They Reminisce Over YouPete Rock
They Reminisce Over You
1992
Pete Rock looped a Tom Scott saxophone line, and CL Smooth's eulogy for a lost friend still aches.
★ 8.3
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.
Paint It, BlackThe Rolling Stones
Paint It, Black
1966 · From Aftermath
Jones's sitar made it the first number one to feature the instrument, and Decca added the comma by mistake.
★ 8.2
Nothing Compares 2 USinead O'Connor
Nothing Compares 2 U
1990
Prince wrote it for a side project that went nowhere; O'Connor's tears in the video were real, and unplanned.
★ 7.9
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
Ohio
1970
Seventeen days between the Life photographs from Kent State and four voices cutting it live in a Los Angeles room.
★ 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
Wake UpArcade Fire
Wake Up
2005 · From Funeral
A wordless chorus half of indie rock then copied, and Bowie sang it onstage with the band in 2005.
★ 7.4
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
Fire and RainJames Taylor
Fire and Rain
1970 · From Sweet Baby James
Kunkel's brushes, Carole King's piano, and three verses that hold a death, an addiction and a band's collapse.
★ 7.3
Back on the Chain Gang
1982 · From Learning to Crawl
Hynde cut it weeks after Honeyman-Scott's death, with Rockpile's Bremner on guitar and a Sam Cooke chant behind her.
★ 6.9
Would
1992 · From Dirt
Cantrell wrote it for the Singles soundtrack while grieving Andrew Wood; Starr's bass line and two voices doing the mourning.
★ 6.9
Holland, 1945
1998 · From In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Every instrument distorted at Schneider's Denver studio, and Mangum turns an elegy for Anne Frank into pure forward momentum.
★ 6.8
The Needle and the Damage DoneNeil Young
The Needle and the Damage Done
1972 · From Harvest
Two minutes on addiction, taped live at UCLA's Royce Hall in January 1971 and placed unchanged on Harvest.
★ 6.7
Tha CrossroadsBone Thugs-n-Harmony
Tha Crossroads
1995
Recut after Eazy-E's death, the elegy spent eight weeks at number one and won the group a Grammy.
★ 6.3
Casimir Pulaski Day
2005 · From Illinois
Four guitar chords never change while Stevens sings a Bible study, a friend's death, and a question for God.
★ 6.1
Ordinary World
1993 · From Duran Duran (The Wedding Album)
Three days to finish the music in Cuccurullo's home studio, and an elegy for a dead friend became their comeback.
★ 6.1
Tears in Heaven
1991
Will Jennings helped finish a lyric Clapton wrote after his four-year-old son died; three Grammys followed in 1993.
★ 5.9
Yellow Ledbetter
1991
McCready's riff was a Ten outtake, and Vedder improvised a lyric he has been rewriting onstage ever since.
★ 5.9
One Day
1996 · From Ridin' Dirty
Pimp C built it on an Isley Brothers loop, Ronnie Spencer sings the hook, and Texas rap found its elegy.
★ 5.9
Go Rest High on That Mountain
1995
Gill started it for Keith Whitley in 1989 and finished it after his half-brother died, Patty Loveless singing harmony.
★ 5.5
Wake Me Up When September Ends
2005 · From American Idiot
Armstrong's father died in September 1982; by his account the words he said that day waited twenty years.
★ 5.5
Candle in the Wind 1997Elton John
Candle in the Wind 1997
1997
Taupin rewrote his Marilyn Monroe lyric for Diana, George Martin added strings hours after the funeral, and 33 million sold.
★ 5.5
I'll Be Missing YouSean Combs
I'll Be Missing You
1997
An uncleared Police sample handed Sting the royalties; Faith Evans and 112 turned mourning into eleven weeks at number one.
★ 5.2
One Sweet Day
1995
Nathan Morris had written nearly the same song for his late road manager, Carey said; sixteen weeks at number one.
★ 5.2
Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)
2001
Monahan woke from a dream of his late mother, and Paul Buckmaster's strings carry the whole ache.
★ 4.8
It's All Coming Back to Me NowCeline Dion
It's All Coming Back to Me Now
1996
Steinman wrote it out of Wuthering Heights for Pandora's Box in 1989, and Dion made it enormous.
★ 4.8
See You Again
2015
Puth turned a dance production into a piano ballad for Paul Walker; it spent twelve weeks atop the Hot 100.
★ 4.5
Hear You Me
2001
Trombino set it as a 6/8 waltz for two sisters who ran Weezer's fan club; never a single, sung everywhere.
★ 4.3
If I Die Young
2010
Kimberly Perry wrote it alone, and banjo, fiddle and mandolin carry her meditation on mortality across fifty-three Hot 100 weeks.
★ 4.2
My Immortal
2003
Lee and Moody wrote it at fifteen; the album kept her raw demo vocal, radio got Campbell's grieving strings.
★ 4.0
When I Get Where I'm Going
2005
George Teren and Rivers Rutherford wrote it; Dolly Parton's harmony carries a song about grief and the afterlife.
★ 3.5
Pardon Me
2000
Scott Litt produced it at NRG, and Boyd wrote the lyric amid two deaths and a collapsing relationship.
★ 3.2
The Good Stuff
2002
Seven weeks atop the country chart in 2002, and a bartender's story Jim Collins and Craig Wiseman wrote.
★ 3.1
The Living Years
1988
Rutherford and B.A. Robertson had both just lost their fathers; Carrack, who lost his young, sang it.
★ 2.9
Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely
1999
Herbie Crichlow and Max Martin wrote it; the video's dedication to Denniz Pop turns the harmonies into mourning.
★ 2.7
Wherever You Will Go
2001
Kamin wrote it after a funeral, imagining the widower left behind; it then held Adult Top 40 for twenty-three weeks.
★ 2.0