Yesterday
1965 · From Help!
McCartney dreamt the melody, called it "Scrambled Eggs" for weeks, then let a string quartet make it immortal.
★ 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.
I Want You Back
1969
A child singing about regret over the springiest bassline Motown ever cut, and selling it completely.
★ 9.1
Ms. Jackson
2000 · From Stankonia
Andre 3000 apologizing to Erykah Badu's mother, who liked it enough to buy a Ms. Jackson license plate.
★ 8.7
Hurt
2002 · From American IV: The Man Comes Around
Rubin handed Cash a Nine Inch Nails song, and Reznor watched the video and said it was no longer his.
★ 8.5
House of the Rising SunThe Animals
House of the Rising Sun
1964
Hilton Valentine's arpeggio, one take at De Lane Lea, and four and a half minutes when singles ran two.
★ 8.4
Folsom Prison Blues
1955 · From Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar
A prison film in Germany gave Cash the song; he borrowed the melody from Gordon Jenkins and later paid up.
★ 8.1
Maggie MayRod Stewart
Maggie May
1971 · From Every Picture Tells a Story
Released as a B-side until DJs flipped it, with a mandolin credited only to a name Stewart said slipped his mind.
★ 7.6
Time (Pink Floyd)
1974 · From The Dark Side of the Moon
Alan Parsons taped antique-shop clocks as a quadraphonic test; Mason's rototoms follow, and the alarms still land like panic.
★ 7.5
Someone Like You
2011 · From 21
Dan Wilson of Semisonic at the piano, Adele singing, nothing else added; five weeks at number one.
★ 7.5
Mama Tried
1968 · From Mama Tried
Three years in San Quentin behind him, Haggard gave his narrator a life sentence he never served himself.
★ 7.5
Don't Look Back in Anger
1995 · From (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Noel's first lead vocal on an Oasis single, a phrase lifted from a Lennon tape, Manchester's anthem ever since.
★ 7.4
In The EndLinkin Park
In The End
2001
Shinoda's piano figure under Bennington's chorus took nu metal to number two, and the RIAA finally certified it diamond.
★ 7.4
Alison
1977 · From My Aim is True
Costello glimpsed a supermarket checkout girl, Clover backed him before the Attractions existed, and one line titled his debut.
★ 7.2
Clocks
2002 · From A Rush of Blood to the Head
A piano riff Martin nearly saved for the next album, rescued by their manager, then Record of the Year.
★ 7.2
We Belong Together
2005
Fourteen weeks at number one, two soul interpolations underneath, and Carey singing softly rather than belting.
★ 7.1
Always On My Mind
1982 · From Always on My Mind
Haggard passed on it at the Pancho and Lefty sessions, so Nelson stayed behind and cut it himself after hours.
★ 7.0
I Knew You Were Trouble
2012 · From Red
A wobble bass drop grafted onto a country breakup song, and Swift's full move to pop became inevitable.
★ 6.8
New Slang
2001 · From Oh, Inverted World
Sub Pop pressed it as a one-off single in 2001; three years later Garden State made it a generational password.
★ 6.8
The Scientist
2002 · From A Rush of Blood to the Head
One out-of-tune Liverpool piano, an attempt at a Harrison song abandoned, and the chord run Martin kept instead.
★ 6.7
Ooo Baby Baby
1965
Robinson's falsetto over a slow Funk Brothers groove, with Pete Moore co-writing and stacking the harmonies behind him.
★ 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
Sunday MorningThe Velvet Underground
Sunday Morning
1966 · From The Velvet Underground & Nico
Cale spotted a celesta in the studio, Warhol suggested paranoia, and the last track cut became the album's gentle opener.
★ 6.5
Pancho and Lefty
1983 · From Pancho & Lefty
Nelson cut his part after midnight, fetched Haggard from his bus, and kept the one take Haggard wanted redone.
★ 6.5
Porcelain
2000
Moby nearly left it off Play; a reversed string sample from the Exodus score, cut in his Little Italy apartment.
★ 6.4
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
1965
Written after Horace Ott quarreled with his girlfriend, and sped from Simone's ballad into Burdon's pleading.
★ 6.4
The Wind Cries MaryJimi Hendrix
The Wind Cries Mary
1967
Twenty minutes at the tail end of the Fire session, and Hendrix trading fire for something quiet and blue.
★ 5.9
Instant Crush
2013 · From Random Access Memories
A vocoder over a Strokes drawl: Casablancas welded two Daft Punk demos together and sang about a chance he missed.
★ 5.8
How to Save a Life
2004
Slade wrote it after mentoring a troubled teenager at a Denver camp, and Grey's Anatomy did the rest.
