Pitchfork

People always ask: "When is Pitchfork gonna run a list of the top albums of the 1960s?" The answer now? Probably never. Not that we didn't consider it. It's just that when we sat down to map it all out, we found it would be more rewarding to approach the decade through its songs instead. After all, it was by and large a single-oriented era-- the long-player didn't really take over as a creative medium until the 60s had nearly come to an end. And besides, Revolver's ego is out of hand as it is.

So now, after a week's worth of counting down from 200, we are thrilled to reveal, at last, the 20 greatest songs of the 1960s, as determined the Pitchfork editorial staff-- a group admittedly too young to have experienced the decade firsthand, but old enough to know it had more to offer than "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".

Of course, we recognize that even at 200 tracks, our list leaves off hundreds of other fantastic and amazing songs-- not to mention a handful of cuts from the Baby Boomer canon that our staff doesn't much care for (hello, "Light My Fire"!). But if nothing else, we at least limited the maximum number of tracks per artist to five so that, say, the 14th most popular Beach Boys song (probably "Vega-Tables" or some such) wouldn't bump off more deserving tracks from less iconic artists.

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20. The Shangri-Las: "Out in the Streets"
(Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich)
1965
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Myrmidons of Melodrama

The Shangri-Las perfected pop melodrama, and their best songs feel like a synthesis of Douglas Sirk, Beatlemania, Hells Angels, and a support group for middle-aged manic depressives. Yes, the group addressed the most lurid elements of 1960s suburbia, from rape and death to skull-smashing bikers and abused dropouts. But "Out in the Streets" accomplishes the tremendous feat of transforming teen-beat puppy love and leather-laced fetishism into the foundations of adulthood: nostalgia, boredom, and guilt.

Surrounded by siren-like howls and orchestral plinks, the girls rue their own appeal and repent for sanitizing their bad-boy beaus. As a premise, this apology has the benefits of uniting pride and pathos: "He used to act bad/ He used to, but he quit it/ It makes me so sad/ 'Cause I know that he did it for me." The underlying message is that we should hate ourselves as penitence for our beauty, and this song is therefore the finest distillation of the teenage dream ever recorded. --Alex Linhardt

19. The Beatles: "Tomorrow Never Knows"
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Revolver

Where did this come from? Drugs, you say? Well, sure…Timothy Leary was involved, as he so often was in those days. His book The Psychedelic Experience, itself based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, served as an inspiration. LSD had come to the boys a year earlier and Lennon had imbibed and things were changing fast. In another year, the minds of John's fellow Beatles would begin to look rather small, Yoko was someone smart and hip to talk to, and the end was nigh. But here the Beatles are together-- Paul's the avant-garde one, as he'd later say, bringing in the tape loops-- and the band together is a serious force.

Never had pop swirled quite like this-- the seagulls, the sitar drone, the sped-up orchestral bits. It was music without edges, all porous borders, one sound bleeding into the next. But it wasn't some new age drift, either, what with Ringo compensating for all the space in his part by hitting each stutter-stop beat with double force, and the snarling backward lead zigzagging ribbon-like down the rabbit hole. Disorienting contrast is the power of this song-- a possible bad trip talk-down that happens to be scary as shit-- and explains why it loomed mightily above the nascent psychedelic movement. "Listen to the color of your dreams," Lennon suggested, and an army of baby boomers was ready to give it a try, for good or ill. --Mark Richardson

18. The Crystals: "Then He Kissed Me"
(Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich/Phil Spector)
1963
Chart info: U.S. (#6), UK (#2)
Available on The Best of the Crystals

Some of the sweetest minutes in all of pop music. Lyrically, it couldn't be any less lascivious-- promises of fidelity, taking the boy home to meet the folks, and that kiss sounds more like a quick peck then a tonguebath-- but it's all so charming that it could melt the staunchest libertine's heart. The Crystals' indelible ode to chastity and monogamy gave license to a thousand indie pop bands who longed for a time when music wasn't so (eww) sexual, but its real legacy is in everything from the Jackson 5 to New Edition to a thousand teen pop hits from the last 40 years. They're songs for audiences trying to articulate the rush of a first crush before the sticky biological urges muck everything up. We may not live in a hand-holding world anymore-- it probably wasn't much of a hand-holding world even then-- but puppy love is still a helluva thing. --Jess Harvell

