100 greatest songs of all time
Vera Lynn's in there, so's Beyonce. But where does David Bowie rank? The Telegraph's rock critic picks his all-time favourites
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The Beatles: responsible for some of the greatest songs ever written
12:07AM BST 03 Jun 2015
116 Comments
As a fan, musician and critic, songs form
the very ground of my life, a constant soundtrack to my interior world,
a source of inspiration and consolation as well as old-fashioned
entertainment. At the heart of a song is a mystery, the way it interacts
with the memories and experience of the listener to become something
intensely personal. More than any other form of artistic expression,
people claim songs as their own.
For me, a great song is about melody and lyric dovetailing together to
become more than the sum of their parts, evoking ideas and emotions. It
is not the same as a great record, which has so much to do with
arrangement, performance, context. A truly great song takes on a kind of
intrinsic life of its own. Its genius manifests when sung a cappella,
by anyone, from a towering vocalist to an amateur alone in the shower.
Part of the beauty of a song is the way we share it, so I have tried to
reflect that by celebrating songs everybody knows. Some are karaoke
standards, the songs we sing to make sense of our lives, while some have
a different kind of greatness, pushing further and deeper in recalling
experience.
Any such list will
always be personal rather than definitive – we all have songs that sing
in our hearts. These are the 100 greatest songs of my time.
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Starting as I intend to finish, with sci-fi strangeness from pop’s resident spaceman – a weightless masterpiece of alienation.
David Bowie performs Space Oddity (Photo: LAURIE ASPREY)
Improbably sweet view of life on earth, its peaceful aura makes it a perfect antidote to harsh reality.
Playfully self-referential, deliberately awkward, mock-inarticulate little gem, perfectly aligning words and music into an everyman love song.
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Joyous, Celtic paean to desire with a melody that keeps going up and up until you think your head is going to pop.
Gospel rock hymn of doubt and spiritual quest, encapsulating the ambiguity of belief and uncertainty of faith.
Celebrated as an anthemic rock recording, the spine-tingling melodic motifs, fascinating lyrical abstractions and dark, emotional core attest to Cobain’s desire “to write the ultimate pop song.”
Rhythm, vocal and attitude come together in an exultant, uplifting declaration of female independence. Super-smart dance song you can sing in the shower.
Weirdly compelling epic of existential despair and self-affirmation – Sartre does Las Vegas.
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A raw, emotional cri de coeur magically rendered as a pure, uplifting blast of rock’n’roll.
Bohemian Rhapsody may be a bigger, stranger and more idiosyncratic recording but this swooning ballad of longing boasts Queens most vertigo- inducing sentiment and melodiousness.
Freddie Mercury performs at Live Aid (Photo: Georges DeKeerle)
Rising out of the depths of the internet to embed itself in popular consciousness, Hozier’s soulful, bluesy, gospel anthem offers a covert attack on organised religion while worshipping at the altar of sex. Impossible to resist singing along with every Amen.
An anthem for our age: apocalyptic verses surrender to a sweeping chorus with the promise that a departed lover will always be present.
Forties show tune famously transformed by the Merseybeat band into a soaring anthem of fraternal belonging.
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Hopelessly optimistic yet wonderfully inspirational singalong peace anthem.
Tender, sorrowful ballad that displays the more authentically raw and honest side of one of pop’s most complex songwriters.
Big, bonkers multi-part epic equating lost love with a forgotten cookery recipe.
Songwriter Jimmy Webb
Provocative, sensual, slinky slow-burner weaving erotic desire into hypnotic groove.
Heart-breaking, insomniac longing, beautifully evoking a lonely mood of contemplation in long, lost hours before the break of dawn.
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The backdrop of war lent this farewell song extra weight as Porter maintains the lightest emotional touch to the heaviest of emotional reckonings.
Unreciprocated love given wry, understated treatment from country and western’s original songwriting genius.
The city that has probably inspired more songs than any other gets a glorious anthem for the hip hop era. There’s a sublime Alicia Keys solo piano version but for swaggering, inspirational optimism you can’t beat the Jay Z rap.
Alicia Keys (Photo: Victoria Will)
Creepily paranoid, twisting metaphor for psychological and romantic disintegration.
