Sourced and sung.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Jolene
Dolly pleading with her rival rather than fighting her, written the same day as "I Will Always Love You."
Love Will Tear Us Apart
The title flips Captain and Tennille into its opposite, and the single arrived a month after Curtis's death.
I Walk the Line
Cash slipped paper under his guitar strings for that snare tick, and hums to find each new key.
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
Beyonce found Bob Fosse's Mexican Breakfast on YouTube; three Grammys and a decade of wedding receptions followed.
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Two accordions, a key change eight beats in, and 21 takes at Gold Star before Wilson sang about growing up.
Family Affair (Sly and the Family Stone)
A rhythm box edited into a heartbeat, Billy Preston on Pianet, and three weeks at number one.
International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)
A Willie Hutch loop left alone at the top, and Andre 3000's verse reportedly returned with the drums stripped off.
Stand By Your Man
Written in about twenty minutes at the end of a session, and Wynette immediately dreaded that high note forever.
Then He Kissed Me
Larry Levine stumbled onto that echo by accident, and LaLa Brooks sings a whole courtship in under three minutes.
You Never Can Tell
Written in federal prison, cut at Chess in January 1964, and the happiest wedding song rock and roll made.
Jackson
Wheeler got the idea from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Cash and Carter trade the taunts like they mean them.
White Wedding
Steve Stevens' guitar cutting through Keith Forsey's production, and Idol sneering his way through somebody else's wedding.
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.
Everything She Wants
Michael programmed the LinnDrum in an evening, wrote the vocal next morning, and turned marital dread into a groove.
Daydream Believer
John Stewart wrote it after a day of pure daydreaming; Tork's piano and Jones's lead did the rest.
Chapel of Love
Red Bird's first single, written by Barry, Greenwich and Spector, and it knocked the Beatles off number one.
We've Only Just Begun
Richard Carpenter recognized Paul Williams singing a bank commercial and asked whether a whole song existed underneath.
Archie, Marry Me
Snowed into a Prince Edward Island farmhouse, Rankin wrote a proposal song; VanGaalen cut it in Calgary.
I Write Sins Not Tragedies
Pizzicato cello, a title lifted from Douglas Coupland, and a circus wedding video that won Video of the Year.
You're Still the One
Written as a reply to everyone who doubted her marriage to Mutt Lange, and it won two country Grammys.
Band of Gold
Holland-Dozier-Holland hid behind the pseudonym Edythe Wayne, Dennis Coffey added electric sitar, and Britain gave it six weeks on top.
Remember When
Jackson wrote it alone, a whole marriage from courtship to old age, and country radio held it at number one.
Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Baldry talked Elton out of a wedding in 1968, and Taupin wrote him into the chorus as Sugar Bear.
Simple Song
Mercer wrote it in his living room about his marriage, with Greg Kurstin on guitars, Mellotron and piano.
Check Yes or No
Wells and Black's first song ever cut by a major star, and Strait took a playground note to number one.
Always (Atlantic Starr)
Three Lewis brothers wrote it, David Lewis and Barbara Weathers sang it, and the band's only number one arrived.
From This Moment On
Twain got the idea at a soccer match in Italy; Bryan White sang the original duet version.
The Good Stuff
Seven weeks atop the country chart in 2002, and a bartender's story Jim Collins and Craig Wiseman wrote.
How Forever Feels
Tim McGraw cut it first and passed; Chesney took it to six weeks at number one on country radio.
I Got a Car
Bubba Strait pitched it off a rodeo friend's CD; his father left it on the coffee table, then cut it.
Just Another Day In Paradise
Vassar and Craig Wiseman built it from household mishaps and money worries, and it became his first country number one.