Strange Fruit
1939
A Bronx schoolteacher's poem about lynching, sung in a single spotlight, still the bravest three minutes on record.
★ 9.6
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.
West End Blues
1928
Armstrong's twelve-second opening cadenza announced that jazz had a soloist, and everything since has been the answer.
★ 9.1
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
Georgia on My Mind
1960 · From The Genius Hits the Road
Hoagy Carmichael's 1930 tune, remade as Charles's first Billboard number one and adopted as Georgia's state song in 1979.
★ 8.2
SomethingThe Beatles
Something
1969 · From Abbey Road
Harrison lifted the opening line from James Taylor and wrote the first Beatles A-side that wasn't Lennon or McCartney.
★ 8.2
Mannish BoyMuddy Waters
Mannish Boy
1955 · From The Anthology: 1947-1972
Waters answered Bo Diddley's answer to his own song in 1955, holding one chord and a stop-time riff throughout.
★ 8.1
Cross Road Blues
1936 · From King of the Delta Blues Singers
Two takes in a San Antonio hotel room, Johnson's slide answering his own voice; the devil came later.
★ 7.9
When a Man Loves a WomanPercy Sledge
When a Man Loves a Woman
1966
Sledge gave the writing credits away to two bandmates, and Atlantic pressed the take with the out-of-tune horns.
★ 7.9
At Last
1960 · From At Last!
Riley Hampton's strings behind a 1941 film tune James took over, and the Library of Congress preserved it.
★ 7.8
The Thrill Is Gone
1969 · From Completely Well
Bert de Coteaux's twelve-piece string section, overdubbed a week later, carried King's minor-key blues onto pop radio.
★ 7.8
Ain't No SunshineBill Withers
Ain't No Sunshine
1971
Withers was building airplane toilets when he cut this, and he left the unfinished bridge as twenty-six repeats.
★ 7.8
Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
1927
Wordless humming answered by a pocketknife slide, an 1792 hymn tune NASA put on the Voyager Golden Record.
★ 7.8
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
Long Tall Sally
1956 · From Here's Little Richard
Blackwell built the lyric to run too fast for Pat Boone, and Richard shouted it out at Cosimo Matassa's J&M.
★ 7.8
Feeling Good
1965 · From I Put a Spell on You
Written for a Newley and Bricusse musical, it opens with nothing but her voice before Hal Mooney's horns land.
★ 7.7
Hoochie Coochie Man
1954 · From The Anthology: 1947-1972
Dixon wrote it, Little Walter blew the harmonica, and that stop-time riff spread through blues and rock alike.
★ 7.7
T for Texas (Blue Yodel No. 1)
1928
Cut in a converted Camden church in 1927, two takes, and the yodel that made hillbilly records big business.
★ 7.7
Mystery Train
1955 · From The Sun Sessions
Two years after Junior Parker cut it at Sun, Moore's slapback guitar turned the same train into rockabilly.
★ 7.6
St. Louis BluesBessie Smith
St. Louis Blues
1925 · From The Complete Recordings
Armstrong's cornet answering every line Smith sings, with only a wheezing harmonium underneath, cut in New York in 1925.
★ 7.5
Rolling in the Deep
2010 · From 21
Written with Paul Epworth in one afternoon after a breakup, and the credits list stiletto heels as percussion.
★ 7.5
I'll Take You ThereThe Staple Singers
I'll Take You There
1972
Al Bell lifted the bassline from a Jamaican instrumental, and Mavis Staples turned Muscle Shoals into a pulpit.
★ 7.5
Ain't That a Shame
1955
Bartholomew and Domino wrote it, Pat Boone's cover took the number one, and Domino's rolling piano triplets outlasted it.
★ 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
Got My Mojo Working
1957 · From The Anthology: 1947-1972
Waters heard Ann Cole sing it on tour, cut a single that flopped, then made it his signature at Newport.
★ 7.3
I Put a Spell on You
1956
Intended as a blues ballad until the producer brought wine; Hawkins said he never remembered recording it.
★ 7.3
Spoonful
1960 · From Howlin' Wolf
A Willie Dixon lyric about craving, drawn loosely from a 1929 Charley Patton side, and Wolf looming over one chord.
★ 7.2
Boom Boom
1962
A bartender's scolding at Detroit's Apex Bar became the hook, and Motown's future Funk Brothers played the session.
★ 7.0
Downhearted BluesBessie Smith
Downhearted Blues
1923 · From The Complete Recordings
Alberta Hunter and Lovie Austin wrote it; Smith's debut record sold 780,000 copies in six months, just voice and piano.
★ 6.9
Crazy Blues
1920
Seventy-five thousand copies in two months, Perry Bradford's tune, and Smith's voice opening the record industry to Black audiences.
★ 6.8
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
Back Door ManHowlin' Wolf
Back Door Man
1961 · From Howlin' Wolf
Dixon's title was blues code for adultery, cut by Wolf at Chess and reopened by the Doors in 1967.
★ 6.6
Boogie Woogie Bugle BoyThe Andrews Sisters
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
1941
Raye and Prince wrote it for an Abbott and Costello comedy, and the sisters harmonize like a brass section.
★ 6.5
Please Send Me Someone to Love
1950
Cut for Art Rupe's Specialty in 1950, Mayfield's prayer for the world arrives before he asks anything for himself.
★ 6.2
Pine Top Boogie WoogiePinetop Smith
Pine Top Boogie Woogie
1928
Smith calls out the steps over a rolling left hand, on the first record to carry boogie woogie in its title.
★ 5.6
In The Jailhouse Now
1928
Recorded in Camden in February 1928, a vaudeville novelty from 1915 that Rodgers claimed forever with one yodel.
★ 5.5
Give Me One Reason
1995 · From New Beginning
Chapman played it live for seven years before recording it, then a loose blues shuffle became her biggest hit.
★ 5.5
Spike Driver Blues (1928)Mississippi John Hurt
Spike Driver Blues (1928)
1928 · From 1928 Sessions
Okeh sent an Avalon sharecropper home after modest sales, leaving behind a fingerpicked John Henry that refuses the hammer.
★ 4.3
The Memphis BluesVictor Military Band
The Memphis Blues
1914
Handy sold the rights and complained bitterly ever after; this July 1914 recording entered the National Recording Registry.
★ 2.9