20 Greatest Rock Song of All Time
#19 I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is a landmark song in the history of Motown. Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1966, the single was first recorded by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. It has since become a signature song for Marvin Gaye, who released it on October 30, 1968. Gaye's version has since become a landmark in pop music.
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20:
Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Originally formed in 1964 Lynyrad Skynyrd rose to worldwide recognition due to its driving live performances and signature tune, "Free Bird." At the peak of its success, three members died in an airplane crash, putting an abrupt end to the band's most popular incarnation.
19:
I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is a landmark song in the history of Motown. Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1966, the single was first recorded by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. It has since become a signature song for Marvin Gaye, who released it on October 30, 1968. Gaye's version has since become a landmark in pop music.
18:
Light My Fire - Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. The band took its name from Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, the title of which was a reference to a William Blake quotation: "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."
17:
Layla - Derek & the Dominos
"Layla" is a song written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, originally released by their blues rock band Derek and the Dominos. It is considered one of rock music's definitive love songs, featuring Eric Clapton and Duane Allman's unmistakable guitar. Inspired by Clapton's then unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend and fellow musician George Harrison, "Layla" has earned great critical and popular acclaim, and is often hailed as being among the greatest rock songs of all time.
16:
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
Written in the first person, the song is a love letter to a girl named Wendy for whom the hot-rod-riding protagonist certainly has enough passion to love, but perhaps not the patience. Springsteen has noted that it has a much simpler core: getting out of Freehold.
15:
Imagine - John Lennon
In Lennon's own words: "It's not a new message: Give Peace a Chance. We're not being unreasonable. Just saying 'give it a chance.' With 'Imagine' we're asking, 'can you imagine a world without countries or religions?' It's the same message over and over. And it's positive."
14:
(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay - Otis Redding
Redding died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967, 6 weeks before this was released and 3 days after he recorded it. It was by far his biggest hit and was also the first ever posthumous #1 single in the US. Redding was a rising star moving toward mainstream success at the time of his death. There is a good chance he would have recorded many more hits if he had lived.
13:
Papa's Got A Brand New Bag - James Brown
Brown recorded this song in one take - the released version was merely supposed to be a run-through, but sounded so good it was kept anyway. Brown, who still hadn't memorized the song's lyrics, read from a sheet in front of him; at the beginning of the original take, he can be heard saying "There's a lot of words here, man." He also can be heard exclaiming "This is a hit!" just before the band kicks in.
12:
All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
Hendrix: "All those people who don't like Bob Dylan's songs should read his lyrics. They are filled with the joys and sadness of life. I am as Dylan, none of us can sing normally. Sometimes, I play Dylan's songs and they are so much like me that it seems to me that I wrote them. I have the feeling that Watchtower is a song I could have come up with, but I'm sure I would never have finished it. Thinking about Dylan, I often consider that I'd never be able to write the words he manages to come up with, but I'd like him to help me, because I have loads of songs I can't finish. I just lay a few words on the paper, and I just can't go forward. But now things are getting better, I'm a bit more self-confident."
11:
Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who
Townshend: "It is not precisely a song that decries revolution – it suggests that we will indeed fight in the streets – but that revolution, like all action, can have results we cannot predict. Don't expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything. The song was meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the center of my life was not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause. When I wrote Won't Get Fooled Again, there was a transition in me from refusal to be co-opted by activists, to a refusal to be judged by people I found jaded and compliant in Thatcher's Britain."
10:
What'd I Say - Ray Charles
"What'd I Say" may not have been much of a song — a handful of short, unconnected verses, the chorus and that bridge — when Charles cut it on February 18th, 1959, at Atlantic's New York studio. That night on the bandstand Charles had turned to the black gospel experience he knew so well, the shared, mounting ecstasy of call-and-response. "Church was simple," he said in his autobiography Brother Ray. "Preacher sang or recited, and the congregation sang right back at him."
9:
Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
This was recorded over a two month period using top Los Angeles session musicians - the Beach Boys didn't play any instruments on the track. About 90 hours of studio time and 70 hours of tape were used, and at least 12 musicians played on the sessions.
8:
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
When it was released as a single, "Bohemian Rhapsody" became a commercial success, staying at the top of the UK Singles Chart for nine weeks and selling more than a million copies by the end of January 1976. It reached number one again in 1991 for five weeks following Mercury's death, eventually becoming the UK's third best selling single of all time. In the United States the song originally peaked at number nine in 1976; however, it returned to the chart at number two in 1992 following its appearance in the film Wayne's World which revived its American popularity. Although critical reaction was initially mixed, "Bohemian Rhapsody" remains one of Queen's most popular songs. The single was accompanied by a promotional video, which many scholars consider ground-breaking.
7:
A Day In The Life - Beatles
"A Day in the Life" is a song by The Beatles, the final track on the group's 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song comprises distinct segments written independently by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, with orchestral additions. The decisions to link sections of the song with orchestral glissandos and to end the song with a sustained piano chord were made only after the rest of the song had been recorded.
6:
Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
This was featured in the Elvis movie of the same name, where Elvis plays a wrongly accused convict who becomes a star when he gets out. The film, which is considered one of the best of his 31 movies, is famous for the scene where Elvis performs this song in an elaborate dance number taking place in prison.
5:
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
Jagger: "People get very blase about their big hit. It was the song that really made the Rolling Stones, changed us from just another band into a huge, monster band. You always need one song. We weren't American, and America was a big thing and we always wanted to make it here. It was very impressive the way that song and the popularity of the band became a worldwide thing. It's a signature tune, really, rather than a great, classic painting, 'cause it's only like one thing - a kind of signature that everyone knows. It has a very catchy title. It has a very catchy guitar riff. It has a great guitar sound, which was original at that time. And it captures a spirit of the times, which is very important in those kinds of songs... Which was alienation. Or it's a bit more than that, maybe, but a kind of sexual alienation. Alienation's not quite the right word, but it's one word that would do."
4:
Respect - Aretha Franklin
Respect was a landmark for the feminist movement and is often considered as one of the best songs of the R&B era, earning Franklin two Grammy Awards in 1968 for "Best Rhythm & Blues Recording" and "Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Vocal Performance, Female," and was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2002, the Library of Congress honored Franklin's version by adding it to the National Recording Registry.
3:
Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
Dylan based the lyrics on a short story he had written about a debutante who becomes a loner when she falls out of high society. The lyrics that made it into the song are only a small part of what was in the story. The title is not a reference to The Rolling Stones. It is taken from the phrase "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Dylan got the idea from the Hank Williams song "Lost Highway," which contains the line, "I'm a rolling stone, I'm alone and lost."
2:
Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry
This song is based on Berry's life. It tells the tale of a boy with humble beginnings with a talent for guitar. Some details were changed: Berry was from St. Louis, not Louisiana, and he knew how to read and write very well. He graduated from beauty school with a degree in hairdressing and cosmetology.
1:
Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
Robert Plant spent much of the '70s answering questions about the lyrics he wrote for "Stairway." When asked why the song was so popular, he said it could be its "abstraction," adding, "Depending on what day it is, I still interpret the song a different way - and I wrote the lyrics." The lyrics take some pretty wild turns, but the beginning of the song is about a woman who accumulates money, only to find out the hard way her life had no meaning and will not get her into heaven. This is the only part Plant would really explain, as he said it was "a woman getting everything she wanted without giving anything back."