★ 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
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
If I Could Turn Back TimeCher
If I Could Turn Back Time
1989
Diane Warren got on her knees begging Cher to cut it; the video was shot aboard the USS Missouri.
★ 5.6
Back for Good
1995
Barlow says it took fifteen minutes to write; the BRIT Awards debut pushed the release forward to an instant number one.
★ 5.5
When I Was Your Man
2012
Voice and piano, nothing else, Mars playing it himself at Levcon and singing a regret he cannot take back.
★ 5.3
On Bended Knee
1994
Only the Beatles had replaced themselves at number one before Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis handed the group this.
★ 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
Feeling This
2003
Hoppus and DeLonge wrote in separate rooms, choruses and verses, and Barker's beat locked them together in a day.
★ 5.0
Long December
1996
Duritz wrote it before dawn while a friend lay in hospital, and the band cut it almost entirely live.
★ 4.9
Carry Me Ohio
2003 · From Ghosts of the Great Highway
Kozelek grew up in Massillon, Ohio, and this is what he sends back: an apology set to ringing acoustic guitars.
★ 4.9
The Heart of the MatterDon Henley
The Heart of the Matter
1989
Campbell cut the track at home before Henley and Souther added words, and forgiveness never sounded so hard-won.
★ 4.8
Working My Way Back to You
1979
A 1966 Four Seasons song rebuilt as a medley, John Edwards out front, and two weeks at British number one.
★ 4.7
Walking On Broken Glass
1992
Spiccato strings, a skipping piano, and a breakup lyric; Malkovich and Hugh Laurie costar in the period video.
★ 4.6
Warning SignColdplay
Warning Sign
2002 · From A Rush of Blood to the Head
Buckland gave up on a guitar part and played maracas instead, and Martin's slow crawl back still aches.
★ 4.5
After You've GoneMarion Harris
After You've Gone
1918
Cut for Victor in July 1918 by the singer billed as Queen of the Blues; jazz kept it.
★ 4.3
Holding Back the Years
1985
Hucknall wrote the words at seventeen, his punk band cut it first, and the chorus made it an American number one.
★ 4.3
Perfect Situation
2005 · From Make Believe
Cuomo re-recorded it after crowds sang his original melody back at him, and it topped alternative radio for four weeks.
★ 4.3
A Pirate Looks at 40
1975
Buffett was twenty-seven when he wrote it, about a Chart Room regular in Key West and a life at sea.
★ 4.2
Hard to Say I'm Sorry
1982
Foster brought in three Toto members and saved Chicago's horns for the coda, returning the band to number one.
★ 4.0
Just a Dream
2010
Jim Jonsin and Rico Love built the beat, and Nelly took the heartbreak to number three.
★ 3.9
Take a Picture
1999
Patrick's blackouts and a father's disappointment sit behind it, six minutes of guitar haze on Title of Record.
★ 3.7
Some of These Days
1911
Tucker's maid pressed Shelton Brooks's song on her in 1910, and it stayed her signature for the rest of her career.
★ 3.7
Up Against the Wall
2006
Seven minutes long, never a single, self-produced by the trio, and the longest slow burn on Writer's Block.
★ 3.7
Baby Come Back
1977
Beckett and Crowley wrote it after two bandmates' breakups, and Lambert and Potter's production held number one for three weeks.
★ 3.6
Something Happened on the Way to Heaven
1990
Phenix Horns brass over Nathan East's bass, on a song Collins first wrote for The War of the Roses.
★ 3.6
I Wish it Would Rain Down
1990
Clapton plays the lead over Padgham's production, the closest Collins had then come to writing a blues song.
★ 3.5
I Still Believe in You
1992
Gill and John Barlow Jarvis turned an apology for neglect into a ballad, and Gill's first country number one.
★ 3.5
Shape of My Heart
2000
Max Martin and Rami built it with Lisa Miskovsky, and the video sat atop TRL for sixty-five days.
★ 3.5
You Always Hurt the One You Love
1944
Doris Fisher's music, Allan Roberts's lyric, four voices in close harmony, and a B-side, "Till Then," that charted too.
★ 3.4
It's Been Awhile
2001
Written in 1996 for an acoustic side project and shelved, it returned to spend twenty weeks atop Mainstream Rock.
★ 3.3
What Hurts the Most
2006
Mark Wills cut it first in 2003; Dann Huff's production turned Steele and Robson's ballad into a country number one.
★ 3.1
How You Remind Me
2001
Forty-five minutes to an hour, by Kroeger's account, then more US radio plays than any song of the decade.
★ 3.0