A cynic has his head turned by beauty, making one of the most uplifting love songs ever written.
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Teenager Lorde’s slo-mo beats, sad chords and flowing melody elegantly frame a wise-beyond-her-years lyric skewering the gap between pop fantasy and real lives. We’ll be singing Lorde’s songs for years to come.
Before Cat Stevens found Allah he crafted this intense ballad of wounded love.
Anthemic plea for succour from one of the shining songwriting talents of today. He’s got soul but he’s not a soldier.
The Killers (Photo: Ethan Miller)
An everyday kind of love takes on a cheerfully sacred hue from one of the most perfectly matched songwriting teams in pop history.
Show tune turned jazz standard, magically transforming a list of faults into a declaration of adoration.
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Perhaps not everyone’s idea of a singalong but the wit and anger make it the great political protest song of our times.
Asked what the song means, McLean once said: “It means I never have to work again.” Cryptic yet uplifting singalong about the mysteries of music and love.
A sense of weird spatial dislocation hangs over this beguiling and perplexing metaphor for the Hollywood high life powered by a scintillating weave of melodic motifs.
The cover of Hotel California, by The Eagles
Forensic dissection of the end of an affair turns into an epic plea for reconciliation in a karaoke classic.
Whimsical, touching song of self-reproach amid the madness of love.
Housewife fights seductress for the love of her husband. Compelling country narrative of jealousy and despair underpinned by steely courage.
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Lonely desire distilled in the image of a telephone engineer on an empty highway listening in to his lover’s voice.
Stately, vulnerable piano ballad of a lover’s apologetic desire to turn back the clock that sweeps reistance away with a gorgeous keening coda.
Well, we all know where this ended up, but that doesn’t make Amy’s wicked, soulful defiance any less inspiring.
Amy Winehouse (Photo: Matt Dunham)
The personal becomes universal in this soulful, apologetic anthem about cruelty and injustice.
Cave’s incredible, vivid lyric puts you in the electric chair with a man facing the end, in defiance and fear. But it took an interpreter of Cash’s humanity to draw out the song’s heart.
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Most Robbie Williams fans would probably opt for the robust singalong charms of Angel but Feel is a slow burning wonder, a subtle yet evocative song of emotional constriction with a huge chorus.
Burned-out, world-weary, cynical but ultimately uplifting tale of daily survival that offers advice you can live by (“if you try sometimes, you just might find, you can get what you need”).
The Rolling Stones' frontman Mick Jagger (Photo: Cecil Beaton)
Compelling, icy cry from the heart with keening melody and one of the strangest choruses in pop.
Gentle character study of tap-dancing hobo and his dog, underpinned by issues of race and poverty on American streets, floating by on a melody infused with sadness.
Unusually for Floyd, this is a simple acoustic folk-blues drone, with a powerful, ironic lyric about life as a war zone.
Mysterious and sacred hymn of romantic praise, grounded in Harrison’s plain-speaking manner. Frank Sinatra called it the greatest love song ever.
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Morrison’s muse has carried him on wild astral journeys but this jazzy little lunar groove distils the essence of love and dancing.
Van Morrison (Photo: Getty/ Ross Gilmore)
Perhaps the most heartbreaking country lament ever, a wearily detailed observation of a groom’s desertion at the altar.
Dylan’s poetic distillation of the mysteries of humanity’s inhumanity.
Love as a masquerade, hurt wrapped up in melodic delight.
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McCartney’s melodicism surely helped shape Lennon’s elegant comparison of past and present loves into a song for all ages.
Swooning, swaying melody and mischievously defiant lyric sets the immediacy of musical escapism against ominous forces of reality.
Epic, ethereal, always touching and fantastically stirring ballad of loyalty and sacrifice.
Simon and Garfunkel (Photo: REX/ Ross Gilmore)
Ultimate anthem of the down-trodden woman at the disco.
Lonely, sorrowful yet defiant distillation of the human condition from one of the deepest lyricists of out time.
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Richly sensual melody sweetens the bitter pill of a lover’s cold-hearted revenge.
Lonely man finds solace in the city, an anthem for every Londoner. Ray Davies sketches multitudes in a few simple lines, climbing to an ecstatic chorus.
