Top 30 Songs with Angel in the Title The List Blog - Top 10 Top 30 Songs with Angel in the Title Staff Profiles Top 30 Songs with Angel in the Title Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew Bible, Christian Bibles, and the Quran. The term "angel" has been used to describe spiritual beings found in many oral traditions. The roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out God's tasks. In the last 75 years, hundreds of popular songs have been released that discuss angels. Many times the lyrics examine heaven, death, and love. It can be comforting to think that someone might be watching over and helping us make life decisions. This article will examine 30 popular angel songs. 30. Slaughter - Fly to the Angels Year: 1990 Slaughter is an American heavy metal band formed in Las Vegas, Nevada by lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist Mark Slaughter and bassist Dana Strum. The band reached stardom in 1990 with their first album Stick It to Ya. The record saw 3 songs hit the U.S.

Billboard Hot 100: Fly to the Angels (#19), Up All Night (#27), and Spend My Life (#39). In July of 2011, Slaughter performed at the Halfway Jam festival in Royalton, Minnesota with Lita Ford, Cinderella, Skid Row, Stephen Pearcy, Kix, Quiet Riot, and Firehouse. 29. Alabama - Angels Among Us Year: 1993 Angels Among Us is a song written by Don Goodman and Becky Hobbs, and recorded by the American country music band Alabama. The song was released in December 1993 as a Christmas single from the band's 1993 album Cheap Seats. It charted twice on the Hot Country Songs charts. It features backing vocals from the Sanctuary Choir and Young Musicians Choir of the First Baptist Church of Fort Payne, Alabama. Alabama lead singer Randy Owen has said that the band received "hundreds of letters from all over the world saying that the song was a blessing." 28. Bobby Helms - My Special Angel Year: 1957 My Special Angel is a popular song by Jimmy Duncan, published in 1957.

It became a crossover hit in 1957 for Bobby Helms. Helms version peaked at #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and spent four weeks at number one on the U.S. Country music chart. In the United Kingdom, a version recorded by Malcolm Vaughan spent 14 weeks on the charts, peaking at number three. 27. Jon Secada - Angel Year: 1993 Angel is a 1993 hit song by Jon Secada from his debut album Jon Secada. It was a major success, reaching #18 on the pop chart, #1 on Hot Latin Tracks, and coming close to the top of the adult contemporary chart in the United States. It is a meaningful love song with great lyrics and a touching feel. Secada's debut album sold over 6 million copies around the world and was named one of the top pop records of the 1990s. 26. Hinder - Lips of an Angel Year: 2005 Lips of an Angel is a power ballad by Oklahoma rock band Hinder. It was released as the second single from their album Extreme Behavior (2005).

The song was the band's breakthrough hit, charting in the Top 10 in the United States, and reaching #1 in Australia and New Zealand. The lyrics of the song deal with the singer describing his feelings when his favored girlfriend from his past calls late at night. 25. Ray Charles with Willie Nelson - Seven Spanish Angels Year: 1984 Seven Spanish Angels' is a 1984 single written by Troy Seals and Eddie Setser and recorded by Ray Charles with Willie Nelson. It is the most successful of Ray Charles' eight hits on the country chart. The single spent one week at number one and a total of twelve weeks on the country chart. It is about a Mexican outlaw and his beautiful girlfriend who are trying to outrun a posse. When the pair are finally cornered and exhausted from running, they decide to fight the approaching lawmen with gunfire and are killed. The song reached #6 on the New Zealand singles chart. 24. Curtis Lee - Pretty Little Angel Eyes Year: 1961 Curtis Lee is an American singer of the early 1960s.

Lee was twice over the beneficiary of 1961 music productions by Phil Spector, with Pretty Little Angel Eyes (U.S. #7) and Under the Moon of Love (U.S. #46). While working with Spector, Lee received instrumental support, and doo wop from an R&B vocal group, The Halos. The Halos appeared on Pretty Little Angel Eyes and would achieve further recognition by backing up Barry Mann on Who Put The Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp). In the UK, Pretty Little Angel Eyes was a minor hit record, peaking at #47 in 1961. 23. Angel - Jimi Hendrix Year: 1971 Angel is the name of a song written and recorded by Jimi Hendrix, first released in February 1971 on the posthumous LP The Cry of Love. In April of 1971 it was put out as a single, which failed to chart. In the U.S. the single was backed with Freedom and in the UK with Night Bird Flying. In 1972, Rod Stewart covered Angel on his album Never a Dull Moment.

