500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004)

Writers: Otis Blackwell, Presley
Producer: Steve Sholes
Released: July '56, RCA
27 weeks; No. 1

Slapping the back of his guitar for extra percussion, Presley invented a new style for himself with his take on this song by blues singer Blackwell. "Don't Be Cruel," backed with "Hound Dog," was a double-sided smash on the pop, R&B and country charts. Its 11-week domination of the Number One spot was the longest in history – until "End of the Road," by Boyz II Men, broke that record in 1992.

Appears on: Elvis: 30 #1 Hits (RCA)

Writer: Arlene Smith
Producer: Richard Barrett
Released: Dec. '57, End
18 weeks; No. 15

At 16, Smith wrote and sang lead on this towering doo-wop song, a template for a generation of girl groups. The Chantels' second single, "Maybe," was recorded at a church in midtown Manhattan in October 1957, when the girls were all still in high school at St. Anthony of Padua in the Bronx. The single was first credited to label owner George Goldner, but now the world knows better.

Appears on: The Best of the Chantels (Rhino)

Writers: Guns n' Roses
Producer: Mike Clink
Released: Aug. '87, Geffen
24 weeks; No. 1

Axl Rose wrote this love letter to his girlfriend, Erin Everly (daughter of Don). Slash said he was just "fucking around with the intro riff, making a joke"; he didn't think much of it, but Rose knew better. Rose and Erin were later married – for all of one month.

Appears on: Appetite for Destruction (Geffen)

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Writers: Jerry Allison, Holly, Norman Petty
Producer: Petty
Released: Sept. '57, Coral
22 weeks; No. 3

When the Crickets first played a new song called "Cindy Lou," Allison's snare drum was so loud that Petty told him to play in the studio's reception area. To placate his exiled drummer, Holly changed the title to "Peggy Sue," after Allison's girlfriend.

Appears on: Greatest Hits (MCA)

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Writers: Benjamin Nelson, Lover Patterson, George Treadwell
Producers: Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller
Released: May '59, Atlantic
19 weeks; No. 2

Leiber and Stoller wanted a striking sound to match new vocalist Ben E. King's majestic voice. The odd arrangement featured out-of-tune timpani and strings that seemed to quote Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture." "It sounded like a radio caught between two stations," wrote Atlantic's Jerry Wexler. But King's croon soared above it all.

Appears on: The Very Best of the Drifters (Rhino)

Writer: Jimmy Webb
Producer: Al De Lory
Released: Nov. '68, Capitol
15 weeks; No. 3

Inspired by the isolation of a telephone-pole worker he saw on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, Webb wrote this in 1968 for Campbell, who had asked if Webb could come up with another "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." Campbell changed a guitar part and kept the keyboard from Webb's demo; the chiming sound at the fade, evoking telephone signals, was done on a massive church organ.

Appears on: Wichita Lineman (Capitol)

Writer: Winehouse
Producer: Mark Ronson
Released: March '07, Universal Republic
20 weeks; No. 9

Drawing on Winehouse's real-life struggles, this cheeky, sonically perfect salvo made the London diva a worldwide star. The huge, Motown-inspired beat featured Brooklyn throwback R&B band the Dap-Kings. "One of the best recordings ever," said Roots drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson. "She's coming from Fifties and Sixties doo-wop, and they nailed that sound exactly."

Appears on: Back to Black (Universal Republic)

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Writers: Allen Collins, Ronnie Van Zant
Producer: Al Kooper
Released: Sept. '73, MCA
12 weeks; No. 19

"What song is it you want to hear?" asks Van Zant on the definitive, 14-minute live version on One More From the Road. But audiences initially didn't want to hear "Free Bird" — dedicated to Duane Allman — until Collins added an uptempo section to the end of the ballad and the overlapping guitars started to boogie.