The Kinks (Photo: REX/ Trevor Watson)
Fragility and strength combine in perfect trip-hop evocation of love’s shelter.
A beautiful melody and intimate poetic lyric soften the blows in Young’s tragic lament for a friend lost to heroin.
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Oblique obsessional singalong that means whatever a listener wants it to mean, so heartfelt and catchy its abstract impenetrability imbues it with something strangely universal. That’s me in the corner.
McCartney’s greatest singalong, a caring lyric combines with a rolling melody and “nah-nah-nah”s that feel like they could go on forever.
The ultimate saloon song, a lonely drinker’s lament.
Frank Sinatra pictured with Eva Gardner
You can smell the whiskey and regret on Waits poetic evocation of drunken melancholy, with a woozy chorus fashioned from Australian folk song Waltzing Matilda.
Tender, fateful foretelling of the end of a relationship.
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Mesmerising song of sensual worship, improbably composed by sweater-clad communist folkie.
Punk rock’s most tenderly poisonous love song.
Desire adrift in a surreal night-time world. “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?”
Bob Dylan
Gloriously over-the-top metaphor for lung-busting, unrestrained love.
Vibrant distillation of everyday heartbreak and bafflement.
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Absurdly (some would say hypocritically); idealistic, Imagine still perfectly evokes a kind of utopia.
The other side of Lennon’s idealism: bitter dissection of class, where anger counterpoints a lovely melody.
Beneath the explosive force and incredible arc of Led Zeppelin’s performance lurks an achingly beautiful pastoral ballad picking at the vanity of humanity in the glorious face of the natural world.
Led Zeppelin (Photo: Ian Dickson/ REX)
Complex, vibrant suicide note to the music business from a woman operating at the highest stratosphere of words and music.
Comical class anthem whose ironic wit and sharp couplets barely dampen the underlying anger.
Morrissey has rarely been as artless or vulnerable, his direct plea for love set to a beautiful Johnny Marr melody.
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Vulnerability trembles through the defiance of Oasis’s forcefully direct love song. That it is irresistibly singalong almost goes without saying.
Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis
The song Thom Yorke says he loves least is his most direct and potent outsider anthem.
Romantic fear and self-loathing wrapped up in a post-punk torch song.
Simple chord progression and heartfelt plea combine for an inspiring anthem of solidarity.
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Rumour, gossip, jealousy transformed into slinky soul.
Emotionally fragile yet perversely jolly take on jealousy that resonates with ambiguity and a chorus that soars into the stars.
Optimism and stoicism made this singalong the people’s song of the Second World War.
Vera Lynn (Photo: Universal Pictorial Press)
On a purely melodic and harmonic level, ABBA operated in a sphere beyond most pop songwriters. The joyous escapism of Dancing Queen is infused with ephemeral loss, a feeling of youth burning out before your very eyes and ears.
Gorgeous devotional love song floats on a heartbursting baroque melody.
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The confrontation implicit in a bitter divorce is somehow transmuted into inspirational anthem of mutual dependence.
Sinister poetic account of racist lynchings. Holiday is said to have broken down every time she performed it.
Billy Holiday (Photo: WILLIAM GOTTLIEB/ REDFERNS)
Soul stirring song of survival, our weary narrator drawing inspiration from a scarred fighter’s refusal to surrender.
Springsteen is a master of American narratives, and digs deep on this huge, haunting ballad charting how economic hardship can destroy a relationship, with the dried river as a symbol of elusive hopes and dreams.
The song that has everything: desire and rejection, love and sex, God and man, failure and transcendence.
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Jagger outrageously puts himself in the cloven hooves of Satan in a wild, evocative roll call of human outrages.
Equally outrageously, Newman casts himself as God contemplating his pitiful creation.
A secular hymn of compassion constructed around a simple picked rock-and-roll guitar motif.
REM (Photo: ANP/Robert Vos)
Has there ever been a more streamlined, sensual evocation of addictive desire?
The rising melody and wistful lyric perfectly encapsulate yearning for a different, better life.
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A singer ponders lost love and prepares for his own funeral on a sad, defiant contemplation of mortality that has been passed down through the mists of time and recorded by artists as diverse as Billie Holiday and the White Stripes.
