead of giving the whole track to one singer, Vicki Peterson, Michael Steele, and Susanna Hoffs take different lead-vocal sections, giving the record an almost relay-race quality before the chorus brings everything together. The single went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Billboard’s top song of 1987 in the United States. The dance, the whistle, the poses, and the video made it a phenomenon, but underneath all of that is an incredibly clever pop record.

Read More: Top 10 Bangles Songs

# 3 – Walk Of Life – Dire Straits

Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits [Music CD]

Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” takes an old-fashioned rock-and-roll keyboard sound and drops it into one of the biggest albums of the 1980s. Mark Knopfler wrote the song for 1985’s Brothers in Arms, and the track reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 while becoming an even bigger hit in several other countries. Alan Clark’s instantly recognizable keyboard riff gives the record its bounce, while Knopfler sings about Johnny, a street musician who knows the old songs and keeps playing through whatever life throws at him. The song is cheerful without feeling lightweight because underneath the hook is a simple idea: sometimes surviving is just a matter of keeping the music going.

Read More: Top 10 Dire Straits Songs

# 2 – Walking On The Moon – The Police

The Police turn falling in love into a change in gravity on “Walking on the Moon,” one of the most spacious records the band ever made. Sting wrote the song for 1979’s Reggatta de Blanc, and the single reached number one in the UK. What makes the track remarkable is how little everybody plays: Sting leaves huge spaces around the bass line, Andy Summers’ guitar seems to float through the arrangement, and Stewart Copeland’s drums bring in the reggae influence without overcrowding anything. The lyric compares the rush of love to walking in low gravity, and the band actually makes the music feel weightless enough to sell the idea.

Read More: 10 Most Underrated Police Songs

# 1 – Walk This Way – Aerosmith

Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” takes the number-one spot because one Joe Perry riff managed to become a classic twice. Steven Tyler and Perry wrote the song for 1975’s Toys in the Attic, with Jack Douglas producing, and after the single was reissued it reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1977. Then Run-D.M.C. recorded it with Tyler and Perry in 1986, and that version reached number four, bringing Aerosmith back into the center of popular culture while helping break down the wall between rock and hip-hop on mainstream radio and MTV. The original is still a ferocious Aerosmith record on its own, but the fact that the same song could change both bands’ histories more than a decade apart is what makes “Walk This Way” impossible to beat.