Appears on: One More From the Road (MCA)

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Writer: Dylan
Producer: Gordon Carroll
Released: July '73, Columbia
16 weeks; No. 12

Three years had passed since his last studio album, and Dylan seemed at a loss. So he accepted an invitation to go to Mexico for Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, for which he shot a bit part (in the role of "Alias") and did the soundtrack. For a death scene, Dylan delivered this tale of a dying sheriff, who wants only to lay his "guns in the ground."

Appears on: The Essential Bob Dylan (Sony)

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Writers: Robin Gibb, Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb
Producers: Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb, Karl Richardson, Albhy Galuten
Released: Nov. '77, RSO
27 weeks; No. 1

This disco classic was written when Robert Stigwood approached the Bee Gees for music for a film based on the Brooklyn club scene. He needed a groove for an eight-minute John Travolta dance sequence. The Gibbs wrote the song on the staircase of a French chateau that served as the setting for several porn flicks. 

Appears on: Saturday Night Fever (Polydor)

Writers: Angus Young, Malcolm Young, Brian Johnson
Producer: Mutt Lange
Released: July '80, Atlantic
15 weeks; No. 37

When frontman Bon Scott drank himself to death in 1980, AC/DC didn't retreat — they brought in a new singer, Brian Johnson. "Malcolm asked me if this riff he had was too funky," said Angus. "And I said, 'Well, if you're gonna discard it, give it to me!' "

Appears on: Back in Black (Sony)

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Writer: Ronny Shannon
Producer: Jerry Wexler
Released: March '67, Atlantic
11 weeks; No. 9

Franklin went to Fame Studios to cut her soul-stirring take on Shannon's you done-me-wrong lament with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section – "Alabama white boys who took a left turn at the blues," as Wexler described them.

Appears on: I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You) (Rhino)

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Writer: John Fogerty
Producer: Fogerty
Released: Jan. '70, Fantasy
Did not chart

Fogerty told Rolling Stone in 1970, "[Listeners] put too much weight on political references in songs. They think a song will save the world. It's absurd." Veiled allusions to FDR and Stalin in "Rain" suggest that politics was on his mind, but Fogerty insists he wanted to be symbolic, not specific to Vietnam, Woodstock or 1969. "As a result," he said, "the song is timeless."

Appears on: Cosmo's Factory (Fantasy)

Writer: Dylan
Producer: Bob Johnston
Released: Aug. '65, Columbia
Non-single

In 1969, Dylan told Rolling Stone that he wrote this song in the back of a New York cab. Since it has 659 words and clocks in at more than 11 minutes, that's one long cab ride. Dylan scrapped an electric, full-band version of the song at the last minute, and rerecorded it on acoustic guitar. The final version was spliced together from two consecutive takes during the last sessions for Highway 61.

Appears on: Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia)

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Writers: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Released: Feb. '64, Vee-Jay
13 weeks; No. 3

"It was my attempt at writing a Roy Orbison song," Lennon said of "Please Please Me." He originally penned a yearning ballad while listening to Orbison in a bedroom at his aunt's house, but Martin suggested it would sound better sped up. Said Lennon, "By the time the session came around, we were so happy with the result, we couldn't get it recorded fast enough."

Appears on: Please Please Me (Capitol)

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Writers: Roy Hawkins, Rick Darnell
Producer: Bill Szymczyk
Released: Dec. '69, BluesWay
14 weeks; No. 15

"It was a different kind of blues ballad, and I carried it around in my head for years," King said of the song, which dated to 1951. The 44-year-old King's career reached its zenith with an inspired performance during a 1969 session in which, as King put it, "all the ideas came together."

Appears on: Greatest Hits (MCA)

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Writers: Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman
Producers: Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller
Released: Sept. '60, Atlantic
18 weeks; No. 1

As Billy Joel said, before the Drifters, the last dance was the one nobody stuck around for. But this elegant R&B ballad made the end of the party sound like the essence of true romance. Lead vocalist Ben E. King later sang "Stand by Me."