Simple, stirring, strangely wistful anthem of freedom, both personal and political.
Bob Marley
Witty, compassionate, inspirational song of confused, transgender love, boasting dazzling rhymes, exultant melody and explosive emotion.
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A thousand karaoke versions cannot destroy this epic, vocally demanding ballad.
Bob Dylan (1975)
Dylan’s dazzling narrative of star-crossed love and divorce was shaped by abstract art into a tableaux you can come at from any angle and discover something new.
Anthem of consolation, inspired by Paul McCartney’s dream of a visit from his own mother, Mary.
Gloriously strange sci-fi anthem. A stirring, yearning melody combines with vivid, poetic imagery to accomplish a trick very particular to the art of the song: to be at once completely impenetrable and yet resonant with personal meaning. You want to raise your voice and sing along, yet Bowie’s abstract cut-up lyrics force you to invest the song with something of yourself just to make sense of the experience, and then carries you away to a place resonant with intense, individual emotion. The magic and mystery of music and lyrics. It is something to behold.
David Bowie (Photo: REX)
100: Space Oddity
David Bowie (1969)Starting as I intend to finish, with sci-fi strangeness from pop’s resident spaceman – a weightless masterpiece of alienation.
David Bowie performs Space Oddity (Photo: LAURIE ASPREY)
99: What a Wonderful World
Bob Theile & George David Weiss (1968); Definitive Version (DV): Louis ArmstrongImprobably sweet view of life on earth, its peaceful aura makes it a perfect antidote to harsh reality.
98: Your Song
Elton John/Bernie Taupin (1971); DV: Elton JohnPlayfully self-referential, deliberately awkward, mock-inarticulate little gem, perfectly aligning words and music into an everyman love song.
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97: Come On Eileen
Kevin Rowland/Jim Patterson/Billy Adams (1982); DV: Dexys Midnight RunnersJoyous, Celtic paean to desire with a melody that keeps going up and up until you think your head is going to pop.
96: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
U2 (1987)Gospel rock hymn of doubt and spiritual quest, encapsulating the ambiguity of belief and uncertainty of faith.
95: Smells Like Teen Spirit
Kurt Cobain (1991); DV: NirvanaCelebrated as an anthemic rock recording, the spine-tingling melodic motifs, fascinating lyrical abstractions and dark, emotional core attest to Cobain’s desire “to write the ultimate pop song.”
94: Single Ladies (Ring On It)
Harrell/ Knowles/ Nash/ Stewart (2009); DV: BeyonceRhythm, vocal and attitude come together in an exultant, uplifting declaration of female independence. Super-smart dance song you can sing in the shower.
93: I Am. I Said
Neil Diamond (1971)Weirdly compelling epic of existential despair and self-affirmation – Sartre does Las Vegas.
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92: Help!
Lennon & McCartney (1965); DV: The BeatlesA raw, emotional cri de coeur magically rendered as a pure, uplifting blast of rock’n’roll.
91: Somebody To Love
Freddie Mercury (1976); DV: QueenBohemian Rhapsody may be a bigger, stranger and more idiosyncratic recording but this swooning ballad of longing boasts Queens most vertigo- inducing sentiment and melodiousness.
Freddie Mercury performs at Live Aid (Photo: Georges DeKeerle)
90: Take Me To Church
Andrew Hozier-Byrne (2013); DV: HozierRising out of the depths of the internet to embed itself in popular consciousness, Hozier’s soulful, bluesy, gospel anthem offers a covert attack on organised religion while worshipping at the altar of sex. Impossible to resist singing along with every Amen.
89: Run
Snow Patrol (2003)An anthem for our age: apocalyptic verses surrender to a sweeping chorus with the promise that a departed lover will always be present.
88: You’ll Never Walk Alone
Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II (1945); DV: Gerry and the Pacemakers 1963Forties show tune famously transformed by the Merseybeat band into a soaring anthem of fraternal belonging.
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87: All You Need Is Love
Lennon & McCartney (1967); DV: The BeatlesHopelessly optimistic yet wonderfully inspirational singalong peace anthem.
