Auld Lang Syne
1910
Burns said he took the song down from an old man; Stanley's 1910 disc is probably the first commercial recording.
★ 1.3
The Songs canon
Sourced and sung.
Every song chosen by hand, with the recording to play it.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Life Goes On
2011
Critics heard the Kinks' Lola in the strum, and a Dancing on Ice slot lifted it to number fourteen.
★ 2.8
Blue Skies
2009
Fink wrote the whole album around his split with Laura Marling; this became its first single, and its way out.
★ 3.1
On Top of Old Smoky
1951
Cecil Sharp collected it in Appalachia in 1916; Seeger's arrangement and Terry Gilkyson's voice sold a million.
★ 3.5
Foolish Games
1997
Ben Keith produced Pieces of You partly at Neil Young's ranch, and radio flipped this B-side into the hit.
★ 3.5
To Ohio
2009
Ten winter days in a Block Island basement, a pump organ, and a hush Emmylou Harris later covered.
★ 3.8
Leader of the Band
1981
Fogelberg wrote it for his father Lawrence, a working bandleader who lived to hear it and talk about it.
★ 3.8
Charlie Darwin
2009
Cut in a converted basement on Block Island, sung in falsetto with the drums stripped out; the Mayflower never sounded lonelier.
★ 3.9
5 Years Time
2007
Laura Marling's ukulele and Charlie Fink's deadpan flopped in 2007; a 2008 re-release carried the sunshine to number seven.
★ 4.4
The Way It Goes
2011 · From The Harrow & The Harvest
Eight years of songs Welch and Rawlings never liked enough to release, then this litany of friends gone.
★ 4.5
Naked as We CameIron & Wine
Naked as We Came
2004
Beam swapped his home four-track for Brian Deck's Chicago studio, and sang two lovers weighing which of them dies first.
★ 4.6
I Will Wait
2012
Markus Dravs produced Babel; the video was shot at Red Rocks, banjo running flat out under a vow.
★ 4.8
Goodnight Irene
1950
Lead Belly died months before Gordon Jenkins's orchestra carried his waltz to thirteen weeks atop the American charts.
★ 4.9
Day Is Done
1969 · From Five Leaves Left
Voice, guitar and strings went down together at Sound Techniques, Robert Kirby scoring the sound of coming up short.
★ 5.0
Fly
1970 · From Bryter Layter
John Cale's viola and harpsichord circle Drake's plea for a second chance, and Wes Anderson later borrowed it.
★ 5.1
Gone Gone Gone
2007 · From Raising Sand
A 1964 Everly Brothers single, rebuilt by T Bone Burnett into swampy menace, won a Grammy.
★ 5.1
Emmylou
2012
Mike Mogis produced it; the Söderberg sisters name Gram and Emmylou, June and Johnny, and sing harmony like devotion.
★ 5.4
Lost Cause
2002 · From Sea Change
One week of writing after a nine-year relationship ended, and Godrich kept the arrangement to acoustic guitar and brushes.
★ 5.4
Blue Ridge MountainsFleet Foxes
Blue Ridge Mountains
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
Homesick for his brother Sean, Pecknold buried the vocals in reverb and block harmony that swells like Sacred Harp singing.
★ 5.5
Such Great Heights (Iron & Wine)Iron & Wine
Such Great Heights (Iron & Wine)
2004
Beam slowed Gibbard's synth-pop into hushed acoustic guitar for a Sub Pop B-side, then Garden State put it everywhere.
★ 5.5
Wabash CannonballRoy Acuff
Wabash Cannonball
1936
Recorded in 1936 with someone else singing lead, then cut again by Acuff in 1947, a train that never existed.
★ 5.6
Re: Stacks
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
In his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin, Vernon shaped the melody wordlessly, then wrote his gambling losses into it.
★ 5.6
Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)Jose Gonzalez
Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)
2003
One classical guitar, no drums, and the Knife's synth-pop single reduced to a whisper that reached UK number nine.
★ 5.8
Northern Sky
1970 · From Bryter Layter
Boyd handed Cale the demo and he improvised celeste, piano and organ around Drake's most openly loving song.
★ 5.9
Helplessness Blues
2011 · From Helplessness Blues
Pecknold called it an anti-protest song, a plain opinion with no poetry, and gave it away free in January 2011.
★ 6.0
I Am a Rock
1966
Simon first cut it alone for a UK-only album, then Hal Blaine and Carol Kaye turned withdrawal electric.
★ 6.0
Mykonos
2008 · From Sun Giant
Pecknold rebuilt a piano soul demo with Phil Ek at Bear Creek, and the harmonies own the second half.
★ 6.2
White Winter Hymnal
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
A round about snow that the band never once played together, its voices stacked from first takes in production.
★ 6.4
Flume
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
Three months alone in his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin, and falsetto stacked until one voice becomes a choir.
★ 6.4
Homeward Bound
1965
Simon wrote it on an English railway platform missing Kathy Chitty; a plaque at Widnes station now claims the spot.
★ 6.5
Holocene
2011 · From Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Horns and clarinets swell over guitar in a converted Wisconsin veterinary clinic; Grammy voters nominated it for record and song.
★ 6.7
Pink Moon
1972 · From Pink Moon
Voice, guitar, and a single overdubbed piano line, taped after eleven at night with only an engineer present.
★ 6.7
Cecilia
1970
Friends banged on a piano bench at a party; Simon and Halee looped the thumping into a rhythm track.
★ 6.7
Skinny Love
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
Vernon cut it alone in his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin over a winter, and the falsetto still sounds snowbound.
★ 6.9
Scarborough Fair
1966
Simon learned it from Martin Carthy in London; Garfunkel wound an anti-war lyric through the ballad as counterpoint.
★ 7.0
Wildwood Flower
1928
Maybelle Carter played melody and rhythm at once, and every country guitarist since has learned this 1860 parlor tune.
★ 7.0
Big Yellow Taxi
1970 · From Ladies of the Canyon
Mitchell threw back a Hawaii hotel curtain, saw mountains above a parking lot, and wrote pop's sunniest protest song.
★ 7.1
America
1968
No rhyme scheme anywhere, just Simon reworking a 1964 road trip with Kathy Chitty until the emptiness lands mid-verse.
★ 7.3
Take Me Home, Country Roads
1971
Danoff and Nivert finished it with Denver one December night, and they premiered it hours later at the Cellar Door.
★ 7.3
SuzanneLeonard Cohen
Suzanne
1967 · From Songs of Leonard Cohen
Cohen thought Simon's orchestration overblown, but the four-track master wouldn't let him strip it; Judy Collins recorded it first.
★ 7.3