DAVID BOWIE · 1972
The most famous song about a rock star is not sung by the rock star. It is told by one of his sidemen, in the past tense, with envy curdling under every line, w…
ELTON JOHN · 1970
The most famous love song in Elton John's catalogue was written by a teenage lyricist who, by his own account, had barely been in love at all, and its real subj…
AC/DC · 1980
The happiest, cheekiest party song in the AC/DC catalogue was written by a grieving band five months after their singer drank himself to death — by a replacemen…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 2001
After a decade of songs about scheming women, tabloid persecution and the weight of being the most famous man alive, Michael Jackson's final major hit was somet…
DAVID ALLAN COE · 1975
The song country fans sing louder than any other is a prank — written by two Chicago folk singers who were quietly teasing the genre, sold to the world by an ex…
BEASTIE BOYS · 1986
The ultimate frat-party anthem was written as a joke about frat-party anthems. Beastie Boys meant it as a sneering parody of dumb, beer-soaked rock, and then wa…
BON JOVI · 1986
A power-pop missile disguised as a hard rock anthem, "You Give Love a Bad Name" was the song that detonated arena rock's commercial supernova in 1986. Co-writte…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1995
A ballad about love surviving physical absence, written by R&B singer R. Kelly out of his own grief — and the first song in history to debut at number one on th…
VILLAGE PEOPLE · 1978
A glittering disco anthem born from the cruising culture of late-1970s Manhattan, "Y.M.C.A." smuggled queer code into the heart of mainstream pop. Nearly five d…
THE BEATLES · 1965
The most covered song in recorded history is usually heard as a breakup ballad, but its lyric never says who left, or why — and many listeners, along with some …
COLDPLAY · 2000
A four-piece band of unassuming London students stumbled into the new millennium with a song that sounded like sunrise filtered through a bedroom window. "Yello…
AL STEWART · 1976
The most seductive soft-rock hit of 1976 did not begin as a song about an exotic romance at all. It started life as a portrait of a collapsing British comedian,…
VILLAGE PEOPLE · 1978
On its face, "Y.M.C.A." is a cheerful invitation to a young man down on his luck to find a bed, a meal and some friends at the local Christian youth hostel. Und…
OASIS · 1995
: "Wonderwall" is the song that turned Oasis from a Manchester guitar band into a generational shorthand, a four-chord acoustic anthem that somehow became both …
ERIC CLAPTON · 1977
A languid, slow-burning ballad written while a guitarist waited for his partner to finish getting ready for a party, "Wonderful Tonight" became one of the most …