Appears on: The Drifters' Golden Hits (Atlantic)

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Writers: Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Lewis Steinberg, Al Jackson
Producer: Jim Stewart
Released: Oct. '62, Stax
16 weeks; No. 3

The Stax house band had never considered making its own hits until it cooked up this simmering jam in a half-hour before a jingle session. "I said, 'Shit, this is the best damn instrumental I've heard since I don't know when,' " guitarist Cropper recalled. As for the onions, he explained that "we were trying to think of something that was as funky as possible."

Appears on: Green Onions (Atlantic)

Writer: André 3000
Producer: André 3000
Released: Sept. '03, LaFace
32 weeks; No. 1

Not a likely recipe for a hit: a rock song with a bizarre 11/4 time signature by half of a hip-hop duo. Dré played almost all the instruments on this irresistible party jam — he said that its guitar chords, the first he ever learned, were inspired by "the Ramones, the Buzzcocks, the Smiths." Fun fact: The "ladies" who cheer halfway in are one lone woman, engineer Rabeka Tuinei.

Appears on: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (LaFace/Arista)

Writers: Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Bernard Sumner
Producers: Martin Hannett
Released: April '80, Enigma
Did not chart

Singer Ian Curtis did not live to see this Manchester, England, band's best single become a hit. He committed suicide in May 1980, two days before a scheduled American tour. "Ian's influence seemed to be madness and insanity," said guitarist Bernard Sumner. After Curtis' death, Joy Division carried on under the name New Order.

Appears on: Substance 1977-1980 (Qwest)

Writer: Alex Chilton
Producers: Big Star
Released: May '74, Ardent
Did not chart

Big Star were totally unfashionable in their day – early-Seventies Memphis rockers inspired by Sixties British Invasion pop. A nonhit from the band's second LP, Radio City, "September Gurls" is now revered as a power-pop classic. "They were fairly dark records wrapped in a pop package," drummer Jody Stephens said of Big Star's now-adored catalog. "Maybe that's what's made them enduring."

Appears on: Radio City (Stax)

Writers: Petty, Jeff Lynne
Producer: Lynne
Released: June '89, MCA
21 weeks; No. 7

Petty and Lynne wrote and recorded "Free Fallin' " in just two days, the first song completed for Petty's solo LP Full Moon Fever. The label initially rejected the album because of a lack of hits. "So I waited six months and brought the same record back," Petty said. "And they loved it."

Appears on: Full Moon Fever (MCA)

Writers: Brian Wilson, Roger Christian
Producer: Wilson
Released: May '64, Capitol
10 weeks; No. 24

Wilson, who listened to the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" so much he wore out the grooves, wrote "Don't Worry Baby" for Ronnie Bennett. From the opening drum riff, "Don't Worry Baby" is sheer homage but also vintage Beach Boys, with one of Wilson's finest falsetto-laden vocals.

Appears on: Sounds of Summer (Capitol)

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Writers: Sonny Curtis, Fuller
Producer: Bob Keane
Released: Feb. '66, Mustang
11 weeks; No. 9

Singing in his Texas drawl, Fuller seemed to channel his idol, Buddy Holly, on this tune penned by the Crickets' Curtis. "I Fought the Law" was a bracing hybrid of outlaw romanticism, garage rock, surf music, Wall of Sound and British Invasion energy. Keane created the track's rich reverb by using the vault of a bank next door to the L.A. studio as an echo chamber.

Appears on: I Fought the Law: The Best of the Bobby Fuller Four (Rhino)

Writers: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards
Producer: Andrew Loog Oldham
Released: May '66, London
11 weeks; No. 1

Brian Jones plucked the haunting sitar melody at the 1966 L.A. session for this classic. Bill Wyman added klezmer-flavored organ; studio legend Jack Nitzsche played the gypsy-style piano. "Brian had pretty much given up on the guitar by then," said Richards. "If there was [another] instrument around, he had to be able to get something out of it. It gave the Stones on record a lot of different textures." 