86: Jealous Guy
John Lennon (1971)Tender, sorrowful ballad that displays the more authentically raw and honest side of one of pop’s most complex songwriters.
85: MacArthur Park
Jimmy Webb (1968); DV: Richard HarrisBig, bonkers multi-part epic equating lost love with a forgotten cookery recipe.
Songwriter Jimmy Webb
84: Light My Fire
The Doors (1966)Provocative, sensual, slinky slow-burner weaving erotic desire into hypnotic groove.
83: In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
Bob Hilliard/David Mann (1955); DV: Frank SinatraHeart-breaking, insomniac longing, beautifully evoking a lonely mood of contemplation in long, lost hours before the break of dawn.
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82: Everytime We Say Goodbye
Cole Porter (1944); DV: Ella Fitzgerald 1956The backdrop of war lent this farewell song extra weight as Porter maintains the lightest emotional touch to the heaviest of emotional reckonings.
81: Cold, Cold Heart
Hank Williams (1951); DV: Norah Jones 2002Unreciprocated love given wry, understated treatment from country and western’s original songwriting genius.
80: Empire State Of Mind
Hunte / Keys / Shuckburgh / Keyes / Sewell-Ulepic / Carter (2009); DV: Jay Z & Alicia KeysThe city that has probably inspired more songs than any other gets a glorious anthem for the hip hop era. There’s a sublime Alicia Keys solo piano version but for swaggering, inspirational optimism you can’t beat the Jay Z rap.
Alicia Keys (Photo: Victoria Will)
79: Watching the Detectives
Elvis Costello (1977)Creepily paranoid, twisting metaphor for psychological and romantic disintegration.
78: I’m a Believer
Neil Diamond (1966); DV: The MonkeesA cynic has his head turned by beauty, making one of the most uplifting love songs ever written.
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77: Royals
Joel Little / Ella Yelich-O’Connor (2014); DV: Lorde 2014Teenager Lorde’s slo-mo beats, sad chords and flowing melody elegantly frame a wise-beyond-her-years lyric skewering the gap between pop fantasy and real lives. We’ll be singing Lorde’s songs for years to come.
76: The First Cut Is the Deepest
Cat Stevens (1967); DV: Rod Stewart 1976Before Cat Stevens found Allah he crafted this intense ballad of wounded love.
75: All These Things I’ve Done
Brandon Flowers (2005); DV: The KillersAnthemic plea for succour from one of the shining songwriting talents of today. He’s got soul but he’s not a soldier.
The Killers (Photo: Ethan Miller)
74: I Say a Little Prayer
Burt Bacharach/Hal David (1967); DV: Aretha Franklin 1968An everyday kind of love takes on a cheerfully sacred hue from one of the most perfectly matched songwriting teams in pop history.
73: My Funny Valentine
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (1937); DV: Chet Baker 1953Show tune turned jazz standard, magically transforming a list of faults into a declaration of adoration.
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72: Anarchy in the UK
The Sex Pistols (1976)Perhaps not everyone’s idea of a singalong but the wit and anger make it the great political protest song of our times.
71: American Pie
Don McLean (1971)Asked what the song means, McLean once said: “It means I never have to work again.” Cryptic yet uplifting singalong about the mysteries of music and love.
70: Hotel California
Don Felder/Glenn Frey/Don Henley (1976); DV: The EaglesA sense of weird spatial dislocation hangs over this beguiling and perplexing metaphor for the Hollywood high life powered by a scintillating weave of melodic motifs.
The cover of Hotel California, by The Eagles
69: You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
Phil Spector/Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil (1964); DV: The Righteous BrothersForensic dissection of the end of an affair turns into an epic plea for reconciliation in a karaoke classic.
68: Crazy
Willie Nelson (1961); DV: Patsy ClineWhimsical, touching song of self-reproach amid the madness of love.
67: Jolene
Dolly Parton (1974)Housewife fights seductress for the love of her husband. Compelling country narrative of jealousy and despair underpinned by steely courage.
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66: Wichita Lineman
Jimmy Webb (1968); DV: Glen CampbellLonely desire distilled in the image of a telephone engineer on an empty highway listening in to his lover’s voice.
