Life is a Highway (Tom Cochrane)
1991
A Red Rider demo called "Love Is a Highway", revived after Cochrane's World Vision trip to eastern Africa.
★ 4.2
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.
Let Her Cry
1994
Rucker flipped the genders when he wrote it; by his account the addiction in the song was his own.
★ 4.3
Small Town
1985 · From Scarecrow
Written in the laundry room of Mellencamp's old house, it makes Indiana sound like enough for one life.
★ 4.7
Learnin' to Fly
1991 · From Into the Great Wide Open
Four chords, F, C, A minor, G, looping unchanged while Petty and Jeff Lynne make uplift sound effortless.
★ 5.5
Into the Great Wide Open
1991 · From Into the Great Wide Open
Petty and Jeff Lynne wrote Eddie's rise and fall as one unbroken story; Johnny Depp played him on screen.
★ 5.8
You Don't Know How It Feels
1994 · From Wildflowers
Rubin produced, Petty blew the harmonica, and MTV solved one lyric by simply running the word backwards.
★ 5.9
Pink Houses
1983 · From Uh-Huh
Mellencamp waved at a man sitting outside a pink shotgun house near the highway, and wrote America's most misread chorus.
★ 5.9
Running on EmptyJackson Browne
Running on Empty
1978
Cut live at Merriweather Post Pavilion, 1977, David Lindley's lap steel riding a song Browne wrote on his commute.
★ 5.9
Copperhead Road
1988
Three generations of moonshine, Vietnam and the drug trade, named an official Tennessee state song in 2023.
★ 5.9
The JokerSteve Miller Band
The Joker
1973
A lyric lifted from "Lovey Dovey", a misheard doo-wop coinage, and a Levi's ad that made it Britain's number one.
★ 6.3
Runnin' Down a Dream
1989 · From Full Moon Fever
Mike Campbell's fuzz riff, then a closing solo of nearly two minutes he nailed in a single take.
★ 6.7
Mary Jane's Last Dance
1993 · From Greatest Hits
Originally called Indiana Girl, until Petty decided he couldn't sing that line; Stan Lynch's last sessions with the Heartbreakers.
★ 6.7
I Won't Back Down
1989 · From Full Moon Fever
Harrison on acoustic guitar and harmonies, Lynne producing, and Petty answering the arsonist who burned his house down.
★ 6.9
Jack and Diane
1982 · From American Fool
Mick Ronson suggested the baby rattles and sang the "let it rock" hook; the handclaps were only a guide track.
★ 6.9
Rockin' in the Free World
1989 · From Freedom
Sampedro joked about the free world after a Soviet tour collapsed, and Young debuted the song in Seattle unrehearsed.
★ 7.5
American Girl
1977 · From Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Petty cut it on the Fourth of July, 1976, and Roger McGuinn heard the Byrds so clearly he covered it.
★ 7.6
Free Fallin'
1989 · From Full Moon Fever
Two days of writing with Jeff Lynne, Mike Campbell's twelve-string, and Ventura Boulevard turned into the whole San Fernando Valley.
★ 7.6
Born in the USA
1984 · From Born in the USA
Take four, April 1982, a Yamaha synth from Roy Bittan, and the most misheard chorus in American rock.
★ 8.7
Born to RunBruce Springsteen
Born to Run
1975 · From Born to Run
Months of wall-of-sound overdubs poured into one getaway car, and every word still sounds like escape.
★ 9.4