17. Creedence Clearwater Revival: "Fortunate Son"
(John Fogerty)
1969
Chart info: U.S. (#14), UK (N/A)
Available on Willy and the Poor Boys

For all the hype about the 1960s being a time when politics and music merged into a great shining sword that thwarted racism and ended war, few of the era's protest songs have retained significant power outside of their initial context. Yet "Fortunate Son" has lost none of the ferocity with which it was initially written and recorded. Sure, it's great to hold hands and sing "We Shall Overcome" together, but angry times call for angry songs, spelled out in blunt language and bold colors.

John Fogerty was perfect for this kind of righteous frustration, his voice strangled but defiant, punctuated by "Lord" invocations and slurring "it ain't me" into a garbled wail. Placed over a rhythm-section rumble and a pissed-off breakdown, and over in barely two minutes, it's enough of a middle finger to be rightly labeled as punk's cool uncle. The very fact of its continued political relevance only makes it sound even more livid, foaming at the mouth over how little has changed these last 40 years. --Rob Mitchum

16. The Stooges: "I Wanna Be Your Dog"
(Dave Alexander/Ron Asheton/Scott Asheton/Iggy Pop)
1969
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on The Stooges

No, Iggy Stooge (not yet Pop) doesn't want to be your boyfriend. He wants to be your dog. Backed by fuzzed-out riffs and thumping bass, Ig speak-sings his intentions: "I'm so messed up/ I want you here." And by the chorus, he sounds as hollow as a zombie, insistently repeating: "Now I wanna... be your dog." With a single phrase, he turns the pop trope of puppy love into a disturbing ode to submission, self-effacement, and sheer animal instinct.

Having defected from the Velvets, the classically trained John Cale handles production by adding sleigh bells and an endlessly repeated single-note piano riff. Instead of deflating the grit and toughness of the music, it elevates the tension and enhances the mood of numbed detachment. And in the end, it's that unsettling sense of monotonous resolution in Iggy's pleas that makes this sound so dangerous. --John Motley

15. Aretha Franklin: "Think"
(Aretha Franklin/Teddy White)
1968
Chart info: U.S. (#7), UK (#26, #31 for 1990 reissue)
Available on Aretha Now

Franklin brings the funk with gospel fervor, and the Muscle Shoals rhythm section delivers it with a swing in its step. Forget girl power: Aretha was the ultimate woman, not to be pushed around, and "Think" brims with the confidence of a singer at the very top of her game. It's barely two minutes long, but the song is still a veritable suite, with four sections you'll never get out of your head. If the "freedom!" bridge doesn't shoot you full of energy and make you yearn for the highway, check your pulse. Aretha is dynamite, but this song is also a clinic in back-up singing-- the interplay between lead and accomplices is so ridiculously tight one can't even exist without the other. The group interplay cements the powerful women's lib message of earlier hit "Respect" (and doubles as a powerful race-relations message). "Think" is more than just another excellent Atlantic soul side. "Think" is power. --Joe Tangari

14. The Beach Boys: "Don't Worry Baby"
(Roger Christian/Brian Wilson)
1964
Chart info: U.S. (#24), UK (N/A)
Available on Endless Summer

We've all been there. Shooting our mouths off about our cars until, finally, it's time to put up or shut up. We hope that nothing goes wrong, but there's so much that could. We'd be sunk, really, if it weren't for the encouragement of that special girl. With her love riding shotgun, suddenly the makeshift drag strip at the abandoned drive-in theater doesn't seem quite so forboding.

