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Songs
76 dives, one song at a time
Lynn Anderson
(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden
Everyone hears Lynn Anderson's song. It was written years earlier, and not for her.
The Who
Behind Blue Eyes
It plays like the most personal thing Townshend ever wrote. So who is really talking?
Imagine Dragons
Believer
Reads like a pep talk. The pain under it is real, and he kept it quiet for years.
The Verve
Bitter Sweet Symphony
The lead single. A million copies, a string loop, and a credit he had to share.
Pearl Jam
Black
It sounds like one person alone with a guitar. It wasn't.
The Weeknd
Blinding Lights
It sounds like pure euphoria. He says it's hiding the opposite.
Queen
Bohemian Rhapsody
That orchestra you hear has no orchestra in it. So what is it?
Bruce Springsteen
Born in the U.S.A.
The whole stadium sang it wrong for a decade. Listen to who the verses bury.
Green Day
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
The most famous line in their biggest song was never written. Where Armstrong found it.
Pink Floyd
Breathe (In the Air)
A drifting lullaby with a trap inside. It comes back. Three songs later.
Evanescence
Bring Me To Life
Everyone filed this under gothic. Listen to what is actually being asked for.
Billie Eilish
bury a friend
A song written from the monster's point of view, not the child hiding from it.
System of a Down
Chop Suey!
A title that reads like a takeout order, hiding a question about how we judge the dead.
Coldplay
Clocks
A song about running out of time almost got told to wait.
Blackfield
Cloudy Now
A gentle English ballad doing its best to hide how angry it really is.
Pink Floyd
Comfortably Numb
It sounds like a song about getting high. It's about a body switched off.
Avril Lavigne
Complicated
A sixteen-year-old tells the world to stop pretending. Worth asking who's speaking.
Radiohead
Creep
It flopped at home first. What rescued it makes no sense on paper.
Blackfield
DNA
Two men, opposite worlds, one inherited sadness running through both.
Pink Floyd
Dogs
On the album Waters seized whole, one song slipped his grip. This one.
Journey
Don't Stop Believin'
The part everyone sings sits in a place you would never build it.
Fleetwood Mac
Dreams
Rumours has a famous breakup song. This is the other one.
Pink Floyd
Echoes
The famous sonar pulse that opens it was never made by a machine.
Metallica
Enter Sandman
It sounds like one riff on a loop. The truth about its shape is stranger.
The Police
Every Breath You Take
The most romantic song of 1983 is about something much darker.
Radiohead
Fake Plastic Trees
The producer heard a big track on the demo. Every big version they recorded fell flat.
Leonard Cohen
Famous Blue Raincoat
It is laid out like a real letter. Pay close attention to who wrote it, and to whom.
Royal Blood
Figure It Out
Two people. Bass and drums. No guitarist anywhere on it, and you'd never guess.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Fortunate Son
The most patriotic-sounding song in America. Worth asking what it actually says.
OutKast
Hey Ya!
The most danceable song of the decade is, by its writer's own account, about doubt.
Eagles
Hotel California
It sounds like a late-night jam. Almost nothing about it was left to chance.
Phil Collins
In the Air Tonight
The internet is certain it knows what this song is about. Ask the man who wrote it.
Linkin Park
In the End
A song that went Diamond was built to land nowhere. That was on purpose.
P!nk
Just Give Me a Reason
Sounds like two people and a piano in a warm room. Count who was actually there.
R.E.M.
Losing My Religion
Everyone hears a song about faith. It is a Southern phrase for the end of your rope.
Freddie Mercury
Love Me Like There's No Tomorrow
The last song on the one record he made alone, and one of his own favourites.
The Beatles
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Everyone "knows" where the title came from. The truth is smaller and closer to home.
Bob Dylan
Make You Feel My Love
The world heard this song before Dylan's own version of it ever came out.
Metallica
Master of Puppets
That sneering voice in the verses is not who you think it is.
Pink Floyd
Money
That clinking till at the start is not what it sounds like.
Evanescence
My Immortal
The band and label each lost a fight over this song. You have been hearing the results.
Radiohead
No Surprises
A glockenspiel lullaby built to carry the bleakest words Yorke could write.
Linkin Park
Numb
One of their biggest songs, and almost nothing is what the first listen tells you.
Linkin Park
One Step Closer
The hardest song on the debut. The fury in it had a target you won't expect.
Blackfield
Pain
The voice on this one is not the voice that has been carrying the album.
The Rolling Stones
Paint It Black
That sitar drone was the whole idea from the start. Or was it.
Foster the People
Pumped Up Kicks
The sunniest song of 2011 is whistling about something far darker.
Adele
Rolling in the Deep
That huge heartbreak chorus you belt? Listen again to who she is talking to.
Lorde
Royals
The radio kept selling her diamonds. So she answered it.
Kate Bush
Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)
She wanted to call it "A Deal with God." Her label was scared of one word.
The White Stripes
Seven Nation Army
The bassline Rolling Stone named the greatest riff of the 2000s. By a band with no bass.
Sting
Shape of My Heart
The riff was a finger warm-up. Sting built the whole song on top of it in one morning.
Nirvana
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Everyone heard a revolution. Cobain was trying to write a pop song.
Slipknot
Snuff
The aggression band's quietest song went the furthest.
Gotye
Somebody That I Used to Know
Billboard's No. 1 song of 2012 wasn't built from a breakup. It was built from this.
David Bowie
Space Oddity
Two words everyone knows. Try catching them anywhere in the song.
Coldplay
Sparks
A quiet apology from 2000. A quarter-century on, listeners heard something new in it.
Led Zeppelin
Stairway to Heaven
The most-played thing on rock radio for a decade, and it never did the one thing hits do.
Dire Straits
Sultans of Swing
The Deptford pub band that named themselves grand, and the songwriter who took the joke.
Guns N' Roses
Sweet Child o' Mine
The most recognisable thing about this song is the thing Slash least meant to write.
Hozier
Take Me to Church
A breakup, an attic, three months. Then the worship points somewhere you missed.
a-ha
Take On Me
The song everyone knows almost never got heard at all.
Linkin Park
The Emptiness Machine
The anthem that broke a seven-year silence, hiding more than it shouts.
Freddie Mercury
The Great Pretender
The chart number this hit in Britain is not the one you would guess.
Coldplay
The Hardest Part
Sounds like pure Coldplay heartbreak. Listen again for what it owes.
Coldplay
The Scientist
It started as a man reaching for something that wasn't his, and missing.
Queen
The Show Must Go On
The most personal confession Freddie ever sang. Look at who actually wrote it.
Simon & Garfunkel
The Sound of Silence
It flopped so hard the band broke up. Then it didn't.
Pink Floyd
Time
It sounds like old men talking about death. Check who actually wrote it.
Green Day
Wake Me Up When September Ends
The title didn't start as a lyric. It started somewhere much more personal.
My Chemical Romance
Welcome to the Black Parade
The singalong everyone shouts is not the celebration it sounds like.
Linkin Park
What I've Done
The centrepiece of the record did not arrive the way you would guess.
Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here
Everyone knows who this song is about. The man who wrote the words says it's wider.
U2
With or Without You
The version everyone heard, almost nobody in the room wanted to keep.
Coldplay
Yellow
The most heartfelt song Coldplay made started with a broken mic and a phone book.
The Cranberries
Zombie
She wasn't writing about Ireland in general. She was writing about one thing she saw.