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# What's the best rock and roll song of all time?
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/whats-the-best-rock-and-roll-song-of-all-time/
- Published: 2006-08-30T05:58:04.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-20T21:33:15.000Z
- Description: What's the best rock and roll song of all time?
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Keith E. Buhler, Culture, Music Reviews

And now for something completely different.

![Rockin' out with Muse](https://static.hsstatic.net/BlogImporterAssetsUI/ex/missing-image.png "Rockin' out with Muse")

Let's save the questions about the nature of music, it's relationship to mathematics, how in the world it taps into the depths of the human soul so effectively and universally, how it relates to language and communication and the divine logos, and all the rest of it for another time!

Right now what's on my mind is a much simpler (but much more difficult?) question of aesthetic ranking: What is the best rock song ever written?

Please help me move towards answering this question of such deep importance for our century.

I may not be widely educated in rock and roll -- it wasn't until college that my roommate introduced me thank goodness to people like Bod Dylan and Jackson Browne and Led Zepplin -- but I like it. So that gives me the right, nay dutiy, to provide now, for you, my (totally-subjective) nominees for greatest rock and roll song in the history of the world.

Drum roll, please.

![Lead Zepplin](https://static.hsstatic.net/BlogImporterAssetsUI/ex/missing-image.png "Lead Zepplin")

**Best Rock and Roll Song of All Time Nominees**  

Nirvana - Smells like Teen spirit  
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody  
Led Zepplin - Stairway to heaven

Radiohead - Karma Police

U2 - Where the Streets Have no name

Foo Fighters - Everlong

The Beatles - Yesterday

The Beatles - Hey Jude

The Beatles - In My Life

Bob Dylan - like a rolling stone

Muse - New Born

Muse - Hysteria

*Honorable Mentions*

Led Zepplin - Ramble on

Beatles - Hey jude

U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday

Styx - Teenage Wasteland

![Radiohead](https://static.hsstatic.net/BlogImporterAssetsUI/ex/missing-image.png "Radiohead")

There you have it. You have my nominations; why not give me yours? I need recommendations for new music to listen to. And who knows, they may even be considered during the 2006 official Nobel Best Rock and Roll Song Prize.

Rock on.