OK, so maybe the appeal of this one has nothing to do with the specifics of the story, but surely we can all relate to the idea of support, how knowing that someone cares for you regardless of what happens gives you strength to do great things. And the music is such a perfect accompaniment to this theme, so damn cozy and warm, a tender respite from the stressful reality of the main narrative. It's that night in bed with your lover before the big day, that night you wish could last forever. --Mark Richardson

13. The Band: "The Weight"
(Robbie Robertson)
1968
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (#21)
Available on Music From Big Pink

Like so many 1960s stunners, "The Weight" has nearly been spoiled rotten by that culture-siphoning boom-boom-boomer trash The Big Chill, but the Robbie Robertson-penned tune is deeper and more biblical than pass-the-pain ibuprofen ideology. Led by drummer Levon Helm's slurry roar and hammered home by Rick Danko's shouty backup vocals, Robertson mirrored Christian allusions to the devil and the end of time with the emotional dismemberment of small town living. Certainly the Band's best-known song, "The Weight" is pushed along by a chummy saloon-style piano line and country-ish three-part harmonies making it a no-brainer sing-along jukebox highlight, capable of raising the spirits of even the damnedest drunks yet still complex enough to arouse even the most spiritually confounded. --Sean Fennessey

12. The Rolling Stones: "Gimme Shelter"
(Mick Jagger/Keith Richards)
1969
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Let It Bleed

The Rolling Stones' most malevolent song is now indelibly linked to murderous riots and racist bikers. Of course, Altamont was merely a reflection of this song's apocalyptic politics. Bill Wyman's trembling bass and Charlie Watts' percussive lightning conjure up a fire-and-brimstone typhoon of blood, guns, and doom. Keith Richards' hands are covered in barbed wire and Mick Jagger laces together unremitting images with no concrete objects. They therefore connect all of our greatest psychopaths-- assassins, street fighters, My Lai soldiers-- into one swelling throng. Scalding harmonica and torrential guitar scatter like shrapnel, and Merry Clayton's feverish backup summons annihilationist gospel and risqué teen pop. In the last few seconds, Jagger proposes that, well, "Love, sister, it's just a kiss away." But no one actually believes that. There's a reason the Stones aren't known for their romanticism, and these sinners can't escape the damnation of their own hell. --Alex Linhardt

11. Led Zeppelin: "Dazed and Confused"
(Jimmy Page)
1969
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Led Zeppelin

I don't care who you are. You could bring me to shows, give me all the best drugs, steal stuff from work for me; you could rock my shit in every other way, but if you're not down with "Dazed and Confused", I can't hang out with you. This is the numbest, blackest, taking-the-least-possible-amount-of-shit track any rock band ever recorded (next to "When the Levee Breaks"). Sure, we've all heard how Jimmy Page stole his licks and Robert Plant is just a big hippie, but that doesn't matter, does it? The bassline is what matters. Bonzo's triplet tom rolls into the second verse are what matters. Moaning, wailing smears of acid noise guitar that just happen to point down, and something that lets me know it's okay to be kind of evil sometimes-- these things separate the fun from the fundamental. It's the real shit. --Dominique Leone

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10. Desmond Dekker & The Aces: "Israelites"
(Desmond Dekker)
1969
Chart info: U.S. (#9), UK (#1, #10 for 1975 reissue)
Available on Rockin' Steady: The Best of Desmond Dekker

The dearly departed Desmond Dacres will have to argue with Toots Hibbert and Lee Perry over who actually invented reggae, but "Israelites" is as good a starting place as any. Dekker's mighty lament for the sufferer's woe of the titular tribe still rides ska's backbeat, but clipped to a stately lilt. The organ and stabbing guitar lock with percolator percussion for a groove that's irresistible, but never bouncy like prime ska.

The warm, glowing, muffled quality of Perry's recording-- a ghostly halo of echo and reverb-- was at least partially created by feeding seemingly paltry two-track recordings back into themselves. Dekker's voice produces Perry's nimbus all on its own. The swaying, heat-warped quality of "Israelites" feels like gospel and the blues, and considering the song links Biblical trials with the hustle of modern poverty, the comparison's not as far off as it might seem. "Get up in the morning/ Slaving for bread, sir/ So that every mouth can be fed/ Oh, oh, the Israelites."

