skopiaBarry, Greenwich and Spector wrote it for Darlene Love in 1963; this 2004 cover stayed off streaming for seventeen years.
The first ballad Kid Rock ever cut, its opening lines written, by his account, in a jail cell.
Eugene Record and Barbara Acklin wrote it for the Chi-Lites in 1971; Hammer's hushed remake reached number four.
Alone in a Hollywood hotel room missing his son, Scantlin turned the ache into ten weeks atop Mainstream Rock.
Jeff Fortgang wrote it fresh out of Yale; the Persuaders cut it first, and Stewart took it to number ten.
Herbie Crichlow and Max Martin wrote it; the video's dedication to Denniz Pop turns the harmonies into mourning.
Track four on Writer's Block, self-produced by the trio, and its plainest study of being left behind.
Cut in under fifteen minutes as a B-side in 1942, it sat at number one for twelve weeks.
Gill wrote it with Tim DuBois, Patty Loveless sang the harmony, and the CMA named it Single of the Year.
Elton John joined Michael onstage near Chicago in October 1991, and the live duet topped both charts.
Eric Carmen's verse borrowed from Rachmaninoff's Second Concerto, and Dion nailing the high F Foster dared her to try.
Pirner wrote it during a breakdown, and Tony Kaye's video named missing children, region by region, until some came home.
Written to order as a Christmas single, then reworded for Pretty Woman and two weeks atop the Hot 100.
A piano bridge from session player Roger Joseph Manning Jr. lifts the band's most serious song out of its despair.
Jon Lord's Hammond organ on the 1982 original, a heartbreak song Coverdale wrote in Portugal, later a number one.
Four writers, one late-night phone call, and a chorus that took Record and Song of the Year at the Grammys.
One voice layered roughly twenty times into a choir, and a settlement that added Petty and Lynne.
A busy signal on Nilsson's telephone became the repeating note, and Chuck Negron sings loneliness to number five.
