Layla
1971 · From Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
Clapton wanted his friend's wife; Duane Allman's slide answers every line, then Jim Gordon's piano coda changes everything.
★ 8.7
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.
Ring of Fire
1963 · From Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash
Anita Carter cut it first, her sister June wrote it with Merle Kilgore, and Cash added the mariachi trumpets.
★ 8.6
Are You That Somebody?
1998
Timbaland built the beat around a baby coo lifted from a sixties sound-effects record, and Aaliyah glides over it.
★ 7.3
Love Story
2008 · From Fearless
Swift wrote it in twenty minutes on her bedroom floor, gave Romeo and Juliet a happy ending, banjo included.
★ 7.3
Our Lips Are Sealed
1981
Written by post after Wiedlin and Hall's 1980 tour romance, and it still sounds like a secret being kept.
★ 6.6
Don't Stand So Close to Me
1980 · From Zenyatta Mondatta
Sting drew on his years teaching and on Nabokov, then watched it become Britain's best-selling single of 1980.
★ 6.3
Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
1982
A soft reggae beat from Mikey Craig's Caribbean instincts, Steve Levine's polish, and Boy George on Top of the Pops.
★ 5.7
What Is and What Should Never Be
1969 · From Led Zeppelin II
Among Plant's first songwriting credits, a CBS contract having blocked him on the debut, over guitars panning across both channels.
★ 5.6
Don't Matter
2007
Ten weeks climbing from number seventy-nine to the top, with a chorus built partly on Marley's Zimbabwe.
★ 3.5