White Christmas
1942
Berlin's snowless Christmas song, the best-selling physical single ever pressed, and the sound of every soldier's homesickness.
★ 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.
Penny Lane
1967 · From Magical Mystery Tour
McCartney heard a piccolo trumpet on a Bach broadcast, called David Mason in, and pop had never sounded brighter.
★ 8.1
Brown Eyed Girl
1967 · From Blowin' Your Mind!
Twenty-two takes at A&R Studios, the Sweet Inspirations behind him, and a song Morrison says never paid him royalties.
★ 7.7
Blueberry Hill
1956
Nobody in the room had the lyrics, so Bunny Robyn spliced three broken takes into Domino's biggest hit.
★ 7.6
Check the Rhime
1990 · From The Low End Theory
An Average White Band loop, Q-Tip and Phife trading lines, and a Queens rooftop that Linden Boulevard still remembers.
★ 7.6
I Used to Love H.E.R.
1994 · From Resurrection
No I.D. looped George Benson, Common told hip hop's story as one woman, and Ice Cube took it personally.
★ 7.4
More Than a FeelingBoston
More Than a Feeling
1976 · From Boston
Five years in Scholz's basement, a hundred-dollar Yamaha twelve-string on the intro, and Delp stacking harmonies over the top.
★ 7.3
The Boys of SummerDon Henley
The Boys of Summer
1984
Campbell built the track on a LinnDrum, Petty passed, and Henley wrote middle age onto somebody else's demo.
★ 7.3
1979
1996 · From Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Flood said it wasn't good enough, so Corgan rewrote it that night and got the band's biggest hit.
★ 7.2
NightswimmingR.E.M.
Nightswimming
1992 · From Automatic for the People
Mills cut the piano at Criteria on the instrument heard on "Layla," and John Paul Jones arranged the strings.
★ 7.2
Jack and Diane
1982 · From American Fool
Mick Ronson suggested the baby rattles and sang the "let it rock" hook; the handclaps were only a guide track.
★ 6.9
Caroline, No
1966 · From Pet Sounds
Twelve players at Western, an empty water jug for percussion, and Murry Wilson speeding the tape a semitone.
★ 6.9
Night MovesBob Seger
Night Moves
1976 · From Night Moves
Seger walked out of American Graffiti with a story of his own, and took six months finding the words.
★ 6.8
Born on the Bayou
1969 · From Bayou Country
Fogerty wrote it in a California apartment, never having set foot in Louisiana, and still summoned the swamp.
★ 6.8
Kids
2008 · From Oracular Spectacular
Goldwasser wrote the music at nineteen in a dorm room, an exercise in stereotypical pop that outgrew itself.
★ 6.7
Video Killed the Radio StarThe Buggles
Video Killed the Radio Star
1979
Sixteen national number ones, then a second life at 12:01 a.m. on 1 August 1981 as MTV's first video.
★ 6.6
Heartbeats (The Knife)
2002
Pitchfork's fifteenth-best song of the 2000s, the Dreijer siblings' synth pulse, later stripped to one acoustic guitar by Jose Gonzalez.
★ 6.6
Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)
1994 · From Illmatic
Nas was twenty and already writing memoir here, over DJ Premier's loop of a Reuben Wilson organ.
★ 6.5
Remember the Time
1991 · From Dangerous
Teddy Riley's new jack swing under a nostalgia lyric, with John Singleton staging the video in ancient Egypt.
★ 6.5
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
1997 · From Nimrod
Armstrong wrote it in 1993 about a girlfriend leaving for Ecuador; Cavallo added the strings while the band played foosball.
★ 6.4
Helpless
1970 · From Deja Vu
One of three Deja Vu tracks the four cut together, Young keening about the Ontario town of his childhood.
★ 6.4
I Ain't Mad At Cha
1995
Released two days after Shakur's death, Daz Dillinger's loop of DeBarge's A Dream carrying a farewell to lost friends.
★ 6.4
1901
2009 · From Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
A fantasy of Belle Epoque Paris, handed out free online, that then spent thirty-one weeks climbing to alternative number one.
★ 6.2
Step
2014 · From Modern Vampires of the City
Rostam's harpsichord reharmonizes a melody that traveled from Bread through Grover Washington Jr. to Souls of Mischief, then here.
★ 6.2
It Was A Very Good YearFrank Sinatra
It Was A Very Good Year
1966 · From September of My Years
Ervin Drake's vintage-wine conceit reached Sinatra via the Kingston Trio, and Gordon Jenkins's arrangement won its own Grammy.
★ 6.2
December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)
1975
Gaudio first wrote it about Prohibition's repeal, then Judy Parker rewrote the lyric and drummer Gerry Polci sang lead.
★ 6.2
Summertime
1991
Hula and K. Fingers looped Kool and the Gang's Summer Madness, and the duo won a Grammy for it.
★ 6.1
Summer of 69
1984
A twelve-string riff swapped for six and doubled for thickness, then a chorus about a summer Adams never actually had.
★ 5.9
The Suburbs
2010 · From The Suburbs
A rolling piano, Butler's boyhood in The Woodlands outside Houston, and an album he called a letter from the suburbs.
★ 5.8
Here's Where The Story Ends
1990
Guitar jangle, Wheeler's voice, and a US Modern Rock number one that Britain never received as a single.
★ 5.7
On My Block
2002 · From The Fix
Five mics from The Source for The Fix, a Mike Dean beat, and Scarface drawing his Houston block affectionately.
★ 5.6
Someday
2002 · From Is This It
Moretti woke to hear Casablancas inventing the melody in the bathroom, and it became the warmest song on Is This It.
★ 5.5
Somewhere Only We Know
2004
Rice-Oxley hammered it out on piano after "Heroes", and Keane proved a rock band could skip guitars entirely.
★ 5.5
Tennis Court
2013 · From Pure Heroine
Cut with Joel Little in a small Auckland studio, the beat built before a word, that "Yeah" doing everything.
★ 5.4
Hurts So Good
1982 · From American Fool
Sixteen weeks in the top ten, more than any other single of the eighties, and Aronoff's drums never let up.
★ 5.3
Remember When
2003
Jackson wrote it alone, a whole marriage from courtship to old age, and country radio held it at number one.
★ 5.2
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday
1991
Four voices, no instruments, a 1975 Cooley High ballad rebuilt a cappella and carried to number two.
★ 5.1
Ode to My Family
1994
A homesick lullaby from No Need to Argue, with a string arrangement O'Riordan scored herself over Noel Hogan's chords.
★ 5.1
Rill Rill
2010
Funkadelic's Can You Get to That, looped and sweetened, under the one Sleigh Bells song that whispers.
★ 5.0
Flightless Bird, American Mouth
2007
Brian Deck built a loop for Beam to layer guitar over; Stewart reportedly chose it for Twilight's prom.
★ 5.0