"How to Be Dead" is a song by Northern Irish–Scottish alternative rock band Snow Patrol, released on 25 October 2004 as the fourth and final single of their third album, Final Straw (2003).

The song is a downtempo rock ballad, with lyrics detailing a conversation between a couple.

Music's Jairne Gill reviewed the single positively, giving it 7 stars out of 10.

Though he felt Snow Patrol usually made "ugly empty anthems", the single was a "rather lovely little song" and "modest" and "chimingly melodic".

Gill praised the lyrics of the song, calling it "a pretty little knife which Gary Lightbody seems to be twisting into his own chest, a list of druggy regrets and lost loves" and also said that, though the song's "gentle, skipping rhythm threatens to go BIG", it doesn't and "a pretty and intimate song is preserved".