His version can also be heard in the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. In the United Kingdom, Rod Stewart's cover reached #4. Some of the lyrics to Angel were recited at Jimi Hendrix's funeral. 22. Steelheart - I'll Never Let You Go (Angel Eyes) Year: 1990 Steelheart is a glam metal band based in Norwalk, Connecticut. They released their self-titled debut album in 1990. It sold 33,000 records on its first day in Japan alone, and quickly hit platinum status. The group's ballad She's Gone hit #1 on the International Charts, staying there for 17 weeks. She's Gone maintains its popularity in East Asia. The second single off the album I'll Never Let You Go (Angel Eyes) reached #14 on the U.S. charts, and was MTV's 2nd most requested video of the year. The album reached #40 in the United States. 21.

Jeff Healey Band - Angel Eyes Year: 1989 Angel Eyes is a song written by John Hiatt and Fred Koller, for The Jeff Healey Band's first album See the Light (1988). It was first released as the album's second single in June 1989. Angel Eyes was a successful song and peaked at #5 in the U.S. It reached #16 in Canada, #79 in Australia, and #86 in the UK. The song was also the 17th highest selling single in the U.S. for 1989. It was used in the 1989 film Road House. In 2004, Angel Eyes was covered by Australian Idol series one contestant Paulini and became her first #1 single in Australia. 20. Martina McBride - Concrete Angel Year: 2002 Concrete Angel is a song recorded by American country music artist Martina McBride. It is a power ballad, centering on the main theme of child abuse and in a different context, bullying. The narrator tells a story about a 7-year-old little girl who's trying to deal with abuse from her alcoholic mother.

In the end of the song, her mother beats her until she dies. Some people, like the girl's teacher, seem to notice signs of abuse, but just try to ignore it. Many people feel the single is one of Martina McBride's best and it is regularly featured on articles that examine lyrical achievement. Concrete Angel peaked at #47 in the U.S. and hit #5 on the Country Music chart. 19. U2 - Angel of Harlem Year: 1988 Angel of Harlem is the second single from U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum. It peaked at #9 on the UK Singles Chart, #8 on the Dutch Top 40, #14 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks. It was written as homage to Billie Holiday and the lyrical content of the song refers to various New York City-area landmarks, including JFK airport, WBLS radio, and Harlem. It also refers to jazz-related history including John Coltrane and A Love Supreme, Birdland club, Miles Davis and Holiday herself ("Lady Day"). 18.

Train - Calling All Angels Year: 2003 Calling All Angels is the title of a 2003 song by the band Train. It was included on the group's third studio album, My Private Nation. The song peaked at #19 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also spent three weeks atop the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart in 2003. Calling All Angels was nominated for two Grammy Awards and has become prominent in popular culture, having appeared in many television programs. The song is also played at Angel Stadium before every Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim game while the video screen shows a montage of the team's history. 17. Rosie & The Originals - Angel Baby Year: 1960 Angel Baby was a 1960 single by Rosie & The Originals. The song was recorded independently on a two-track machine when lead singer Rosie Hamlin was only 15-years-old. Initially unable to find a label willing to distribute the song because of its unpolished sound, the group convinced a San Diego department store to pipe their master through the listening booths in the record department. The response from listeners prompted Highland Records to sign the band and promote the single.

The song reached #5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in December 1960 and remained in the charts for twelve weeks. John Lennon recorded a version of the Angel Baby in 1973, eventually released on the Lennon box set and Menlove Ave. In the intro, Lennon calls it one of his favorite songs and says: "send my love to Rosie, wherever she may be." Rosie called it her favorite cover of the song. 16. Scorpions - Send Me an Angel Year: 1990 Send Me an Angel is a power ballad by German heavy metal band Scorpions, released on their 1990 album Crazy World. Along with Wind of Change , it became the album's signature track reaching a high chart positions in many countries around the world. Send Me an Angel peaked at #4 in Sweden and the Netherlands, #5 in Germany, #8 in France, #8 in Austria, #14 in Switzerland, #27 in the UK, and #44 in the U.S. The song has been chosen as the main theme for the Disney/Pixar's 2012 movie Brave.

It is not to be confused with the 1980s dance hit Send Me an Angel by Real Life, which is also featured on this list. 15. Madonna - Angel Year: 1985 Angel is a song by American singer-songwriter Madonna from her second studio album Like a Virgin. It was released on April 10, 1985 as the third single from the album. Like a Virgin is one of the best-selling records of all time with over 21 million copies distributed. According to Madonna, the song was inspired by a girl who is saved by an angel, and then falls in love with him. Angel became Madonna's fifth consecutive top-five single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top of its dance charts. The song was also able to reach #1 in Australia and the top-five in Canada, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Madonna has performed the song only once, which was on her Virgin Tour in 1985. 14.