65: The Scientist
Coldplay (2002)Stately, vulnerable piano ballad of a lover’s apologetic desire to turn back the clock that sweeps reistance away with a gorgeous keening coda.
64: Rehab
Amy Winehouse (2006)Well, we all know where this ended up, but that doesn’t make Amy’s wicked, soulful defiance any less inspiring.
Amy Winehouse (Photo: Matt Dunham)
63: Why
Annie Lennox/Peter John Vettese (1992); DV: Annie LennoxThe personal becomes universal in this soulful, apologetic anthem about cruelty and injustice.
62: The Mercy Seat
Nick Cave/Mick Harvey (1988); DV: Johnny Cash (2000)Cave’s incredible, vivid lyric puts you in the electric chair with a man facing the end, in defiance and fear. But it took an interpreter of Cash’s humanity to draw out the song’s heart.
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61: Feel
Robbie Williams/Guy Chambers (2002); DV: Robbie WilliamsMost Robbie Williams fans would probably opt for the robust singalong charms of Angel but Feel is a slow burning wonder, a subtle yet evocative song of emotional constriction with a huge chorus.
60: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Jagger & Richards (1969); DV: The Rolling StonesBurned-out, world-weary, cynical but ultimately uplifting tale of daily survival that offers advice you can live by (“if you try sometimes, you just might find, you can get what you need”).
The Rolling Stones' frontman Mick Jagger (Photo: Cecil Beaton)
59: When Doves Cry
Prince (1984)Compelling, icy cry from the heart with keening melody and one of the strangest choruses in pop.
58: Mr Bojangles
Jerry Jegg Walker (1968); DV: Nina Simone (1971)Gentle character study of tap-dancing hobo and his dog, underpinned by issues of race and poverty on American streets, floating by on a melody infused with sadness.
57: Wish You Were Here
David Gilmour/Roger Waters (1975); DV: Pink FloydUnusually for Floyd, this is a simple acoustic folk-blues drone, with a powerful, ironic lyric about life as a war zone.
56: Something
George Harrison (1970); DV: The BeatlesMysterious and sacred hymn of romantic praise, grounded in Harrison’s plain-speaking manner. Frank Sinatra called it the greatest love song ever.
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55: Moondance
Van Morrison (1970)Morrison’s muse has carried him on wild astral journeys but this jazzy little lunar groove distils the essence of love and dancing.
Van Morrison (Photo: Getty/ Ross Gilmore)
54: 1000 Dollar Wedding
Gram Parsons (1973)Perhaps the most heartbreaking country lament ever, a wearily detailed observation of a groom’s desertion at the altar.
53: Blowin’ in the Wind
Bob Dylan (1963)Dylan’s poetic distillation of the mysteries of humanity’s inhumanity.
52: The Tears of a Clown
Stevie Wonder, Hank Cosby, Smokey Robinson (1967); DV: Smokey Robinson & The MiraclesLove as a masquerade, hurt wrapped up in melodic delight.
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51: In My Life
Lennon & McCartney (1965); DV: The BeatlesMcCartney’s melodicism surely helped shape Lennon’s elegant comparison of past and present loves into a song for all ages.
50: Let’s Face the Music and Dance
Irving Berlin (1936); DV: Fred AstaireSwooning, swaying melody and mischievously defiant lyric sets the immediacy of musical escapism against ominous forces of reality.
49: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Paul Simon (1970); DV: Simon and GarfunkelEpic, ethereal, always touching and fantastically stirring ballad of loyalty and sacrifice.
Simon and Garfunkel (Photo: REX/ Ross Gilmore)
48: I Will Survive
Freddie Perren/Dino Fekaris (1978); DV: Gloria GaynorUltimate anthem of the down-trodden woman at the disco.
47: Bird on the Wire
Leonard Cohen (1969)Lonely, sorrowful yet defiant distillation of the human condition from one of the deepest lyricists of out time.
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46: Cry Me a River
Arthur Hamilton (1953); DV: Julie LondonRichly sensual melody sweetens the bitter pill of a lover’s cold-hearted revenge.
45: Waterloo Sunset
Ray Davies (1967); DV: The KinksLonely man finds solace in the city, an anthem for every Londoner. Ray Davies sketches multitudes in a few simple lines, climbing to an ecstatic chorus.
