They Reminisce Over YouPete Rock
They Reminisce Over You
1992
Pete Rock looped a Tom Scott saxophone line, and CL Smooth's eulogy for a lost friend still aches.
★ 8.3
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.
Paint It, BlackThe Rolling Stones
Paint It, Black
1966 · From Aftermath
Jones's sitar made it the first number one to feature the instrument, and Decca added the comma by mistake.
★ 8.2
Nothing Compares 2 USinead O'Connor
Nothing Compares 2 U
1990
Prince wrote it for a side project that went nowhere; O'Connor's tears in the video were real, and unplanned.
★ 7.9
Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
1927
Wordless humming answered by a pocketknife slide, an 1792 hymn tune NASA put on the Voyager Golden Record.
★ 7.8
Ohio
1970
Seventeen days between the Life photographs from Kent State and four voices cutting it live in a Los Angeles room.
★ 7.7
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
Wake UpArcade Fire
Wake Up
2005 · From Funeral
A wordless chorus half of indie rock then copied, and Bowie sang it onstage with the band in 2005.
★ 7.4
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
1975 · From Red Headed Stranger
Fred Rose wrote it in the forties; Nelson's Texas version had Columbia's boss asking why he'd sent a demo.
★ 7.3
Fire and RainJames Taylor
Fire and Rain
1970 · From Sweet Baby James
Kunkel's brushes, Carole King's piano, and three verses that hold a death, an addiction and a band's collapse.
★ 7.3
Back on the Chain Gang
1982 · From Learning to Crawl
Hynde cut it weeks after Honeyman-Scott's death, with Rockpile's Bremner on guitar and a Sam Cooke chant behind her.
★ 6.9
Would
1992 · From Dirt
Cantrell wrote it for the Singles soundtrack while grieving Andrew Wood; Starr's bass line and two voices doing the mourning.
★ 6.9
Holland, 1945
1998 · From In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Every instrument distorted at Schneider's Denver studio, and Mangum turns an elegy for Anne Frank into pure forward momentum.
★ 6.8
The Needle and the Damage DoneNeil Young
The Needle and the Damage Done
1972 · From Harvest
Two minutes on addiction, taped live at UCLA's Royce Hall in January 1971 and placed unchanged on Harvest.
★ 6.7
Tha CrossroadsBone Thugs-n-Harmony
Tha Crossroads
1995
Recut after Eazy-E's death, the elegy spent eight weeks at number one and won the group a Grammy.
★ 6.3
Casimir Pulaski Day
2005 · From Illinois
Four guitar chords never change while Stevens sings a Bible study, a friend's death, and a question for God.
★ 6.1
Ordinary World
1993 · From Duran Duran (The Wedding Album)
Three days to finish the music in Cuccurullo's home studio, and an elegy for a dead friend became their comeback.
★ 6.1
Tears in Heaven
1991
Will Jennings helped finish a lyric Clapton wrote after his four-year-old son died; three Grammys followed in 1993.
★ 5.9
Yellow Ledbetter
1991
McCready's riff was a Ten outtake, and Vedder improvised a lyric he has been rewriting onstage ever since.
★ 5.9
One Day
1996 · From Ridin' Dirty
Pimp C built it on an Isley Brothers loop, Ronnie Spencer sings the hook, and Texas rap found its elegy.
★ 5.9