Mark Dinning - Teen Angel Year: 1959 Teen Angel is a teenage tragedy song written by Jean Dinning and her husband, Red Surrey, and performed by Jean's brother, Mark Dinning and Alex Murray in 1959. The song was not an instant success and was banned by U.S. radio stations due to the lyrics. The song is about a girl who is out on a ride with her boyfriend when their car is stalled on a railroad track. The boy pulls the girl to safety, but then she gets hit by a passing train. Teen Angel went on to reach #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in February of 1960 and #37 in the UK Singles Chart (even though it was banned from being played by the BBC). American rock and roll revival act Sha Na Na performed Teen Angel at the 1969 Woodstock festival. The original Mark Dinning recording was also featured in the 1973 film American Graffiti. 13.

The Heights - How Do You Talk to an Angel Year: 1992 How Do You Talk to an Angel is the single version of the theme for the TV series The Heights, with Jamie Walters as lead singer. The song hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on November 14, 1992, but the series was canceled exactly one week after the song fell from its number one position. Vocals on the single included Charlotte Ross of NYPD Blue and Glee fame. In 1993, the song was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics. 12. Real Life - Send Me an Angel Year: 1983 Send Me an Angel is a song by the band Real Life, who are a Melbourne-based Australian New Wave/Synthpop group. The song is about a man who asks himself whether he finds true love and has become the group's most well known release. Send Me an Angel peaked at #29 in the U.S.

The single was a international success and hit #1 in Germany and New Zealand, #2 in Switzerland, #4 in Sweden, #6 in Australia, #9 in Austria, #18 in Canada, and #19 in Spain. The songs biggest chart success in the United States was in 1989, when an updated version entitled Send Me An Angel '89 surpassed the original version peaking at #26. 11. Merrilee Rush - Angel of the Morning Year: 1968 Angel of the Morning is a popular song that has been recorded numerous times, and has been a charting hit single for several artists. The song was originally written and composed by New York-born songwriter Chip Taylor. Taylor produced a recording of the song with his friend Evie Sands but the financial straits of Cameo-Parkway Records prevented that version's release. Other early recordings of Angel of the Morning were made in 1967 by Danny Michaels and by UK vocalist Billie Davis. The song finally became a hit in the summer of 1968 via a recording by Merrilee Rush.

Rush's version reached #7 in the United States, #4 in the Netherlands, and was a #1 hit in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The highest-charting and best-selling version of Angel of the Morning in the United States was recorded and released in 1981 by country-rock singer Juice Newton for her album Juice. Newton's version reached #4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and spent three weeks at #1 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart. More than 1 million units of Newton's single of the song were sold in the United States, and it reached the top ten in a number of other countries, including Canada and Australia. In the UK, Newton's version reached #35 on the UK Singles Chart. 10. Amanda Perez - Angel Year: 2003 Amanda Perez is a female American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer of Mexican descent. Perez scored her biggest hit in 2003 with the single Angel, which peaked at #20 on the U.S. Hot 100 sales chart. The single helped the album (also called Angel) to become a hit for Perez. 9.

Phantom of the Opera - Angel of Music Year: 1986 The Phantom of the Opera is an operetta by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart. The central plot revolves around a beautiful soprano, Christine Daae, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, disfigured musical genius. With total worldwide box office receipts of over $5.1 billion, including a Broadway gross of US $800 million, Phantom of the Opera is the highest-grossing entertainment event of all time and the most financially successful theatrical show in history. By 2011, the Phantom of the Opera had been seen by over 130 million people in 145 cities in 27 countries. It is the most successful entertainment project in history. In the story, the title character Christine confesses to her best friend Meg (Madame Giry's daughter) that she knows her mysterious teacher only as an invisible "Angel of Music." The song Angel of Music is performed in Act I of the play and has become one of the show's most popular. 8.

Aerosmith - Angel Year: 1988 Angel is a song performed by Aerosmith. It was written by lead singer Steven Tyler and Desmond Child. The song was released in 1988 as the second single from the band's massively successful 1987 album Permanent Vacation. It quickly climbed to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, the second highest chart performance for any Aerosmith single, the first being I Don't Want to Miss a Thing (1998) . Steven Tyler has publicly spoken against Angel on numerous occasions. He was quoted saying on a radio interview in 1990 "The song was beautiful. It made me cry, but I heard it so damn much it drove me crazy! It became overplayed and at this point I'm so sick of it I never want to hear that song again". Since the Pump Tour in 1989-1990, Angel has become somewhat of a rarity at Aerosmith live shows. 7. Sarah McLachlan - Angel Year: 1997 Angel is a song by Sarah McLachlan that originally appeared on her 1997 album Surfacing.