The Kinks (Photo: REX/ Trevor Watson)
44: Protection
Massive Attack with Tracy Thorn (1995)Fragility and strength combine in perfect trip-hop evocation of love’s shelter.
43: The Needle and the Damage Done
Neil Young (1972)A beautiful melody and intimate poetic lyric soften the blows in Young’s tragic lament for a friend lost to heroin.
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42: Losing My Religion
REM (1991)Oblique obsessional singalong that means whatever a listener wants it to mean, so heartfelt and catchy its abstract impenetrability imbues it with something strangely universal. That’s me in the corner.
41: Hey Jude
Lennon & McCartney (1968); DV: The BeatlesMcCartney’s greatest singalong, a caring lyric combines with a rolling melody and “nah-nah-nah”s that feel like they could go on forever.
40: One For My Baby (and One More for the Road)
Harold Arlen & Johnny Mercer (1943); DV Frank Sinatra (1958)The ultimate saloon song, a lonely drinker’s lament.
Frank Sinatra pictured with Eva Gardner
39: Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)
Tom Waits (1976)You can smell the whiskey and regret on Waits poetic evocation of drunken melancholy, with a woozy chorus fashioned from Australian folk song Waltzing Matilda.
38: One Day I’ll Fly Away
Joe Sample/Will Jennings (1980); DV: Randy CrawfordTender, fateful foretelling of the end of a relationship.
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37: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Ewan Macoll (1957); DV: Roberta Flack (1969)Mesmerising song of sensual worship, improbably composed by sweater-clad communist folkie.
36: Alison
Elvis Costello (1977)Punk rock’s most tenderly poisonous love song.
35: Visions of Johanna
Bob Dylan (1966)Desire adrift in a surreal night-time world. “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?”
Bob Dylan
34: River Deep, Mountain High
Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich (1966); DV: Ike and Tina TurnerGloriously over-the-top metaphor for lung-busting, unrestrained love.
33: I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself
Burt Bacharach & Hal David (1962); DV: Dusty Springfield 1964Vibrant distillation of everyday heartbreak and bafflement.
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32: Imagine
John Lennon (1971)Absurdly (some would say hypocritically); idealistic, Imagine still perfectly evokes a kind of utopia.
31: Working Class Hero
John Lennon (1970)The other side of Lennon’s idealism: bitter dissection of class, where anger counterpoints a lovely melody.
30: Stairway To Heaven
Jimmy Page / Robert Plant (1970)Beneath the explosive force and incredible arc of Led Zeppelin’s performance lurks an achingly beautiful pastoral ballad picking at the vanity of humanity in the glorious face of the natural world.
Led Zeppelin (Photo: Ian Dickson/ REX)
29: For the Roses
Joni Mitchell (1972)Complex, vibrant suicide note to the music business from a woman operating at the highest stratosphere of words and music.
28: Common People
Pulp (1995)Comical class anthem whose ironic wit and sharp couplets barely dampen the underlying anger.
27: Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
Morrissey & Marr (1984); DV: The SmithsMorrissey has rarely been as artless or vulnerable, his direct plea for love set to a beautiful Johnny Marr melody.
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26: Wonderwall
Noel Gallagher (1995); DV: Ryan Adams (2004)Vulnerability trembles through the defiance of Oasis’s forcefully direct love song. That it is irresistibly singalong almost goes without saying.
Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis
25: Creep
Thom Yorke (1992); DV RadioheadThe song Thom Yorke says he loves least is his most direct and potent outsider anthem.
24: Love Will Tear Us Apart
Joy Division (1980)Romantic fear and self-loathing wrapped up in a post-punk torch song.
23: Stand By Me
Ben E King, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller (1961); DV: Ben E KingSimple chord progression and heartfelt plea combine for an inspiring anthem of solidarity.
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22: I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong (1966); DV Marvin Gaye (1968)Rumour, gossip, jealousy transformed into slinky soul.
21: Satellite of Love
Lou Reed (1973)Emotionally fragile yet perversely jolly take on jealousy that resonates with ambiguity and a chorus that soars into the stars.
