Best Unicorn Songs for Adults

Unicorns never really leave us. They just change playlists. The songs most of us grew up with were written for children, but musicians for grown-ups have been claiming the unicorn for decades, in folk ballads, rock anthems, power metal, comedy and Eurovision pop. Here are the best unicorn songs made for adult listeners, in the order they arrived, each with the story behind it.

1. The Irish Rovers: The Unicorn (1967)

Start where the modern unicorn song starts. Shel Silverstein wrote “The Unicorn” as a poem built on the Noah’s Ark story, in which the unicorns are too busy playing to board the ark. The Irish Rovers turned it into the title track of their 1967 album, with session guitarist Glen Campbell playing lead, and it climbed to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It has almost nothing to do with Ireland, yet it remains a staple in Irish pubs everywhere, which tells you everything about its staying power.

2. America: The Last Unicorn (1982)

Jimmy Webb composed the songs for the 1982 Rankin/Bass film The Last Unicorn, adapted from Peter S. Beagle’s novel, and America performed the title theme over the opening credits, against imagery drawn from the medieval Unicorn Tapestries. The song charted in Germany, peaking at #38, and later earned a place on The Best of America. Wistful and quietly haunting, it is the emotional centerpiece of this list, and the one most likely to make a grown-up listener go quiet for a moment.

3. The Unicorns: I Was Born (A Unicorn) (2003)

Montreal lo-fi band The Unicorns picked up the same ark story and bent it into something stranger. Written by Alden Penner and Nicholas Thorburn, “I Was Born (A Unicorn)” appears on their cult 2003 album Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? (Alien8 Recordings) and turns being the last of your kind into a scrappy anthem about belief. The album became an indie favorite, was reissued in 2014, and the band reunited that year to open for Arcade Fire. Pair it with the Irish Rovers entry above and you can hear one myth told two ways, 36 years apart.

4. Wolfmother: White Unicorn (2005)

Australian rockers Wolfmother put “White Unicorn” on their self-titled debut album in 2005 and released it as a single in February 2006. It reached #33 in Australia and #29 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, the band’s first US chart entry, and Rolling Stone called it a “Viking-horned anthem.” The lyric is carnival-meets-mythology rather than cute, and the official video is cut from live festival footage, which suits it: this is a unicorn song you hear with a crowd around you.

5. Andrew Huang: Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows (2010)

The internet’s contribution to the canon. In November 2010, musician Andrew Huang turned a viewer’s comment into a 90-second song, and “Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows” went on to pass 14 million views. It is short, gleefully absurd, and completely inescapable once heard, which is exactly why it belongs here: for a generation of adults, this is the unicorn song. It has its own post on this site, if you want the full story.

6. Parry Gripp: Space Unicorn (2011)

Parry Gripp, frontman of Nerf Herder, has a second life writing miniature novelty songs, and “Space Unicorn” is his gift to this list: a soaring little pop track about a unicorn delivering rainbows across the galaxy, paired with Brianne Drouhard’s animated video. It is unapologetically sweet, and grown-ups who keep it on their playlists tend to describe it the same way: an instant mood repair in under two minutes.

7. Ninja Sex Party: Unicorn Wizard (2012)

Comedy duo Ninja Sex Party (Dan Avidan and Brian Wecht) released “Unicorn Wizard” in October 2012 and put it on their album Strawberries and Cream the following spring. In the video, animated by Zach Hadel and Chris O’Neill, Avidan’s alter ego Danny Sexbang preens through a heroic fantasy quest as the Unicorn Wizard. The duo’s albums have topped Billboard’s Comedy Albums chart, and this is the grown-up end of the list in every sense: big, ridiculous, and entirely deliberate.

8. Gloryhammer: The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee (2013)

Gloryhammer is the heroic fantasy power metal project of Alestorm frontman Christopher Bowes, and their 2013 debut Tales from the Kingdom of Fife tells an alternate-history story of medieval Scotland. “The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee” opens the plot: the evil wizard Zargothrax invades Dundee at the head of an army of corrupted undead unicorns. Scotland’s national animal, weaponized. It is gloriously over the top, and it earns the metal slot on this list without breaking a sweat.

9. Noa Kirel: Unicorn (2023)

The most recent entry is also the biggest stage. “Unicorn” was Israel’s entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in Liverpool, where Noa Kirel, who co-wrote it with Doron Medalie, May Sfadia and Yinon Yahel, finished third in the grand final with 362 points. The song is an empowerment anthem about standing visibly different in a hostile crowd, it reached #1 in Israel, and its unicorn is pure self-confidence. A fitting place to end: the unicorn, still current, still defiant.

Which Unicorn Song Is Your Favorite?

That is the grown-up canon as it stands: one folk standard, one film theme, indie, rock, metal, comedy, EDM and Eurovision pop, plus two small internet classics. Did we miss the unicorn song that lives on your own playlist? Tell us in the comments, and if it was made for adults, it may join the list.