It is about the Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin, who overdosed on heroin and died in 1996. Angel was McLachlan's second top 5 hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and peaked at #4. The single remained on the chart for a total of twenty-nine weeks. It was the 18th most successful song of 1999 in the United States. The song peaked at #36 on the UK Singles Chart. 6. Monica - Angel of Mine Year: 1998 Angel of Mine is an R&B ballad written by Rhett Lawrence and Travon Potts. It was produced for the British R&B girl group Eternal's Greatest Hits album in 1997. The song became the group's 14th top ten hit on the UK singles chart peaking at #4 and spent a total of 13 weeks in the chart. In 1998, the song came to American fame when R&B singer Monica covered it (with altered lyrics) and released it as the third single from The Boy Is Mine.

Angel of Mine was one of Monica's biggest worldwide successes, reaching #1 in the U.S. The song charted at #2 in Canada, #12 in Australia, #26 in New Zealand, #30 in Germany, and #55 in the UK. Angel of Mine was ranked #3 on the Hot 100 1999 year-end charts. It rated #62 on the U.S. 1990s chart. 5. Black Crowes - She Talks to Angels Year: 1990 She Talks to Angels is a song by the rock band The Black Crowes. It is the eighth track on their 1990 debut album Shake Your Money Maker and was released as the album's fourth single. The song made it to #30 on the US Hot 100 and hit #1 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart. It peaked at # 70 on the UK Singles Chart. The song is allegedly about a woman who lost a child (one of the "angels" of the title) and who now copes with her pain through the use of drugs. 4.

Shaggy - Angel Year: 2001 Angel is a number one hit song by reggae artist Shaggy featuring Rayvon. It was the follow-up to Shaggy's #1 hit It Wasn't Me. The song was number one in the U.S. for the week of March 31, 2001. Angel was an international hit for Shaggy and reached #1 in the UK, Australia, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The song was the 44th best-selling single of the 2000 decade in the UK. Angel uses the bass line from The Joker by Steve Miller (1973), and also borrows from Angel of the Morning. 3. Shelley Fabares - Johnny Angel Year: 1962 Johnny Angel is the debut pop single by Shelley Fabares released in 1962. The song premiered on an episode of Fabares' sitcom, The Donna Reed Show during the fourth season. The lyrics of the song tell the story of a teenage girl's romantic longing for a boy who doesn't know she exists, to the point where she declines other boys' propositions for dates because she'd rather concentrate on the boy she loves.

Although Fabares' career as a singer came to an end within a few years of Johnny Angel, the song has become an oldies radio airplay favorite. Johnny Angel hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on April 7, 1962, during a 15-week run on the chart. It also peaked at #41 on the UK Singles chart and sold over one-million copies. After her musical career, Shelley Fabares starred in the sitcom Coach as Craig T. Nelson's love interest and eventual wife, Christine. 2. Robbie Williams - Angels Year: 1997 Angels is a song by Robbie Williams, written by Williams with Guy Chambers. It was released in December 1997 and became the singer's biggest selling single. Angels has been voted the best song of the past 25 years by the BRIT Awards. It was the 38th best selling single of 1997 in the UK, and the 26th of 1998. Despite only reaching a peak of #4 in the UK, it passed the million sales mark in June 2009, with a combination of both physical and download sales.

Angels entered the Top 40 in charts around the world, including Ireland (#2), Switzerland (#4), Belgium (#6), France (#7), Germany (#9), Australia (#12), Italy (#12), Sweden (#13), the Netherlands (#14), Canada (#18), and New Zealand (#23). 1. The Penguins - Earth Angel Year: 1954 Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine) is an American doo-wop song, originally released by The Penguins in 1954. The song quickly outstripped its A-side in popularity and reached #1 on the Billboard R&B chart for three weeks in early 1955 and #8 on the pop chart. Earth Angel was the only Top 40 hit for The Penguins. The song ranked #151 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2004, it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 1955, Earth Angel became a major hit for The Crew-Cuts, reaching the Billboard charts on January 29, 1955.