Appears on: Aftermath (ABKCO)

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Writers: Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, Paul Cook
Producer: Chris Thomas
Released: May '77, Warner Bros.
Did not chart 

Banned by the BBC for "gross bad taste," this blast of nihilism savaged the pomp of Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee and came in a sleeve showing Her Majesty with a safety pin through her lip. "As far as I'm concerned, she ain't no human being," sneered singer Rotten. "She's a piece of cardboard they drag around on a trolley."

Appears on: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Warner Bros.)

Writers: Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Stig Anderson
Producers: Andersson, Ulvaeus
Released: Nov. '76, Atlantic
22 weeks; No. 1

When Benny Andersson auditioned the song for his fiancee and band member Anni-Frid Lyngstad, she was moved to tears. Sweden's biggest musical export debuted "Queen" in 1976 at a ball for King Carl Gustaf on the eve of his wedding. The song, a disco-flavored dessert of sublime melody and pop-operatic harmonies, became the group's only U.S. Number One.

Appears on: Arrival (Polydor)

Writer: Steven Tyler
Producer: Arian Barber
Released: June '73, Columbia
9 weeks; No. 59

Tyler began writing this power ballad in his late teens. He was still at it in Aerosmith's early days, pounding a piano in the basement of the group's living quarters. "Dream On" was a huge regional hit in Boston when it was first released in 1973 but never made the national Top 40. An edited version finally reached the Top 10 in 1976, giving the band its breakthrough hit.

Appears on: Aerosmith (Columbia)

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Writers: Jay-Z, Rick Rubin
Producer: Rubin
Released: Nov. '03, Roc-a-Fella
12 weeks; No. 30

Jigga's decade-long run reached its crescendo with this Black Album smash. Mixing an old Ice-T hook with an intense, clanging groove – including samples spliced in from Billy Squier's "The Big Beat" and Mountain's "Long Red" – it was the funkiest thing Rubin had touched since Licensed to Ill. Def Jam label head Lyor Cohen had suggested the collaboration. "I knew I was gonna get fresh shit," he said.

Appears on: The Black Album (Roc-a-Fella)

Writer: Mitchell
Producer: Mitchell
Released: May '69, Reprise
Did not chart

As her first marriage fell apart in the late Sixties, Mitchell saw her career bloom with hit covers of her work by singers such as Tom Rush and Judy Collins, including the latter's Top 10 version of "Both Sides Now." Mitchell sang it herself on the 1969 LP Clouds, describing the song as "a meditation on reality and fantasy. . . . The idea was so big it seemed like I'd just scratched the surface of it."

Appears on: Clouds (Warner Bros.)

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Writers: Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe
Producers: Scott Lift, R.E.M.
Released: March '91, Warner Bros.
21 weeks; No. 4

"Losing My Religion" is built around acoustic guitar and mandolin, not exactly a familiar sound on pop radio in the early Nineties – singer Michael Stipe called it a "freak hit." As for the subject matter, it's not religion: "I wanted to write a classic obsession song," he said. "So I did."

Appears on: Out of Time (Warner Bros.)

Writers: Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong
Producer: Whitfield
Released: Oct. '72, Gordy
16 weeks; No. 1

At first the Temptations hated this song, especially Dennis Edwards: His father had died on September 3rd, just like the papa in the song. Then "Papa" topped the charts, and it "kind of grew on us," said Temptation Otis Williams.

Appears on: Anthology (Motown)

Writers: Gaye, Ed Townsend
Producers: Gaye, Townsend
Released: June '73, Tamla
14 weeks; No. 1

After 1971's "What's Going On," Gaye radically changed course with this ode to sexual bliss. With the help of producer and songwriter Townsend, Gaye created a masterpiece of erotic persuasion that topped the pop and R&B charts. Gaye said later that he hoped "Let's Get It On" didn't "advocate promiscuity" but also said he had a hunch the song might have "some aphrodisiac power."

