Strawberry Fields Forever
1966 · From Magical Mystery Tour
Two takes in different keys and tempos spliced into one, a Mellotron haze over Lennon's Liverpool childhood.
★ 9.7
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.
Enter Sandman
1991 · From Metallica (The Black Album)
Hammett built the riff after Soundgarden's Louder Than Love, and Bob Rock sent Hetfield back to write a child's nightmare.
★ 8.1
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
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
White Winter Hymnal
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
A round about snow that the band never once played together, its voices stacked from first takes in production.
★ 6.4
Hate It Or Love It
2005
Cool and Dre's Trammps flip earned two Grammy nominations and stalled at two, blocked by 50 Cent's own 'Candy Shop'.
★ 6.2
The King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1
1998 · From In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Schneider got the fuzz from tube preamps and compression, not pedals, and Mangum sings childhood into two minutes flat.
★ 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
Greatest Love Of All
1984 · From Whitney Houston
Linda Creed wrote the words while ill with cancer, and died weeks before Houston's version reached number one.
★ 5.2
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
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
Boy with a Coin
2007
Sub Pop led The Shepherd's Dog with this, the record where Beam's whispered four-track folk grew a full band.
★ 4.5
Counting Blue Cars
1995
Richards wrote it after a talk with his ten-year-old neighbor, and calling God "her" brought death threats.
★ 3.0
The Best Day
1999
A father narrating his son's boyhood, written by Dillon and Chamberlain, and Strait's thirty-sixth number one.
★ 2.7
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
1993
Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads produced it, and Roberts sang three verses about strange childhoods in a startling baritone.
★ 2.7