And it was a huge hit, the first of Jamaica's exports to reach an audience off the island, going Top 10 in both the U.S. and the UK. It earned Dekker a tribute from a (rightfully) awed Beatles and made him Jamaica's first international sensation. Saint Bob would of course eclipse Dekker in popularity, but little in the Marley catalog has this kind of power. --Jess Harvell

9. The Who: "I Can't Explain"
(Pete Townshend)
1965
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (#8)
Available on My Generation

You could stop this song after four seconds and still hear why the Who's first single launched their career back in 1965, why they continued to open shows with it decades later, and why it remains a favorite more than 40 years on. Those syncopated bursts of contained explosion constitute one of the most perfect power-pop riffs ever strummed, and the only way to improve on it is to add Keith Moon's hyperactive drumming to fill in the charged silences between the chords. If that's all there was to "I Can't Explain"... well, it would have probably still made the list, but the snake attached to that head is a great song as well as a persuasive argument against originality in rock.

Written by Pete Townsend as a blatant Kinks rip-off, "I Can't Explain" ably replicates the Davies' herky-jerky rock rhythms right down to the handclaps, but the Who supe it up with American pop harmonies and a hooky chorus that hints at their meaty, beaty, big and bouncy singles to follow. Writing in Rolling Stone in the early 1970s, Townsend mused, "It seems to be about the frustrations of a young person who is so incoherent and uneducated that he can't state his case to the bourgeois intellectual blah blah blah. Or, of course, it might be about drugs." Either way it's also about the best song the Who ever recorded. --Stephen M. Deusner

8. Johnny Cash: "Folsom Prison Blues (Live at Folsom Prison)"
(Johnny Cash)
1968
Chart info: U.S. (#32), UK (N/A)
Available on At Folsom Prison

"Hello. I'm Johnny Cash." That opening line, so deadpan and needless-- everybody, especially in Folsom, knows who Johnny Cash is-- may be the genesis of the Man in Black myth, even more so than the song "Man in Black". Making such a humble introduction, Cash sounds larger than life-- definitely larger than prison-- and he delivers an electric, excited performance on his signature Sun hit.

Egged on by W. S. Holland's driving snare and Luther Perkins' breakout guitar solos, Cash gives a shout-out to the Razorbacks ("Soo-ey!") and after the second verse laughs a playful heidi-ho. But as the song progresses, his freewheeling energy becomes hurried and dogged, and he sounds like a truly desperate man, as haunted by the idea of confinement as any of the inmates-- a measure of how deep his identification with his audience went. The fear in his voice still resonates decades later, long after the man has died and the Man in Black has become a canonical American figure. --Stephen M. Deusner

7. The Beach Boys: "Wouldn't It Be Nice"
(Tony Asher/Brian Wilson)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (#8), UK (N/A)
Available on Pet Sounds

Love songs in rock and roll can be many things-- lusty, lecherous, pining, resigned, anguished, sweet-- but "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is the rare one that feels genuinely innocent. It kicks in with a music box harp figure that's quickly obliterated by Brian Wilson's Phil Spector-sized drum sound-- it's the sound of reality briefly shattering fantasy. The reality for these lovers is that they're simply too young to be out on their own. But they can imagine, and their fantasy magnifies every child's naïve wish to become an adult-- freedom without the mortgage, cars that need fixing, and lack of adequate health insurance.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" has everything you love about the Beach Boys in spades: the Wall of Sound Jr., the scarcely believable harmonies, the dreamtime prosody, and the imaginative instrumentation. It's the ultimate starry-eyed teenage symphony to God, and it perfectly captures the earnest devotion we only seem capable of in a small window of years. --Joe Tangari

6. The Ronettes: "Be My Baby"
(Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich/Phil Spector)
1963
Chart info: U.S. (#2), UK (#4)
Available on The Best of the Ronettes

Phil Spector hasn't descended into self-parody the way some others on this list have, but certainly not for lack of trying. Trigger happy, possibly unhinged, and now sporting a bizarre Hair Bear Bunch afro, if Spector had been a star in his own right, his trials and travails would be all over Court TV. Thankfully, he hid behind the mixing desk and the biggest, blackest shades this side of Jack Nietzsche, thereby preserving some of his legacy. (Like you can listen to "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" without a reflexive twinge of sadness.)