Appears on: Let's Get It On (Motown)

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Writer: Chapman
Producer: David Kershenbaum
Released: April '88, Elektra
 21 weeks; No. 6

Tracy Chapman was a hardened veteran of Boston coffeehouse gigs (she once got a demo-tape rejection letter suggesting she tune her guitar) when a classmate at Tufts University told his music-publisher dad to check her out. Soon after, she made her 1988 debut, featuring this haunting rumination on escape. "Fast Car" won a Grammy, setting Chapman's career in motion.

Appears on: Tracy Chapman (Elektra)

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Writer: Freddie Mercury
Producer: Roy Thomas Baker
Released: Nov. '75, Elektra
24 weeks; No. 9

According to Queen guitarist Brian May, everyone in the band was bewildered when Mercury brought them a draft of this four-part suite — even before he told them, "That's where the operatic bits come in!" Recording technology was so taxed by the song's multitracked scaramouches and fandangos that some tapes became virtually transparent from so many overdubs.

Appears on: A Night at the Opera (Hollywood)

Writer: Prince
Producers: O'Connor, Nellee Hooper
Released: March '90, Ensign
21 weeks; No. 1

Originally recorded by one of Prince's flop side projects, the Family, the tune became the Number One song of 1990 in O'Connor's rendition. The video focused on her face for four minutes until she shed a lone tear. "I didn't intend for that moment to happen," O'Connor said, "but when it did, I thought, 'I should let this happen.' "

Appears on: I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (Capitol)

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Writer: Don Gibson
Producer: Sid Feller
Released: May '62, ABC-Paramount
18 weeks; No. 1

When Charles put out Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, DJs picked up on this remake of the Kitty Wells hit, which hadn't been released as a single. After Charles heard that white vocalist Tab Hunter had cut his own rendition of the song, ABC rushed out a 45-friendly two-and-a-half-minute version.

Appears on: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (Rhino)

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Writer: Cash
Producer: Sam Phillips
Released: Jan. '56, Sun
18 weeks; No. 32

Cash first recorded "Folsom Prison Blues," one of his earliest songs, for Sun in 1956. But it was the thrilling, electric '68 version, live at the prison, that defined his outlaw persona. Cash said he wrote the line "I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die," while "trying to think of the worst reason . . . for killing another person." He added, "It did come to mind quite easily, though."

Appears on: The Essential Johnny Cash (Columbia)

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Writers: Carlton Ridenhour, Eric Sadler, Hank Shocklee
Producers: Rick Rubin, Carl Ryder
Released: April '88, Def Jam
Did not chart

"We were the first rap group to really tempo it up," Chuck D said. Over the Bomb Squad's souped-up horn riffs from Marva Whitney's "It's My Thing," PE showed how far-reaching its sound and political ambitions were, name-checking everyone from Yoko Ono and Anthrax (who later remade the song with Chuck D) to Louis Farrakhan.

Appears on: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam)

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Writer: Lou Reed
Producers: Andy Warhol, Tom Wilson
Released: March '67, Verve
Non-single

Originally a rootsy Dylan hommage, the song evolved into a proto-punk classic steeped in New York grit. The Velvets mixed R&B rhythm-guitar workout, blues-piano stomp and dreamy art drone, as Reed deadpans a story about scoring $26 worth of heroin in Harlem. "Everything about that song holds true," said Reed, "except the price."

Appears on: The Velvet Underground and Nico (Polygram)

Writers: Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr.
Producers: Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois
Released: March '09, Interscope
Non-single

The most devastating U2 ballad since "One" sets lush, gospel-tinged music – much of it improvised live in the studio – against dark subject matter: It's about a junkie riding the subway. 

Appears on: No Line on the Horizon (Interscope)

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Writers: Jimmy DeKnight, Max Freedman
Producer: Milt Gabler
Released: May '54, Decca
24 weeks; No. 1

Haley began his career as a country yodeler before converting to rock & roll. "Clock" was a modest hit until it played during the opening credits of The Blackboard Jungle and shot to Number One.

