A Bad Dream
2007
Rice-Oxley built it from Yeats's poem about an Irish airman, a pilot too high up to hear the guns below.
★ 1.7
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.
Dirt
2014
Clawson and Tompkins built a whole life around one word; the duo nearly cut the closing lines about mortality.
★ 1.8
Time (Hootie & the Blowfish)Hootie & the Blowfish
Time (Hootie & the Blowfish)
1994
Sonefeld's idea, written by committee on acoustic guitars, and Rucker addressing time itself like it owed him something.
★ 2.7
Just BreathePearl Jam
Just Breathe
2009 · From Backspacer
Vedder lifted the opening chord from Tuolumne, an Into the Wild instrumental, and Willie Nelson later took the song.
★ 4.2
If I Die Young
2010
Kimberly Perry wrote it alone, and banjo, fiddle and mandolin carry her meditation on mortality across fifty-three Hot 100 weeks.
★ 4.2
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
Live Like You Were Dying
2004
Wiseman and Nichols built it from a friend's cancer scare, and McGraw cut it the year his father died.
★ 4.7
If Tomorrow Never ComesGarth Brooks
If Tomorrow Never Comes
1989
Kent Blazy had the first verse down seconds after hearing the idea, and it gave Brooks his first number one.
★ 4.8
Trouble (Cat Stevens)
1970
Stevens wrote it flat on his back recovering from tuberculosis; Hal Ashby later gave it to Maude's death scene.
★ 5.1
Forever Young (Alphaville)Alphaville
Forever Young (Alphaville)
1984
Two days on a dance version, scrapped for synth pads and a Cold War fear of growing old.
★ 5.7
One Day
1996 · From Ridin' Dirty
Pimp C built it on an Isley Brothers loop, Ronnie Spencer sings the hook, and Texas rap found its elegy.
★ 5.9
Dust in the Wind
1977
A fingerpicking exercise Livgren's wife overheard and told him to finish, now Kansas's only American top ten.
★ 5.9
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1
2002 · From Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Coyne named his karate warrior after Boredoms drummer Yoshimi P-We, then cast the heroine's disease as pink robots.
★ 6.1
Gangsta's ParadiseCoolio
Gangsta's Paradise
1995
A Stevie Wonder interpolation cleared on condition the profanity went, L.V.'s stacked one-man choir, and 1995's biggest-selling single.
★ 6.5
The Dance
1989
Tony Arata's lyric works as a breakup song or an elegy, and Brooks' video chose the elegy.
★ 6.6
Do You Realize?
2002 · From Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Coyne wrote it during Drozd's recovery, a plain statement about mortality that Oklahoma voted its official state rock song.
★ 6.8
Candle in the Wind
1973 · From Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Taupin lifted the phrase from a Janis Joplin tribute and pointed it at Marilyn Monroe; the chorus does the mourning.
★ 6.8
In the Aeroplace Over the Sea
1998 · From In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Julian Koster's singing saw over double-tracked acoustics, cut in Denver with Robert Schneider, and a chorus that faces death smiling.
★ 6.9
Turn! Turn! Turn!
1965 · From Turn! Turn! Turn!
Seeger set Ecclesiastes to a tune in 1959; McGuinn's twelve-string turned it into the number one with the oldest lyrics.
★ 7.0
(Don't Fear) the Reaper
1976
An irregular heartbeat diagnosis sent Dharma writing about mortality and lasting love, and the cowbell did the rest.
★ 7.3
My My, Hey Hey
1979 · From Rust Never Sleeps
Recorded live at San Francisco's Boarding House in 1978, and Devo's Mothersbaugh handed Young the phrase that titled the album.
★ 7.4
Life's a Bitch
1994 · From Illmatic
AZ's first appearance on record, the only rapper Nas let onto Illmatic, and his father Olu Dara closing on trumpet.
★ 7.5
Time (Pink Floyd)
1974 · From The Dark Side of the Moon
Alan Parsons taped antique-shop clocks as a quadraphonic test; Mason's rototoms follow, and the alarms still land like panic.
★ 7.5
Bitter Sweet Symphony
1997
Built on an Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of a Stones song; Jagger and Richards returned the credit in 2019.
★ 7.8
My WayFrank Sinatra
My Way
1969 · From My Way
Anka typed the lyric overnight in New York asking what Sinatra would say, then handed him a life's summing-up.
★ 8.3
Hurt
2002 · From American IV: The Man Comes Around
Rubin handed Cash a Nine Inch Nails song, and Reznor watched the video and said it was no longer his.
★ 8.5