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.
Back Where I Come From
2000
Mac McAnally's 1990 original about his Mississippi hometown reached number fourteen; Chesney's cover went gold without ever being a single.
★ 2.4
I Go Back
2004
Jack & Diane, Only the Good Die Young, Rock'n Me: the songs Chesney says drag him back.
★ 2.5
Airplanes
2010
Alex da Kid's beat, Hayley Williams on the hook, and a wish on a passing plane that went diamond.
★ 3.2
Walk on the Ocean
1991
Phillips wrote it after a trip to Orcas Island, keeping the placeholder lyrics because nothing he tried afterward worked better.
★ 3.6
Ocean Avenue
2004
Sean Mackin's violin cutting through the guitars, and an avenue that is really a boulevard in Atlantic Beach, Florida.
★ 4.1
Chattahoochee
1993
Keith Stegall produced it, Jim McBride supplied the title line, and Jackson water-skied through the video in red cowboy boots.
★ 4.8
Flightless Bird, American Mouth
2007
Brian Deck built a loop for Beam to layer guitar over; Stewart reportedly chose it for Twilight's prom.
★ 5.0
Rill Rill
2010
Funkadelic's Can You Get to That, looped and sweetened, under the one Sleigh Bells song that whispers.
★ 5.0
Ode to My Family
1994
A homesick lullaby from No Need to Argue, with a string arrangement O'Riordan scored herself over Noel Hogan's chords.
★ 5.1
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday
1991
Four voices, no instruments, a 1975 Cooley High ballad rebuilt a cappella and carried to number two.
★ 5.1
Remember When
2003
Jackson wrote it alone, a whole marriage from courtship to old age, and country radio held it at number one.
★ 5.2
Hurts So Good
1982 · From American Fool
Sixteen weeks in the top ten, more than any other single of the eighties, and Aronoff's drums never let up.
★ 5.3
Tennis Court
2013 · From Pure Heroine
Cut with Joel Little in a small Auckland studio, the beat built before a word, that "Yeah" doing everything.
★ 5.4
Somewhere Only We Know
2004
Rice-Oxley hammered it out on piano after "Heroes", and Keane proved a rock band could skip guitars entirely.
★ 5.5
Someday
2002 · From Is This It
Moretti woke to hear Casablancas inventing the melody in the bathroom, and it became the warmest song on Is This It.
★ 5.5
On My Block
2002 · From The Fix
Five mics from The Source for The Fix, a Mike Dean beat, and Scarface drawing his Houston block affectionately.
★ 5.6
Here's Where The Story Ends
1990
Guitar jangle, Wheeler's voice, and a US Modern Rock number one that Britain never received as a single.
★ 5.7
The Suburbs
2010 · From The Suburbs
A rolling piano, Butler's boyhood in The Woodlands outside Houston, and an album he called a letter from the suburbs.
★ 5.8
Summer of 69
1984
A twelve-string riff swapped for six and doubled for thickness, then a chorus about a summer Adams never actually had.
★ 5.9
Summertime
1991
Hula and K. Fingers looped Kool and the Gang's Summer Madness, and the duo won a Grammy for it.
★ 6.1
December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)
1975
Gaudio first wrote it about Prohibition's repeal, then Judy Parker rewrote the lyric and drummer Gerry Polci sang lead.
★ 6.2
It Was A Very Good YearFrank Sinatra
It Was A Very Good Year
1966 · From September of My Years
Ervin Drake's vintage-wine conceit reached Sinatra via the Kingston Trio, and Gordon Jenkins's arrangement won its own Grammy.
★ 6.2
Step
2014 · From Modern Vampires of the City
Rostam's harpsichord reharmonizes a melody that traveled from Bread through Grover Washington Jr. to Souls of Mischief, then here.
★ 6.2
1901
2009 · From Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
A fantasy of Belle Epoque Paris, handed out free online, that then spent thirty-one weeks climbing to alternative number one.
★ 6.2
I Ain't Mad At Cha
1995
Released two days after Shakur's death, Daz Dillinger's loop of DeBarge's A Dream carrying a farewell to lost friends.
★ 6.4
Helpless
1970 · From Deja Vu
One of three Deja Vu tracks the four cut together, Young keening about the Ontario town of his childhood.
★ 6.4
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
1997 · From Nimrod
Armstrong wrote it in 1993 about a girlfriend leaving for Ecuador; Cavallo added the strings while the band played foosball.
★ 6.4
Remember the Time
1991 · From Dangerous
Teddy Riley's new jack swing under a nostalgia lyric, with John Singleton staging the video in ancient Egypt.
★ 6.5
Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)
1994 · From Illmatic
Nas was twenty and already writing memoir here, over DJ Premier's loop of a Reuben Wilson organ.
★ 6.5
Heartbeats (The Knife)
2002
Pitchfork's fifteenth-best song of the 2000s, the Dreijer siblings' synth pulse, later stripped to one acoustic guitar by Jose Gonzalez.
★ 6.6
Video Killed the Radio StarThe Buggles
Video Killed the Radio Star
1979
Sixteen national number ones, then a second life at 12:01 a.m. on 1 August 1981 as MTV's first video.
★ 6.6
Kids
2008 · From Oracular Spectacular
Goldwasser wrote the music at nineteen in a dorm room, an exercise in stereotypical pop that outgrew itself.
★ 6.7
Born on the Bayou
1969 · From Bayou Country
Fogerty wrote it in a California apartment, never having set foot in Louisiana, and still summoned the swamp.
★ 6.8
Night MovesBob Seger
Night Moves
1976 · From Night Moves
Seger walked out of American Graffiti with a story of his own, and took six months finding the words.
★ 6.8
Caroline, No
1966 · From Pet Sounds
Twelve players at Western, an empty water jug for percussion, and Murry Wilson speeding the tape a semitone.
★ 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
NightswimmingR.E.M.
Nightswimming
1992 · From Automatic for the People
Mills cut the piano at Criteria on the instrument heard on "Layla," and John Paul Jones arranged the strings.
★ 7.2
1979
1996 · From Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Flood said it wasn't good enough, so Corgan rewrote it that night and got the band's biggest hit.
★ 7.2
The Boys of SummerDon Henley
The Boys of Summer
1984
Campbell built the track on a LinnDrum, Petty passed, and Henley wrote middle age onto somebody else's demo.
★ 7.3