A classic song about a forbidden love
Adultery dramas we often see in dramas, movies, and TV talk shows—the love that can never come true.
We’ve gathered songs about these “forbidden loves.” There are many beautifully portrayed dramas that make your heart race, but what if you yourself were to fall into a love that isn’t allowed…? Here, we’ll introduce plenty of songs that capture the bittersweet feelings of such forbidden love.
From songs told from a woman’s perspective to those from a man’s point of view, there are more tracks about forbidden love than you might think.
Perhaps that’s because many people are secretly suffering over a love that shouldn’t be….
- [Adultery Song] A forbidden song about an affair that sings of an impossible love
- [Cheating Song] A forbidden love that crossed the line — infidelity song
- A song of forbidden love. A love song about feelings that can't be stopped.
- [Unattainable Love] A love song about two people who feel the same way but can’t be together
- Unattainable Love: A Heartbreaking Love Song About Falling for a Married Person
- [Empathetic & Tear-Jerking] A love song about an unrequited romance
- [An Adulterous Love] A love song about a secret affair you can't tell anyone about
- A song of forbidden love. A heartrending, sorrowful love song.
- [Unrequited Love] Heart-wrenching Love Songs | A Roundup of Tear-Inducing Crush and Breakup Tracks
- Favorite Songs for Women in Their 50s: A Curated Selection of Sweet and Bittersweet Love Ballads!
- [Jealousy & Possessiveness Songs] A curated selection of popular tracks to listen to when possessiveness feels overwhelming!
- A roundup of love songs themed around homosexuality and LGBTQ+
- “I Want to See You”: A love song that makes you cry when you listen to it while you can’t meet
Masterpieces about forbidden love (21–30)
signalaiko
This is a song by aiko included on the single “Plamai” released in 2015.
It was used as the theme song for the film “My Senpai and Me.” It portrays the feelings of a woman who is in love and knows the feelings are mutual, yet remains somehow unstable.
Looking at the lyrics, it seems the two are not in a boyfriend–girlfriend relationship.
It might be a relationship they can’t tell anyone about.
Her single-minded love, the desire to stay by his side no matter what kind of relationship it is… is deeply heartrending.
A love I can tell no one abouterica
Even just the song title “A Love I Can’t Tell Anyone About” already feels heartbreaking, doesn’t it? Choosing the archaic ‘ienu’ instead of the more common ‘ienai’ for “can’t say” conveys a loneliness too heavy to bear.
Whether the person is married, the same sex, a school teacher—each situation differs, but in the end the struggle comes from the same mismatch.
It’s one of those songs that makes you think, “I can’t believe I didn’t know such a beautiful track existed.”
I want you to tell me you love me.Oku Hanako
A song about a painful love, “Anata ni Suki to Iwaretai” (“I Want You to Tell Me You Love Me”).
It was released in 2008 as a single by Hanako Oku.
In this song, she portrays the bittersweet mix of happiness and aching sorrow that comes from being treated kindly by a man who already has a girlfriend.
For anyone experiencing a similar love, it’s a song that will surely bring you to tears.
You’re seen as a friend, but in truth you’re in love… such a painful romance.
The phrase used as the title is the unspoken wish held deep in her heart.
PrologueUru
It’s a bittersweet love song about how, even though you shouldn’t fall in love, you can’t help but follow the person with your eyes.
It was released in 2018 as a single by Uru and was used as the theme song for the drama “Chuugaku Seishin Nikki” (Middle School Saint Diary).
The drama portrays a forbidden love between a teacher and a student, and this song matched it perfectly, making it all the more heartrending.
I really want people who are going through a similarly painful love to listen to it.
“Why did we have to meet?”—it’s the kind of helpless feeling that brings you to tears.
AccompliceSuneo Heā
This “accomplice” refers to being accomplices in love.
To me, it also sounded a bit like wanting to whisk you away.
How did the world of these lyrics look to you? Love is a single story with no fixed ending.
Spinning the tale of a forbidden love, journeying with you beyond the stars in a fairy-tale way—that’s Suneohair’s craft.
I imagine many people love the atmosphere these lyrics create.
sunflowerSEKAI NO OWARI
The protagonist, who had been living in a dark world, ends up meeting “you,” someone dazzling like the sun—the beginning of a forbidden love as sung by SEKAI NO OWARI.
Listening to this song, you can feel that bittersweet thrill of knowing the person is off-limits, yet realizing thanks to them your world is starting to gain color.
Maybe it’s precisely because the melody is light and pop that it tightens your chest even more.
This track is included on the acclaimed album “Lip,” which topped the Oricon charts in February 2019.
It’s a song that gently stays with you in that helpless rush of feelings at the moment you fall in love, even when you know it won’t be returned.
Run through the nightsupittsu
A Spitz song that portrays an elopement born from a forbidden love.
Knowing theirs is a relationship no one will bless, it depicts a poignant night as the couple runs off into a world for just the two of them.
Aware that they’re connected not by a destined red thread, but by something far more fragile, they still try to believe in that bond alone—an attitude that leaves you with a sense of helpless sorrow.
The track was included on the classic album Mikazuki Rock, released in September 2002, and was later used as an insert song in an anime.
It’s a work that confronts you with the purity and peril of a love you’d uphold even while turning your back on the world, prompting deep reflection.