The Weight
1968 · From Music From Big Pink
Robertson saw Nazareth stamped inside his 1951 Martin, and Helm sang the burden every verse hands over.
★ 8.8
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.
Kashmir
1975 · From Physical Graffiti
Page tuned to DADGAD, Plant wrote it driving through southern Morocco, and none of them had seen Kashmir.
★ 8.6
Trans Europa Express
1977
Kraftwerk's rhythm rode a train across Europe, name-checked Bowie and Iggy Pop, then turned up inside Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock.
★ 8.1
Proud Mary
1969 · From Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits
Fogerty came out of the National Guard and wrote it in two days, Beethoven's Fifth hiding in the intro.
★ 7.9
Louie Louie
1963
Ely shouted on tiptoe at a mic hung overhead, and the FBI spent thirty-one months failing to decode him.
★ 7.8
Take it EasyThe Eagles
Take it Easy
1972 · From Eagles
Browne could not finish the second verse, Frey did, and Leadon's double-time banjo drives the Eagles' debut single.
★ 7.7
Eight Miles High
1966 · From Fifth Dimension
Columbia rejected the RCA session on a technicality, so McGuinn recut his Coltrane-inspired twelve-string and radio banned it anyway.
★ 7.6
Me and Bobby McGee
1971 · From Pearl
Joplin taped the vocal days before her death; Kristofferson did not hear it until the day after.
★ 7.6
The PassengerIggy Pop
The Passenger
1977
Gardiner found the riff wandering under apple blossom, and Bowie sings behind Iggy at Hansa by the Wall.
★ 7.5
GracelandPaul Simon
Graceland
1986 · From Graceland
Bakithi Kumalo's fretless bass and a Nigerian pedal steel carry it, with the Everly Brothers singing behind Simon.
★ 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
Award Tour
1993 · From Midnight Marauders
Q-Tip flipped a Weldon Irvine bassline, Trugoy took the hook, and the chorus name-checks cities from New York to Tokyo.
★ 7.0
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
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
Sloop John B
1966 · From Pet Sounds
Al Jardine sold Wilson a Bahamian folk tune, and Billy Strange's twelve-string solo went down in a single take.
★ 6.9
Truckin'
1970 · From American Beauty
Hunter's lyric folds in a 1970 New Orleans bust, and the Library of Congress declared the record a national treasure.
★ 6.9
Amarillo By Morning
1983
Stafford's idea, Fraser's overnight lyric, and a fiddle arrangement that rodeo crowds took for their own.
★ 6.8
Come Fly With Me
1958 · From Come Fly with Me
Cahn and Van Heusen wrote it to order, and Billy May's first Sinatra arrangement made travel sound like swagger.
★ 6.7
Chicago
2005 · From Illinois
Sleigh bells, trumpets and a choir stacked into one crescendo, and Stevens cut five different versions of it.
★ 6.7
Sweet Baby James
1970 · From Sweet Baby James
Taylor wrote it driving through the Carolinas to meet his newborn nephew, a cowboy lullaby in waltz time.
★ 6.6
Ramble OnLed Zeppelin
Ramble On
1969 · From Led Zeppelin II
Cut in two New York studios in June 1969, with Mordor and Gollum folded into a restless road song.
★ 6.6
No Sleep Till Brooklyn
1986 · From Licensed to Ill
Slayer's Kerry King plays the solo, the title bends Motorhead's, and Rubin welds rap to metal without apology.
★ 6.5
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
Up On Cripple Creek
1969 · From The Band
Hudson ran a clavinet through a wah-wah pedal, Helm sang lead, and the single reached number twenty-five.
★ 6.5
CrossroadsCream
Crossroads
1969 · From Wheels of Fire
Cut live at Winterland in March 1968, Robert Johnson's blues sped up under two of Clapton's most copied solos.
★ 6.4
Ramblin' ManThe Allman Brothers Band
Ramblin' Man
1973 · From Brothers and Sisters
Betts wrote and sang it, borrowing Hank Williams' title; Oakley's bass line was among his last recordings.
★ 6.3
The Letter
1967
One minute fifty-eight seconds, Dan Penn's jet engine borrowed from a library sound-effects record, and Chilton growling at sixteen.
★ 6.2
Return of the Grievous Angel
1974 · From Grievous Angel
A Boston fan's poem, reworked by Parsons, Emmylou Harris on harmony, and an album out four months after his death.
★ 6.1
Down Under
1981
Greg Ham played the flute hook as a joke; it carried Hay's tale to number one in seven countries.
★ 5.9
Running on EmptyJackson Browne
Running on Empty
1978
Cut live at Merriweather Post Pavilion, 1977, David Lindley's lap steel riding a song Browne wrote on his commute.
★ 5.9
Hannah Hunt
2013 · From Modern Vampires of the City
Koenig named it for a Columbia classmate from his Buddhism class, and the final minute cracks wide open.
★ 5.8
Around the World (RHCP)
1999 · From Californication
Frusciante back in the band and playing deliberately spare, while Flea's bass run opens Californication at a sprint.
★ 4.8
Roam
1989
A rare B-52's lyric from an outsider, Robert Waldrop, and Pierson and Wilson make wanderlust sound weightless.
★ 4.8
Wagon Wheel
2013
Dylan left the chorus unfinished in 1973, Secor added verses as a schoolboy, and Rucker made it a country number one.
★ 4.5
San Francisco Knights
1998
Never a single, it became the duo's live staple: two Los Angeles crate-diggers immortalizing a 1996 visit to the Bay.
★ 4.2
Life is a Highway (Tom Cochrane)
1991
A Red Rider demo called "Love Is a Highway", revived after Cochrane's World Vision trip to eastern Africa.
★ 4.2
Life is a Highway (Rascal Flatts)
2006
Written after Cochrane's famine-relief trip to Africa, and reborn as a Pixar road anthem by Rascal Flatts.
★ 2.6