Critic David Toop has talked about the disconnect between hearing "Be My Baby" on record and seeing the Ronettes live on stage, lost in cavernous British theaters in their immaculate print dresses, their live backing bands not even able to approximate the force of Spector's Wrecking Crew. The first time I ever really heard "Be My Baby" was on a PBS special of all things, on a TV with a shitty mono speaker-- and even then it felt Cinemascope wide and THX intense.

But if "Be My Baby" birthed modern studio pop-- the point at which records became artifacts that could not be accurately (or at least easily) replicated in the real world-- then it would be merely impressive. What makes it soar, punch holes in hearts as well as walls, is the lead vocal by Ronnie Bennett. Bennett's voice was a little raw, unlike Darlene Love or Diana Ross, and her kittenish performance that strains slightly at the chorus transmutes the slightly sappy lyrics into possibly the best pop song of all time. --Jess Harvell

5. The Beatles: "A Day in the Life"
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
1967
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beatles had attempted ambitious mosaics before ("She Said She Said", "Tomorrow Never Knows"), but Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's epic finale catalogues every explosive element of the Fab Four. George Martin's production revolutionized pop music with its avant-garde opulence. Lennon and McCartney's aural bricolage elevates and parodies itself, and their lyrics distance the group from naiveté and Summer-of-Love idealism. Lest we forget, the opening line notes how someone "blew his mind out in a car" and finds Lennon cackling at corpses, media saturation, and humanity's natural disposition toward violence.

When paired with hailing folk and piano, Lennon's portion is as wry and poignant as rock is ever likely to get. In fact, "A Day in the Life" is pretty much the archetype for the Lennon/McCartney duality, firmly distinguishing John as a nightmarish narcophilosopher and Paul as a pragmatic businessman with a schedule to keep. But with its startling juxtaposition of pop melodies and flowery experimentalism, "A Day in the Life" consolidates all of the group's audiences. Here is a song for preteens and acidheads, surrealists and Sinatra fans, the Monkees and the Manson family. That final crescendo, with all its disembodied screams and orchestral terrorism, is surely the most famous-- and strident-- ending of any song in the last 50 years: a caterwauling assemblage of Zen humming, instrumental flairs, and three monolithic pianos stacked on top of one another. Somehow the world's greatest musical icons closed their most famous album with a solid 30 seconds of morbid textural sculpture. By the time the dust settled, Paul was dead, atonalism had gone pop, and four Liverpudlian rockers became high-art heroes. --Alex Linhardt

4. Bob Dylan: "Like a Rolling Stone"
(Bob Dylan)
1965
Chart info: U.S. (#2), UK (#4)
Available on Highway 61 Revisited

From its first double-drum crack (which Bruce Springsteen later described as the sound of someone "kicking open the door to your mind"), to its mythical opening couplet (a perfectly seething "Once upon a time..."), "Like a Rolling Stone" is one of Dylan's strangest and most enthralling moments, a big, shambling statement that hovers on the verge of total dissolution, threatening to shimmy your record player (and, potentially, your entire life) off the shelf and onto the floor. One minute in, when Dylan finally hits the chorus, glibly hollering "How does it feeeel?" to an unnamed subject (or possibly himself), his sneer is so convincing it's difficult not to feel deeply ashamed of everything you've ever done, but still desperate for five more minutes of lashings.

