St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)
1985
Foster showed Parr a news clip about Rick Hansen's wheelchair world tour, and the pair wrote it that Friday afternoon.
★ 2.2
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.
Hold Me Back
2012
G5's beat is a stomp, and the black-and-white video walks Ross through New Orleans' Calliope projects.
★ 2.4
Am I Wrong
2013
Two Oslo singers formerly billed as Envy, a video shot at Victoria Falls, and a Hot 100 number four.
★ 2.8
Live Your Life
2008
Eighty to number one in a single week, on a hook lifted from the Moldovan pop song behind Numa Numa.
★ 4.0
Maniac
1983
A slasher-film joke rewritten on Phil Ramone's orders into Flashdance's training montage, and two weeks at number one.
★ 4.0
Can't Hold Us
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
2011
Ray Dalton's hook, Ryan Lewis's piano gallop, and a sleeper single that took nearly two years to reach number one.
★ 4.0
Round and Round
1984
Three writers bouncing riffs between cassettes in a Hollywood apartment, and Milton Berle in the video that broke them.
★ 4.0
All Star
1999
Greg Camp studied the Billboard top fifty for parts, then Shrek used it as temp music and never replaced it.
★ 4.8
Swinging on a Star
1944
Van Heusen heard Crosby warn a son at dinner he might grow up a mule, and Burke built the lyric.
★ 4.8
Juke Box Hero
1982
Two unfinished songs Mutt Lange stitched together, and a kid outside the arena hearing one guitar through the wall.
★ 4.9
I Believe I Can FlyR. Kelly
I Believe I Can Fly
1996
Written for Space Jam, Paul Riser's strings taped in Detroit, the Luv Club Choir massed behind the vocal.
★ 5.1
The Distance
1996
Guitarist Greg Brown wrote it, McCrea narrates deadpan over trumpet, and the driver keeps racing long after everyone left.
★ 5.2
Forever (Drake)
2009
Boi-1da's beat was first meant for Kardinal Offishall; Kanye, by his account, rewrote his verse for two days after Eminem.
★ 5.2
Flashdance...What a Feeling
1983
Cara and Forsey wrote most of the lyric in a cab to the studio; six weeks at number one followed.
★ 5.6
Started From The Bottom
2013 · From Nothing Was the Same
Mike Zombie's beat samples a Bruno Sanfilippo ambient piano piece; the title came out of a Future studio session.
★ 5.7
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
Eye of the Tiger
1982
Stallone had cut the fight scene to Queen, couldn't clear it, so Sullivan and Peterik timed their chords to punches.
★ 5.9
West Coast
2014
Verses at 123 beats a minute collapsing to 65 in the chorus, cut live with Auerbach's band in Nashville.
★ 5.9
Mr. Jones
1993
T-Bone Burnett replaced the band's own drummer with session man Denny Fongheiser, and Duritz got the fame he wished for.
★ 6.2