My List
2002
Five weeks atop the country chart for a song about the errands that keep pushing family aside.
★ 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
Christmas in Hollis
1987 · From A Very Special Christmas
Nineteen eighty-seven, a Special Olympics benefit album, and Run-DMC turning Clarence Carter's Back Door Santa into a Queens carol.
★ 3.8
Take a Walk
2012
Angelakos built each verse from a man in his own family who immigrated, then set financial ruin to synths.
★ 4.5
My Blue HeavenGene Austin
My Blue Heaven
1928
Donaldson wrote the tune waiting his turn at a Friars Club billiard table; Austin's soft croon sold millions.
★ 4.5
Stay Together For The Kids
2001
DeLonge's parents divorced when he was eighteen; Finn produced, and the wrecking-ball video was reshot after September 11.
★ 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
The Mother We Share
2012
Cut in the trio's Glasgow basement studio, sibling estrangement wrapped in synth glitter and Mayberry's bright clean vocal.
★ 5.1
The King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1
1998 · From In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Schneider got the fuzz from tube preamps and compression, not pedals, and Mangum sings childhood into two minutes flat.
★ 5.9
Copperhead Road
1988
Three generations of moonshine, Vietnam and the drug trade, named an official Tennessee state song in 2023.
★ 5.9
Sweet Baby James
1970 · From Sweet Baby James
Taylor wrote it driving through the Carolinas to meet his newborn nephew, a cowboy lullaby in waltz time.
★ 6.6
My Girls
2009 · From Merriweather Post Pavilion
An arpeggio out of Chicago house, a sample from the Cassini Saturn probe, Lennox wanting only a home.
★ 6.9
Say It Ain't So
1994 · From Weezer (The Blue Album)
Cuomo's working title was "The Classic Rock Song"; Ocasek produced, and the clean offbeat chords carry a family's addiction.
★ 7.0
All of the Lights
Kanye West and Rihanna
2010 · From My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Rihanna sings the hook, Elton John plays piano, and West spent two years stacking fourteen singers behind the horns.
★ 7.3
Ode to Billie Joe
1967
Gentry's demo vocal was kept, Jimmie Haskell added four violins and two cellos, and the intended B-side became the A-side hit.
★ 7.3
God Bless the ChildBillie Holiday
God Bless the Child
1941
A quarrel with her mother over money, by Holiday's own account, gave the song its title line and its steel.
★ 7.8
Family Affair (Sly and the Family Stone)
1971 · From There's a Riot Goin' On
A rhythm box edited into a heartbeat, Billy Preston on Pianet, and three weeks at number one.
★ 7.8
Ms. Jackson
2000 · From Stankonia
Andre 3000 apologizing to Erykah Badu's mother, who liked it enough to buy a Ms. Jackson license plate.
★ 8.7