The song was also featured in the movie Back to the Future. Top 10 Robbie Williams Songs Top 10 Robbie Williams Songs Sign Up for Our Free Newsletters Thanks, You're in! There was an error. Please try again. Please select a newsletter. Please enter a valid email address. Did you mean ? 50 best British songwriters - Telegraph 50 best British songwriters The beat goes on: Neil McCormick on the best British songwriters 1 John Lennon 'When Paul felt like it, he would come in with about 20 songs and say, "We're recording." And I suddenly had to write a f---ing stack of songs. "Sgt Pepper" was like that.' It can't have been easy being in a band with a songwriter as gifted as Paul McCartney, but during their time together Lennon would write many of the Beatles' greatest songs, including Day Tripper, All You Need is Love and Strawberry Fields Forever. While McCartney was writing material for solo albums and for his new band Wings, Lennon pushed on to create Working Class Hero, Imagine and Give Peace a Chance. He was a revolutionary artist who travelled far beyond the dream of rock'n'roll stardom.

Classic lyric: 'There's nothing you can do that can't be done./ Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.' (All You Need is Love, 1967) Related Articles 26 Aug 2009 2 Kate Bush There may be a stampede of young talented female singer songwriters rushing into the charts, but none has quite created the sensation that the 19-year-old Bush did when she burst onto the pop scene in 1978 with her wild mane and interpretive dancing. She turned the most passionate English novel, Wuthering Heights, into an ardent song, and it made her the first woman to have a UK number one with a self-written number. Bush continued to explore new frontiers, building a lasting body of work. Classic lyric: 'You don't want to hurt me,/ But see how deep the bullet lies./ Unaware that I'm tearing you asunder./ There is thunder in our hearts, baby.' (Running Up That Hill, 1985) 3 Morrissey/Johnny Marr The songwriting partnership behind the Smiths was responsible for some of the strangest and most enchanted pop music ever.

Tales of thwarted sexual longing wrapped in enigmatic literary references are carried on reverberating waves of sound. That indefinable something takes in kitchen-sink romanticism and a camp disregard for the everyday ('There's more to life than books, you know,/ But not much more'), but it always points back to true north, as in the classic How Soon is Now? - 'I am human and I need to be loved/ Just like everybody else does.' Classic lyric: 'Fame, fame, fatal fame/ It can play hideous tricks on the brain.' (Frankly, Mr Shankly, 1986) 4 Paul McCartney The poppiest and most avant garde Beatle may have become more sentimental with age, but he remains one of Britain's greatest songwriters. He's certainly the most gifted tunesmith. McCartney could stuff more melodies into one song - Hello Goodbye, for instance - than most bands are capable of in a whole album.

He wrote When I'm Sixty-Four as a 16-year-old, penned the most covered song (Yesterday) and - despite his atrocious last album, 'Memory Almost Full' - can still look forward to seeing Hey Jude slugging it out with Imagine, Bohemian Rhapsody and Robbie Williams's Angels at the top of the nation's favourite song poll. Classic lyric: 'Love, love me do./ You know I love you' (Love Me Do, 1962) 5 Elton John/Bernie Taupin The partnership between a Lincolnshire farmer's boy and a musical prodigy from Pinner, Middlesex, is one of the more unlikely associations in the history of rock and pop, but Elton's warm tenor and gospel-tinged piano-playing seem to fit perfectly with Taupin's references to rural life. Their collaboration began by post in 1967, after both replied to a press ad. They met six months later, banging out material for a record company - an hour for Taupin to write the lyrics, half an hour for Elton to set them to music - to create the songs that would launch Elton as a solo artist.

All Elton's great numbers - including Rocket Man, Tiny Dancer and Candle in the Wind - were written together. Classic lyric: 'So goodbye yellow brick road,/ Where the dogs of society howl./ You can't plant me in your penthouse,/ I'm going back to my plough.' (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, 1973) 6 Mick Jagger/Keith Richards According to their outspoken former manager Andrew Loog Oldham, Jagger and Richards were reluctant songwriters who had to be locked in a room in 1964 until they produced their first two songs, both awful. The era-defining anthem (?I Can't Get No) Satisfaction followed in 1965 (they liked their brackets), and from then on the great songs kept coming for two decades. Classic lyric: 'I can't get no satisfaction,/ I can't get no girl reaction,/ 'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try,/ I can't get no.

