A Day in the Life
1967 · From Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Two unfinished songs bolted together, an orchestra climbing to nothing, and the last piano chord in pop.
★ 9.9
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.
Eleanor Rigby
1966 · From Revolver
No Beatle plays an instrument on it; George Martin's string octet does everything, sawing away at two solitary lives.
★ 8.9
Back in Black
1980 · From Back in Black
Johnson was told the Bon Scott tribute could not be morbid, so he wrote a celebration over Angus Young's riff.
★ 8.6
He Stopped Loving Her Today
1980
Jones thought nobody would play something so morbid; Sherrill spent eighteen months coaxing the vocal onto tape.
★ 8.3
Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)
1935
A 1907 hymn rewritten into a mother's funeral, with A.P. Carter tightening the grief and Maybelle's guitar holding it.
★ 7.5
Knocking on Heaven's Door
1973 · From Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Two short verses written for a dying sheriff in Pat Garrett, with Roger McGuinn on guitar and Jim Keltner drumming.
★ 7.5
The EndThe Doors
The End
1967 · From The Doors
Krieger's raga-style tuning, Morrison at his most unnerving, and nearly twelve minutes Coppola later gave to Apocalypse Now.
★ 7.4
Hells Bells
1980 · From Back in Black
A one-ton bronze bell cast to order in Loughborough, recorded inside the foundry, and Johnson's opening words for AC/DC.
★ 7.0
Leader of the Pack
1964 · From Leader of the Pack
Shadow Morton's teenage melodrama, a motorcycle revving through the mix, and a BBC that refused to play it.
★ 7.0
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
1909
Willis, a Choctaw freedman, wrote it, and the Fisk quartet's 1909 Victor disc now sits in the National Recording Registry.
★ 6.8
Here Comes Your Man
1989 · From Doolittle
A teenage demo the band mocked as their Tom Petty song, until Gil Norton talked it onto Doolittle.
★ 6.5
I Will Follow You Into the Dark
2006 · From Plans
One microphone, mono, caught during a studio break when the headphones failed, and Gibbard's breath before the first chord.
★ 6.3
Hymne a l'amour
1950
Piaf wrote these words for boxer Marcel Cerdan months before his plane went down, and recorded them the following May.
★ 6.0
Murder Was the Case
1993 · From Doggystyle
A Faustian bargain told in the first person, later expanded into an eighteen-minute film Dre co-directed with Fab Five Freddy.
★ 5.8
Dani California
2006 · From Stadium Arcadium
One character, tracked across three albums to her death, and a Frusciante outro built on Purple Haze.
★ 5.6
Ocean Breathes Salty
2004
Recorded at Sweet Tea in Oxford, Mississippi, and it turns a hard look at mortality into something close to serene.
★ 5.6