Appears on: The Best of Bill Haley and His Comets (MCA)

Writer: Harry Warren
Producer: George Goldner
Released: April '59, End
13 weeks; No. 11

Dubbed "The Sultans of Smooth," this Chicago quintet honed their harmonies singing in a black Jewish temple choir and scored its best-known song with "I Only Have Eyes for You," originally a hit for crooner Ben Selvin in 1934. The Flamingos take the song all the way to Venus with elegant vocalizations and the otherworldly doo-bop-sh-bop.

Appears on: The Best of the Flamingos (Rhino)

Writer: Paul Simon
Producer: Tom Wilson
Released: Nov. '65, Columbia 
14 weeks; No. 1

Simon wrote this as an acoustic ballad, but  Simon and Garfunkel's first single version died. While Simon was in England, Wilson, who was producing Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," asked members of Dylan's studio band to add electric guitar and drums. Columbia released the amplified "Silence," which became a hit before Simon and Garfunkel had even heard it.

Appears on: Sounds of Silence (Columbia)

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Writer: John Fogerty
Producer: Fogerty
Released: Jan. '69, Fantasy
14 weeks; No. 2

"It was, like, the first really good song I ever wrote," Fogerty said of "Proud Mary," which began a run of five consecutive Top Three singles for CCR. He wrote the song, later unforgettably covered by Ike and Tina Turner, after his Army discharge: "I was fooling with the chord changes and started singing about the river. I realized, 'Well, maybe if I make it about the boat.' "     

Appears on: Bayou Country (Fantasy)

Writers: Sonny West, Bill Tilghman, Norman Petty
Producer: Petty
Released: April '58, Coral
10 weeks; No. 37

West recorded his own version of "Rave On" at the New Mexico studio where Holly laid down most of his hits. Petty wanted to give it to another band, but Holly said, "No way. I've got to have this song." 

Appears on: Buddy Holly: Greatest Hits (MCA)

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Writers: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Producer: George Martin
Released: July '64, Capitol
13 weeks; No. 1

The title comes from a Ringo Starr malapropism, the product of a marathon recording session. Lennon was fond of these Ringoisms and wrote the song overnight. Said Lennon, "The only reason [Paul] sang on it was because I couldn't reach the notes."

Appears on: A Hard Day's Night (Capitol)

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Writer: Hendrix
Producer: Chas Chandler
Released: Aug. '65, Reprise
4 weeks; No. 67

Heather Taylor, the future wife of the Who's Roger Daltrey, was said to have inspired this lip-smacking ode as Hendrix was gathering songs in London for his 1967 debut LP, Are You Experienced? Hendrix scrapes his pick down a guitar string, literally making it tremble with anticipation, before exploding into an indelibly dirty rift. "I'm comin' to getcha," he promises – and he did.

Appears on: Are You Experienced? (MCA)

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Writers: Jesse Belvin, Curtis Williams
Producer: Dootsie Williams
Released: Dec. '54, Dootone
15 weeks; No. 8

Crudely recorded in a garage and released on a small label, "Earth Angel" turned out to be a pivotal record in the early development of rock & roll. The artless, unaffected vocals of the Penguins, four black high schoolers from L.A., defined the street-corner elegance of doo-wop. The Penguins' version also outsold a sanitized, big-label cover by schmaltzy white group the Crew-Cuts.

Appears on: Earth Angel (Ace)

Writers: Gene Clark, Roger McGuinn, David Crosby
Producer: Allen Stanton
Released: April '66, Columbia
9 weeks; No. 14

A rare collaboration between three Byrds, it was supposedly about an airplane flight. McGuinn's 12-string solo was inspired by John Coltrane's sax playing and Rod Argent's piano on the Zombies' "She's Not There." "Of course it was a drug song," Crosby said. "We were stoned when we wrote it. But it was also about the [plane] trip to London."

Appears on: Fifth Dimension (Legacy)