JoleneDolly Parton
Jolene
1973 · From Jolene
Dolly pleading with her rival rather than fighting her, written the same day as "I Will Always Love You."
★ 9.3
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.
Crazy (Patsy Cline)Patsy Cline
Crazy (Patsy Cline)
1962 · From Patsy Cline Showcase
Willie Nelson wrote it; Cline, back after a car wreck bruised her ribs, nailed the vocal in one take.
★ 8.8
I Walk the Line
1956 · From Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar
Cash slipped paper under his guitar strings for that snare tick, and hums to find each new key.
★ 8.8
Ring of Fire
1963 · From Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash
Anita Carter cut it first, her sister June wrote it with Merle Kilgore, and Cash added the mariachi trumpets.
★ 8.6
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
1949 · From 40 Greatest Hits
Issued as a B-side because jukeboxes wanted uptempo, with Jerry Byrd's steel guitar shadowing every line Williams sings.
★ 8.5
He Stopped Loving Her Today
1980
Jones thought nobody would play something so morbid; Sherrill spent eighteen months coaxing the vocal onto tape.
★ 8.3
Folsom Prison Blues
1955 · From Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar
A prison film in Germany gave Cash the song; he borrowed the melody from Gordon Jenkins and later paid up.
★ 8.1
Your Cheatin' Heart
1953 · From 40 Greatest Hits
A lyric dictated from a car seat, one last Nashville session, and six weeks at country number one.
★ 8.0
Wichita Lineman
1968
Webb sent it over unfinished, one verse short, and Campbell cut the loneliest three minutes in country music.
★ 7.9
I Fall to Pieces
1961 · From Patsy Cline Showcase
Cline resisted the pop polish until Bradley's arrangement and the Jordanaires handed her a first country number one.
★ 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
Can't Help Falling in LoveElvis Presley
Can't Help Falling in Love
1961 · From Blue Hawaii
A 1784 French melody rewritten for Blue Hawaii, and the song Presley chose to close his shows for a decade.
★ 7.7
Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)
1935
A 1907 hymn rewritten into a mother's funeral, with A.P. Carter tightening the grief and Maybelle's guitar holding it.
★ 7.5
Mama Tried
1968 · From Mama Tried
Three years in San Quentin behind him, Haggard gave his narrator a life sentence he never served himself.
★ 7.5
Crying
1961
Cut at RCA Studio B with Floyd Cramer on piano, and Orbison's voice climbing until the room falls away.
★ 7.5
Stand By Your Man
1968 · From Stand By Your Man
Written in about twenty minutes at the end of a session, and Wynette immediately dreaded that high note forever.
★ 7.4
Hey Good Lookin'
1951 · From 40 Greatest Hits
Williams wrote it for Little Jimmy Dickens, recorded it first himself, and held country number one for eight weeks.
★ 7.4
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
Love Story
2008 · From Fearless
Swift wrote it in twenty minutes on her bedroom floor, gave Romeo and Juliet a happy ending, banjo included.
★ 7.3
Take Me Home, Country Roads
1971
Danoff and Nivert finished it with Denver one December night, and they premiered it hours later at the Cellar Door.
★ 7.3
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
1975 · From Red Headed Stranger
Fred Rose wrote it in the forties; Nelson's Texas version had Columbia's boss asking why he'd sent a demo.
★ 7.3
Friends in Low Places
1990
Bud Lee forgot his wallet, joked that he knew the cook, and Brooks took it to number one.
★ 7.3
On the Road Again
1980 · From Honeysuckle Rose
An airsickness bag, a film producer's request, and a single cut live at a club over two Austin nights.
★ 7.0
Always On My Mind
1982 · From Always on My Mind
Haggard passed on it at the Pancho and Lefty sessions, so Nelson stayed behind and cut it himself after hours.
★ 7.0
By the Time I Get To Phoenix
1967
Webb mapped a drive that is geographically impossible, and Sinatra still called it the greatest torch song ever written.
★ 6.9
Jackson
1967 · From At Folsom Prison
Wheeler got the idea from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Cash and Carter trade the taunts like they mean them.
★ 6.8
Amarillo By Morning
1983
Stafford's idea, Fraser's overnight lyric, and a fiddle arrangement that rodeo crowds took for their own.
★ 6.8
Wide Open Spaces
1998 · From Wide Open Spaces
Gibson wrote it on her first trip home from forestry school, and Lloyd Maines knew it belonged to his daughter.
★ 6.6
The Dance
1989
Tony Arata's lyric works as a breakup song or an elegy, and Brooks' video chose the elegy.
★ 6.6
Pancho and Lefty
1983 · From Pancho & Lefty
Nelson cut his part after midnight, fetched Haggard from his bus, and kept the one take Haggard wanted redone.
★ 6.5
Walkin' After Midnight
1957 · From Patsy Cline
Written for Kay Starr and shelved, resisted by Cline, then sung to victory on Arthur Godfrey's talent show.
★ 6.5
Don't Come Home A' Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)
1966 · From Don't Come Home A' Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)
Lynn and her sister Peggy Sue wrote it, and the album became country music's first gold record by a woman.
★ 6.3
If You've Got the Money I've Got the TimeLefty Frizzell
If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time
1950
Jim Beck offered a free demo in his Dallas studio; Frizzell's stretched phrasing became the template Haggard and Jones inherited.
★ 6.2
Gentle on My Mind
1967
Doug Dillard's banjo rolls under a lyric with no chorus, written soon after Hartford watched Doctor Zhivago.
★ 6.2
Follow Your Arrow
2013
Musgraves wrote it with Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, a shrug at conformity the CMAs voted Song of the Year.
★ 6.1
She Thinks I Still CareGeorge Jones
She Thinks I Still Care
1962
His biographer says Jones grumbled about all the 'just becauses'; Jones denied it, then sat six weeks at country number one.
★ 6.1
Before He Cheats
2006
Tompkins and Kear wrote it hoping Gretchen Wilson would cut it; Underwood's version stayed sixty-four weeks on the Hot 100.
★ 6.1
She's Got YouPatsy Cline
She's Got You
1962 · From Sentimentally Yours
Owen Bradley produced the December 1961 session; Cline works through an inventory of keepsakes while Floyd Cramer's piano answers.
★ 5.9
Look at Miss Ohio
2003 · From Soul Journey
Welch keeps the arrangement to two guitars, and a beauty queen decides she will do right, just not yet.
★ 5.8
Merry Go Round
2012
A pun on two Marys, overheard from a co-writer's mother, seeded a debut single that won a Grammy.
★ 5.8