20: We’ll Meet Again
Ross Parker & Hughie Charles (1939); DV: Vera LynnOptimism and stoicism made this singalong the people’s song of the Second World War.
Vera Lynn (Photo: Universal Pictorial Press)
19: Dancing Queen
Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Stig Anderson (1976); DV: ABBAOn a purely melodic and harmonic level, ABBA operated in a sphere beyond most pop songwriters. The joyous escapism of Dancing Queen is infused with ephemeral loss, a feeling of youth burning out before your very eyes and ears.
18: God Only Knows
Brian Wilson & Tony Asher (1966); DV: The Beach BoysGorgeous devotional love song floats on a heartbursting baroque melody.
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17: One
U2 (1992)The confrontation implicit in a bitter divorce is somehow transmuted into inspirational anthem of mutual dependence.
16: Strange Fruit
Abel Meeropol (1936); DV: Billie Holiday (1939)Sinister poetic account of racist lynchings. Holiday is said to have broken down every time she performed it.
Billy Holiday (Photo: WILLIAM GOTTLIEB/ REDFERNS)
15: The Boxer
Paul Simon (1969); DV: Simon and GarfunkelSoul stirring song of survival, our weary narrator drawing inspiration from a scarred fighter’s refusal to surrender.
14: The River
Bruce Springsteen (1981)Springsteen is a master of American narratives, and digs deep on this huge, haunting ballad charting how economic hardship can destroy a relationship, with the dried river as a symbol of elusive hopes and dreams.
13: Hallelujah
Leonard Cohen (1984); DV: Jeff Buckley (1994)The song that has everything: desire and rejection, love and sex, God and man, failure and transcendence.
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12: Sympathy for the Devil
Jagger & Richards (1968); DV: The Rolling StonesJagger outrageously puts himself in the cloven hooves of Satan in a wild, evocative roll call of human outrages.
11: God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind)
Randy Newman (1972)Equally outrageously, Newman casts himself as God contemplating his pitiful creation.
10: Everybody Hurts
Stipe, Berry, Buck & Mills (1993); DV: REMA secular hymn of compassion constructed around a simple picked rock-and-roll guitar motif.
REM (Photo: ANP/Robert Vos)
9: I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Cole Porter (1956); DV: Frank SinatraHas there ever been a more streamlined, sensual evocation of addictive desire?
8: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Harold Arlen & E. Y Yarburg (1939); DV: Judy GarlandThe rising melody and wistful lyric perfectly encapsulate yearning for a different, better life.
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7: Saint James Infirmary
Traditional blues; DV: Louis Armstrong 1928A singer ponders lost love and prepares for his own funeral on a sad, defiant contemplation of mortality that has been passed down through the mists of time and recorded by artists as diverse as Billie Holiday and the White Stripes.
6: Redemption Song
Bob Marley (1979)Simple, stirring, strangely wistful anthem of freedom, both personal and political.
Bob Marley
5: Lola
Ray Davies (1970); DV: The KinksWitty, compassionate, inspirational song of confused, transgender love, boasting dazzling rhymes, exultant melody and explosive emotion.
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4: Unchained Melody
Alex North & Hy Zaret (1955); DV: The Righteous Brothers (1965)A thousand karaoke versions cannot destroy this epic, vocally demanding ballad.
3: Tangled Up in Blue
Bob Dylan (1975)
Dylan’s dazzling narrative of star-crossed love and divorce was shaped by abstract art into a tableaux you can come at from any angle and discover something new.
2: Let It Be
Lennon & McCartney (1970); DV: The Beatles (1970)Anthem of consolation, inspired by Paul McCartney’s dream of a visit from his own mother, Mary.
1: Life On Mars?
David Bowie (1971)Gloriously strange sci-fi anthem. A stirring, yearning melody combines with vivid, poetic imagery to accomplish a trick very particular to the art of the song: to be at once completely impenetrable and yet resonant with personal meaning. You want to raise your voice and sing along, yet Bowie’s abstract cut-up lyrics force you to invest the song with something of yourself just to make sense of the experience, and then carries you away to a place resonant with intense, individual emotion. The magic and mystery of music and lyrics. It is something to behold.
David Bowie (Photo: REX)
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