The 100 Best Songs of 2007

5 "Four Winds"
Bright Eyes
The lyrics evoke W.B. Yeats; the music, J.C. Mellencamp. No song better captured our current sense of looming apocalypse than this one, which also makes a case for Conor Oberst as one of the best — and bravest — lyricists out there: "The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Koran's mute/If you burned them all together, you'd get close to the truth."

6 "Dough Is What I Got"
Lil Wayne
Insanely prolific (or maybe just insane), the self-proclaimed Best Rapper Alive works his down-South magic over a jazzy sax sample and proves his sub-zero flow can make the shy girls horny and the fly girls corny.

7 "Rehab"
Amy Winehouse
Not since Eminem has a pop song hit with this subversive force: The contrast between the retro production and the defiantly slurred chorus is hilarious at first — then heartbreaking.

8 "Long Walk Home"
Bruce Springsteen
In a song that sums up the American moment better than any presidential candidate has managed, the darkness on the edge of town creeps into Main Street — and we're left to figure out what went wrong. And if the chorus leaves some hope that we'll regain what we've lost, the E Street Band's martial blare somehow guarantees it.