((I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, 1965) 7 Noël Coward 'Noël Coward was a charmer./ As a writer he was Brahma,' sang the late Ian Dury, tipping his hat to the rhyming skills of the composer who became a byword for sophisticated wordplay and society glitz. Coward's upbringing was slightly less glamorous. He was the son of a Royal Navy captain, which kept him out of the first rank in between-the-wars Britain, but not for long. He wrote his first song, Forbidden Fruit, at the age of 16 and went on to make his name as the author of sparkling comedies, incorporating his light, complex and elegant musical confections. Classic lyric: 'I know it's stupid, to be mad about the boy,/ I'm so ashamed of it, but must admit the sleepless nights I've had/ About the boy.' (Mad About the Boy, 1932) 8 Ian Curtis/New Order If your only knowledge of Joy Division had come from the film Closer, you could be forgiven for thinking that the band were a set of Manc music obsessives with a troubled singer.

But a deeper image emerges from the band's final album, from which the film's title was taken, of an important late 20th-century artist confronting the extremes of human experience in songs such as Heart and Soul and The Eternal. That the musicians who took the journey with him all the way to his eventual suicide would go on to reinvent themselves in New Order as among the brightest, most engaging songwriters of the era was an extraordinary achievement. Classic lyric: 'Existence well what does it matter?/ I exist on the best terms I can./ The past is now part of my future,/ The present is well out of hand (Heart and Soul, 1980) 9 Van Morrison Time may have ravaged the golden-haired minstrel on the cover of 'Astral Weeks', but nothing seems to warp the deep soul in his voice. George Ivan Morrison was born in Belfast in 1945 and had written a bona fide rock classic, Gloria, for his band Them while still in his teens.

It barely hinted at what Van the Man would be capable of in a 40-year solo career that soon escaped the narrow confines of rock, plunging into folk, jazz and gospel to deliver a stream of transcendentally wonderful songs from Caravan to Into the Mystic to Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile). Classic lyric: 'And I shall drive my chariot/ Down your streets and cry/ Hey, it's me, I'm dynamite/And I don't know why.' (Sweet Thing, 1968) 10 Joe Strummer/Mick Jones (The Clash) Just six years separated The Clash's faultless run of singles, from White Riot in 1977 to Should I Stay or Should I Go in 1982, but they reveal a band that was developing at a breathless pace, alive to influences old and new. The combination of Strummer's fiery idealism and hard-to-catch lyrics, and Jones's gift for tunes and high harmonies, created a series of passionate bursts of energy that capture something unique and inspiring. Martin Scorsese described Janie Jones, the first track on their debut album, as the greatest British rock?'n'?roll song.

It could be true, but the glory of Strummer and Jones's songwriting is that it's not even possible to say that it's the greatest Clash song. Classic couplet: 'All over people changing their votes,/ Along with their overcoats,/ If Adolf Hitler flew in today,/ They'd send a limousine anyway.' ((White Man) in Hammersmith Palais, 1978) 11 David Bowie For a decade at least, being a Bowie fan was shorthand for being arty, alternative, make-up loving and weird. But his songs still sounded great on the radio, encoding mystery, futuristic alienation and sex. From Space Oddity in 1969 to the chic-sounding Let's Dance in 1983, Bowie's songwriting stands at the nexus of pop with the avant garde, matching his shapeshifting visual image stride for stride. 12 Queen Freddie Mercury wrote Bohemian Rhapsody, John Deacon wrote I Want to Break Free and Brian May wrote Flash and Fat Bottomed Girls. Yep, they were a mixed bag of songwriters, but together they created a kind of magic.

Queen's ability to blend camp humour with macho bombast made them funnier than Victoria Wood and as heavy as Led Zep - no mean feat. 13 Ray Davies The lead singer of the Kinks and author of a stream of classic hits, Davies introduced the concept of the individual voice into British rock and pop - as distinctive, witty and instantly recognisable as Noël Coward. He is credited with inventing a new kind of poetry and a new kind of language for pop writing by The Who's Pete Townshend. 14 Elvis Costello He may have looked like a cartoon Buddy Holly, but the young Costello was bristling with emotional and political invective, and had the musical and lyrical dexterity to recast his hurt and anger in any genre he cared to choose. That one of his earliest songs, Alison, may still be his best is no slight on the riches that were to follow.

15 Pete Townshend Pete Townshend's legacy will surely rest on writing The Who's era-defining My Generation, with a line that has entered the language - 'Hope I die before I get old.' Meanwhile, indie kids will carry on liking The Kids Are Alright, lovers of rock opera the towering Pinball Wizard and for fans of CSI the theme tunes - Won't Get Fooled Again, Baba O'Riley and Who Are You - are weekly reminders of what a great songwriter Townsend is. 16 Led Zeppelin Without the Zep's tales of pipers, misty mountains and the hammer of the gods, there would surely be no Spinal Tap, but there wouldn't be the drum intro to When the Levee Breaks, either. More than anyone else on this list, they show how songs can be more than just notes and words on a page. Oh, and they wrote something about a Stairway to Heaven, too. 17 The Bee Gees No question about their songwriting gifts, but do they pass the cricket test? The Brothers Gibb were born in the Isle of Man, but brought up in Australia.

