Born to RunBruce Springsteen
Born to Run
1975 · From Born to Run
Months of wall-of-sound overdubs poured into one getaway car, and every word still sounds like escape.
★ 9.4
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.
(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay
1968 · From The Dock of the Bay
Redding cut the vocal three days before the plane crash, and Cropper finished it into the first posthumous American number one.
★ 8.8
Smoke Stack Lightning
1956 · From Moanin' in the Moonlight
One chord, no changes, Sumlin's guitar circling, and Wolf's howl answering the trains whose sparks named the song.
★ 8.5
Tangled Up in Blue
1975 · From Blood on the Tracks
Dylan recut it in Minneapolis with his brother producing, then spent decades rewriting a story already told out of order.
★ 8.2
B.O.B.
2000 · From Stankonia
Bombs Over Baghdad at 155 beats per minute, drum and bass colliding with a gospel choir and a guitar solo.
★ 8.2
Rollin' Stone
1950 · From The Anthology: 1947-1972
One man, one electric guitar, no band; the Chess single that later named a magazine and a British group.
★ 7.8
Free Bird
1973 · From Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd
Collins's chords sat unused for two years until Van Zant found the melody; the long outro was his onstage rest.
★ 7.7
Take it EasyThe Eagles
Take it Easy
1972 · From Eagles
Browne could not finish the second verse, Frey did, and Leadon's double-time banjo drives the Eagles' debut single.
★ 7.7
Free Fallin'
1989 · From Full Moon Fever
Two days of writing with Jeff Lynne, Mike Campbell's twelve-string, and Ventura Boulevard turned into the whole San Fernando Valley.
★ 7.6
American Girl
1977 · From Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Petty cut it on the Fourth of July, 1976, and Roger McGuinn heard the Byrds so clearly he covered it.
★ 7.6
Tumbling Dice
1972 · From Exile on Main St.
Taylor on bass, Jimmy Miller drumming the coda, and a lyric Jagger got from a housekeeper who played dice.
★ 7.5
Dust My BroomElmore James
Dust My Broom
1951
Johnson's 1936 triplet figure run through an amplifier, Sonny Boy Williamson on harmonica, and a riff everybody stole.
★ 7.5
Truckin'
1970 · From American Beauty
Hunter's lyric folds in a 1970 New Orleans bust, and the Library of Congress declared the record a national treasure.
★ 6.9
New Slang
2001 · From Oh, Inverted World
Sub Pop pressed it as a one-off single in 2001; three years later Garden State made it a generational password.
★ 6.8
The WandererDion
The Wanderer
1961
Ernie Maresca offered it to Nino and the Ebb Tides first; buried as a B-side, it went to number two.
★ 6.7
Runnin' Down a Dream
1989 · From Full Moon Fever
Mike Campbell's fuzz riff, then a closing solo of nearly two minutes he nailed in a single take.
★ 6.7
Pony Blues
1929
H.C. Speir set up the June 1929 session, and Patton's first Paramount release still sounds like the Delta's starting point.
★ 6.7
Ramble OnLed Zeppelin
Ramble On
1969 · From Led Zeppelin II
Cut in two New York studios in June 1969, with Mordor and Gollum folded into a restless road song.
★ 6.6
I'm Eighteen
1970
Ezrin cut an eight-minute jam down to three, and John Lydon mimed along to it to join the Sex Pistols.
★ 6.4
Break on Through (To the Other Side)The Doors
Break on Through (To the Other Side)
1967 · From The Doors
Densmore's bossa nova drum feel, Krieger's riff borrowed from a Butterfield blues cover, and a refrain their producer censored.
★ 6.3