Bridge Over Troubled Water
1970
Garfunkel's voice climbing a gospel staircase, the last verse arriving like the cavalry.
★ 9.5
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.
The Sound of Silence
1965
A folk flop until a producer secretly overdubbed electric guitars, and the duo heard their number one on the radio.
★ 9.4
Blowin' in the Wind
1963 · From The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Nine questions, no answers, and the song the civil rights movement adopted whole and never gave back.
★ 9.2
Redemption SongBob Marley and the Wailers
Redemption Song
1980 · From Uprising
A single voice and acoustic guitar close Uprising, with a line lifted from Marcus Garvey and Marley already ill.
★ 8.5
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan)
1964 · From Bringing It All Back Home
Bruce Langhorne's giant Turkish frame drum gave Dylan the image, and the Byrds' cover turned it into folk rock.
★ 8.4
Hallelujah
1994 · From Grace
Buckley learned it from John Cale's version and cut over twenty takes at Bearsville; the edit sounds like one breath.
★ 8.2
The Times They Are A-Changin'
1964 · From The Times They Are A-Changin'
Dylan set out to write an anthem on purpose, borrowing the cadence of Irish and Scottish ballads, and got one.
★ 8.1
Mrs. Robinson
1968
Simon had it as Mrs. Roosevelt with nonsense syllables for a verse, and it won Record of the Year.
★ 7.9
Fast CarTracy Chapman
Fast Car
1988 · From Tracy Chapman
Stevie Wonder's gear failed at the Mandela tribute, Chapman went on with a guitar, and the record went top ten.
★ 7.8
The Boxer
1969
Over a hundred hours of work, and that cannon-shot snare is Hal Blaine playing beside a Columbia elevator shaft.
★ 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
Both Sides Now
1968 · From Clouds
Mitchell was reading Henderson the Rain King on a plane, looked out at the clouds, and started writing immediately.
★ 7.5
SuzanneLeonard Cohen
Suzanne
1967 · From Songs of Leonard Cohen
Cohen thought Simon's orchestration overblown, but the four-track master wouldn't let him strip it; Judy Collins recorded it first.
★ 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
America
1968
No rhyme scheme anywhere, just Simon reworking a 1964 road trip with Kathy Chitty until the emptiness lands mid-verse.
★ 7.3
Big Yellow Taxi
1970 · From Ladies of the Canyon
Mitchell threw back a Hawaii hotel curtain, saw mountains above a parking lot, and wrote pop's sunniest protest song.
★ 7.1
Wildwood Flower
1928
Maybelle Carter played melody and rhythm at once, and every country guitarist since has learned this 1860 parlor tune.
★ 7.0
Scarborough Fair
1966
Simon learned it from Martin Carthy in London; Garfunkel wound an anti-war lyric through the ballad as counterpoint.
★ 7.0
Skinny Love
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
Vernon cut it alone in his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin over a winter, and the falsetto still sounds snowbound.
★ 6.9
Cecilia
1970
Friends banged on a piano bench at a party; Simon and Halee looped the thumping into a rhythm track.
★ 6.7
Pink Moon
1972 · From Pink Moon
Voice, guitar, and a single overdubbed piano line, taped after eleven at night with only an engineer present.
★ 6.7
Holocene
2011 · From Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Horns and clarinets swell over guitar in a converted Wisconsin veterinary clinic; Grammy voters nominated it for record and song.
★ 6.7
Homeward Bound
1965
Simon wrote it on an English railway platform missing Kathy Chitty; a plaque at Widnes station now claims the spot.
★ 6.5
Flume
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
Three months alone in his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin, and falsetto stacked until one voice becomes a choir.
★ 6.4
White Winter Hymnal
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
A round about snow that the band never once played together, its voices stacked from first takes in production.
★ 6.4
Mykonos
2008 · From Sun Giant
Pecknold rebuilt a piano soul demo with Phil Ek at Bear Creek, and the harmonies own the second half.
★ 6.2
I Am a Rock
1966
Simon first cut it alone for a UK-only album, then Hal Blaine and Carol Kaye turned withdrawal electric.
★ 6.0
Helplessness Blues
2011 · From Helplessness Blues
Pecknold called it an anti-protest song, a plain opinion with no poetry, and gave it away free in January 2011.
★ 6.0
Northern Sky
1970 · From Bryter Layter
Boyd handed Cale the demo and he improvised celeste, piano and organ around Drake's most openly loving song.
★ 5.9
Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)Jose Gonzalez
Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)
2003
One classical guitar, no drums, and the Knife's synth-pop single reduced to a whisper that reached UK number nine.
★ 5.8
Re: Stacks
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
In his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin, Vernon shaped the melody wordlessly, then wrote his gambling losses into it.
★ 5.6
Wabash CannonballRoy Acuff
Wabash Cannonball
1936
Recorded in 1936 with someone else singing lead, then cut again by Acuff in 1947, a train that never existed.
★ 5.6
Such Great Heights (Iron & Wine)Iron & Wine
Such Great Heights (Iron & Wine)
2004
Beam slowed Gibbard's synth-pop into hushed acoustic guitar for a Sub Pop B-side, then Garden State put it everywhere.
★ 5.5
Blue Ridge MountainsFleet Foxes
Blue Ridge Mountains
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
Homesick for his brother Sean, Pecknold buried the vocals in reverb and block harmony that swells like Sacred Harp singing.
★ 5.5
Lost Cause
2002 · From Sea Change
One week of writing after a nine-year relationship ended, and Godrich kept the arrangement to acoustic guitar and brushes.
★ 5.4
Emmylou
2012
Mike Mogis produced it; the Söderberg sisters name Gram and Emmylou, June and Johnny, and sing harmony like devotion.
★ 5.4
Gone Gone Gone
2007 · From Raising Sand
A 1964 Everly Brothers single, rebuilt by T Bone Burnett into swampy menace, won a Grammy.
★ 5.1
Fly
1970 · From Bryter Layter
John Cale's viola and harpsichord circle Drake's plea for a second chance, and Wes Anderson later borrowed it.
★ 5.1
Day Is Done
1969 · From Five Leaves Left
Voice, guitar and strings went down together at Sound Techniques, Robert Kirby scoring the sound of coming up short.
★ 5.0
Goodnight Irene
1950
Lead Belly died months before Gordon Jenkins's orchestra carried his waltz to thirteen weeks atop the American charts.
★ 4.9