They wrote Islands in the Stream for Dolly and Kenny, Woman in Love by royal appointment for the Three Degrees, some critically esteemed early albums, and an endless stream of pop hits and disco classics, such as Night Fever and Staying Alive. 18 Neil Tennant/Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys) 'We were never being boring,' sang Tennant in 1990, and, 18 years on, it still sounds like a better epithet for the duo's songwriting career than the one with which it began, Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money). Tennant's gift is knowingness rather than cynicism, married to a deadpan wit that gives even his most melancholy moments - 'I love you, you pay my rent' - a bittersweet, sweet bitterness. 19 Pink Floyd Merging the late Syd Barrett into a single entry with Roger Waters is about as incongruous as this list is going to get: the former all playful wonder, the latter mostly bleak despair. Adding guitarist David Gilmour doesn't make things any simpler.

You could make a case for the band's best songs being written either by Barrett, or about him (See Emily Play, Wish You Were Here, Shine on You Crazy Diamond) - unless you're a fan of Another Brick in the Wall. 20 P.J. Harvey Dark, theatrical and willing to explore the swampier side of human emotions, Harvey redefined what it meant to be a woman in rock - vividly feminine, rarely girly - in songs such as 1995's To Bring You My Love, before experimenting with mainstream pop to win the 2001 Mercury prize with 'Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea'. 21 Radiohead As a songwriting unit, Radiohead have the musical talent and emotional resolve to sally forth into any landscape. Their finest moments, such as Karma Police ('For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself') are so convincing that you can lose yourself in them.

22 Paul Weller The lead singer of the Jam cut a strange stylistic dash as part of the punk movement, marrying the look and sounds of Sixties mod with the anger of a revved-up class warrior and creating mini-epics, such as Down in the Tube Station at Midnight and That's Entertainment. 23 Bryan Ferry As he warbled, 'We are flying down to Rio!' in the middle of Roxy Music's first single, Virginia Plain, Bryan Ferry announced himself as a songwriter who would bring sex, style and movie glamour to the former town-and-country landscapes of pop. With the more sophisticated sheen of late Roxy and his solo career, Ferry embodied cool detachment in a series of croons. 24 Damon Albarn It's possible that Blur's Damon Albarn will forever be associated with those dynamic Woo hoo!'s in Song 2. But in his new band The Good, The Bad and The Queen, and as a member of the virtual group Gorillaz, Albarn's melodic gifts are undeniably as real as ever.

25 Coldplay In the summer of 2000, it was not possible to drive from one end of Europe to the other without being able to tune your car radio to a station playing Coldplay's single, Yellow. Since then, Chris Martin and co have continued to write big, sweeping, adult songs, selling 30 million albums in the process. 26 Sandy Denny The young classically trained pianist Denny threw herself into the London folk scene while working as a nurse at Brompton Hospital. She went on to write songs immersed in imagery that would have graced a Pre-Raphaelite painting, delivered in a voice as clear as a mountain lake. 27 Noel Gallagher Proof positive that tunes plus riffs plus attitude are a formula for rock'n'roll success, Gallagher's place in the history of British pop culture was established with a series of anthems, such as Live Forever and Cigarettes and Alcohol, then cemented with a soaring ballad, Wonderwall, which no one understands. 28 Annie Lennox/Dave Stewart In dramatic theatre pieces such as Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) and There Must Be an Angel (Playing With My Heart) they strutted and emoted on a grand scale.

29 John Lydon Before his appearance on I'm a Celebrity..., the former lead singer of the Sex Pistols wrote the lyrics for at least two of the most influential songs of the 20th century, Anarchy in the UK and God Save the Queen. 30 Richard Thompson Thompson's lyrics explore the desert expanses of personal depression ('There's nothing at the end of the rainbow,/ I was on the Calvary Cross'). In the brilliant When I Get to the Border, though, he imagines a world in which 'My troubles will all turn to sand,' and 'I'll be dancing down the street'. We hope so. 31 Robert Smith (The Cure) When the teenage Robert Smith penned a song based on Camus' L'Etranger (Killing an Arab) as his contribution to New Wave, it announced the arrival of a highly individual and contrary voice. He is often miscast as a doom merchant, but his songwriting spans the twin poles suggested by his cartoon-like visual image - from the gothic mystery and melancholia of songs such as Charlotte Sometimes to the smeared-red-lipstick pop of The Lovecats.