It's hard to overstate the cultural heft of "Like a Rolling Stone", which puttered to #2 on the pop chart (the first song of its length to do so) and hovered there for nearly three months. In 2005's Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads, Greil Marcus exhausts 200 pages dissecting the socio-political context and lyrical nuances of "Like a Rolling Stone", ultimately christening the track "a triumph of craft, inspiration, will, and intent," and, more importantly, "a rewrite of the world itself." Certainly, the song transforms every time it's played, expertly adapting to new generations and new vices, just wobbly and amorphous and dangerous enough to knock us over again and again. --Amanda Petrusich

3. Sam Cooke: "A Change Is Gonna Come"
(Sam Cooke)
1964
Chart info: U.S. (#31), UK (N/A)
Available on The Man and His Music

Filtered through a vessel of honest hurt, message and moment meet modern gospel. Suffering from the recent death of his 18-month old son Vincent and troubled by the omnipotent specter of racism, Cooke caught the unsteady temperament of a nation. Struck by Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", the Mississippi native detected the folk movement's crucial sense of understanding; they "may not sound as good but they people believe them more," he once said. Sam Cooke sounds pretty great on "A Change Is Gonna Come".

After Martin Luther King was assassinated, Rosa Parks listened to "A Change Is Gonna Come" for comfort. The spiritual synergy between King's preaching and the song's painful vignettes is powerful. Both are battered, bruised but vigorous. Rene Hall's classic arrangement, bolstered by French horns, timpani, and a flowering orchestra is pure Hollywood magic but Cooke subverts the Disneyland pomp with anguished realism: "It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die/ 'Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky." "A Change Is Gonna Come" was released as part of a single only after Cooke's murky murder. He never felt its rapturous reception. Yet, as long as change aches for resolution, the song will stand. --Ryan Dombal

2. The Jackson 5: "I Want You Back"
(Berry Gordy, Jr./Alphonso Mizell/Freddie Perren/Deke Richards)
1969
Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (#2)
Available on Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5

Writers and producers Freddie Perren, Fonce Mizell, and Deke Richards originally envisioned this as the backing track for a Gladys Knight and the Pips song, but Berry Gordy had other ideas. With a little rewriting he heard it as the perfect vehicle to introduce five kids he'd just signed from Gary, Indiana. And as was so often the case throughout the 1960s, Gordy was right.

What is it about this song that cuts through generations and trends and cynicism and makes everyone within its range prick up ears and loosen hips? I once thought my age had something to do with my deep love of this song (it hit the Hot 100 two months and a day after my birth) but here Pitchfork writers up to 15 years my junior heard something special just as clearly. Some of it is Michael Jackson's voice reaching beyond its years, some of it is the Five's supportive backing. But really I think it's the song's most basic structure, possibly the best chord progression in pop music history. The descending bit on the chorus is joy reduced to its molecular level:  I / IV / vi / iii / IV / I / ii / V / I. --Mark Richardson

1. The Beach Boys: "God Only Knows"
(Tony Asher/Brian Wilson)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (#39), UK (#2)
Available on Pet Sounds

I'm sure you've read these: "the world's greatest song," "Brian Wilson's masterpiece," "the most beautiful piece of music ever recorded." Yes, the initiation into the Museum of Western Popular Music is always rough, as credible historians rush to summarize our collective experiences in short phrases. But for better or worse, "God Only Knows" is the kind of song that's almost impossible for me to talk about divorced from the way it makes me feel: sad, in love, honestly grateful, but also a little hopeless. Even in mono, it's like being swept up by a wave of compassion but still getting bruised.

The first words Carl Wilson sings, "I may not always love you," are already uncertain, so if you need a tie into the legacy of 1960s youth culture, glance no further than the naïve but strained optimism locked inside this song. Yet, Carl made this uncertainty sound gorgeous. The voices that sail behind his might just as well be a quartet of violas and cellos playing counterpoint that'd already been obsessed over a few times before they got it. "God Only Knows" is so ideally conceptualized and realized, critics can't help but support it. Somehow, even that can't turn it into an art exhibit; its humanity resists the attempt. To me, this song is a goodbye to being a kid, and hoping that love actually is the answer. And almost nobody knows if it is. --Dominique Leone