32 Mike Skinner/The Streets The emotionally eloquent voice of Mike Skinner captured the lives of a generation far removed from those covered by US rap, a world of Maccy D's, beefy bouncers and dry your eyes, mate. It also forged the template for a new style of British pop, to be further shaped and moulded by Lily Allen, Jamie-T and Kate Nash. 33 Nick Drake Drake's songs have helped to define the image of the singer/songwriter as a sensitive outsider palely clutching an acoustic guitar. He died in 1974 from an antidepressant overdose, but his albums were bursting with hope and sadness ('I was born to love no one,/ No one to love me'). 34 George Michael Wham! arrived in 1982. Senior partner George Michael soon felt that sharing fame was so Last Christmas, and began a solo career with 'Faith' (first single: I Want Your Sex). Its camp disco offerings sold 20 million copies. 35 Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys) A century ago, D.H. Lawrence was lamenting the homogenisation of British regional culture.

He surely would have approved of the rapid-fire bursts of demotic northern slang that have characterised the early career of this major new talent. 36 George Harrison The youngest Beatle didn't get a lot of space for his compositions on the band's albums, but he wrote some diverse and lovely songs, from Here Comes the Sun to Something. When the Beatles broke up, he released his pent-up energies with a triple solo album, 'All Things Must Pass'. 37 Jerry Dammers The musical force behind the Specials wrote the hits Too Much Too Young and Ghost Town about life in 1980s Britain, then turned his attention to an international issue for 1984's Nelson Mandela. 38 Amy Winehouse In songs such as Rehab and Tears Dry on Their Own from her second album, 2006's 'Back to Black', the troubled diva has turned her retro-styled compositions into something completely modern. 39 Cat Stevens Stevens wrote some of the most enduring songs of the 1960s and early 1970s: Wild World, Father and Son and the much-covered The First Cut is the Deepest, as well as some lesser-known beauties such as How Can I Tell You.

40 Sting De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da excepted, the songs Gordon Sumner wrote for the Police reveal an undeniable talent for crafting quirky pop gems, from Walking on the Moon to Message in a Bottle. 41 Gary Barlow Take That were supposed only to dance, look pretty and show off their six-packs, until evil genius Gary Barlow created a chart monster. Even the most hardened pop cynics had their hearts melted by Barlow's lovely ballad Back For Good. 42 Liam Howlett Howlett created the music that would fuel the Prodigy's rise from rave scene to international chart success, beginning with a track built around a sample from a 1973 children's public information film: 'Charly says always tell your mummy before you go off somewhere.' 43 Stuart Murdoch (Belle and Sebastian) Wistful, funny, culty and ever so slightly twee, the primary qualities of Murdoch's songwriting turn moon-in-June rhymes into delicately beautiful songs - 'You liberated a boy I never rated', he sang, in The Stars of Track and Field, in 1996.

44 Pete Doherty/Carl Barat Lesson one: complementary songwriting talents can make one unique whole, as the Libertines proved. Lesson two: don't go burgling your perfect match's flat. Simple. 45 Billy Bragg 'I don't want to change the world,' sang the young Billy Bragg in 1978's A New England. Not true. Over the next three decades, Bragg would prove that he had wanted to change the world all along, as well as write quirky and emotionally charged love songs. 46 Hot Chip 'Look after me and I'll look after you. That's something we both forgot to do.' Just to prove that hot dancefloor acts can also produce the sweetest pop, along came Hot Chip, a band of old schoolfriends from Putney. 47 Bill Fay If he'd never written anything else, the composer of Be Not So Fearful would deserve his place in this list. He had a brief career between 1967 and 1971, and his original vinyl albums - all two of them - are now collectors' items.

48 Joan Armatrading Being a successful black woman singer-songwriter in 1970s Britain made Armatrading a unique presence. She had her first top 10 hit in 1976 with Love & Affection, providing a blueprint for later songs such as Show Some Emotion and Me Myself I. 49 Mark E. Smith In another age, Smith might have been a pub ranter, in another still, a poet. The lead singer of The Fall's songs are original, uncompromising and deliberately rudimentary. 50 Ivor Novello The matinée idol and sex symbol who made his name by creating the music for the popular First World War number Keep the Home Fires Burning. He died in 1951, and the Novello Awards were created in his honour five years later.

Question: Which British singer had a 1997 hit single with ‘Angels’?
Answer: Robbie Williams