The greatest Pop song yet written and recorded.

@bdp24 

My original US copy of Song Cycle is one of my more cherished records.  
Was re-watching the Twin Peaks series (again) the other day and whaddya know…I always forget Van Dyke Parks has a small role in season 2 (attorney in courtroom scene).
Van Dyke Park’s version of “Vine Street” is awesome but no version of that song holds a candle to Harry Nilsson’s version as track 1 on the Nilsson Sings Newman LP. 
Like the Van Dyke Parks version, it has a small mini-song unrelated to “Vine Street” open the LP and segues into “Vine Street.”  
Harry proceeds to weave a tapestry of some of the most awe-inspiring, exquisite vocal overdub arrangements you’ll ever hear, accompanied by only Randy himself on the piano.  
I could provide a list similar in length (and similar in musical quality - arguably superior) to the huge Carol King one I posted earlier regarding the number of knockout songs Randy wrote in the ‘60s. If I get the gumption, maybe I will…

George  Harrison - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Yeah, and a few ABBA songs, including this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW3HN_pvbE4&list=FLHAEL8Iwz684WaGFx1rQchA&index=394&ab_channel=AbbaVEVO

@tylermunns: Does your copy of the Song Cycle LP have the beautiful gold Warner Brothers center paper label? Both my copies (one has the rear cover with lyrics, the other without them but full musician credits) have the later ugly green WB label. I’ve been looking for a gold label copy in Mint condition for a few years now, to no avail. I’m a patient guy. 😉 The LP was reissued by somebody a few years ago.

I have the Speakers Corner Records reissue of Nilsson Sings Newman, but haven’t gotten around to listening to it yet. Thanks for the reminder.

Even though I'm in the "classic vinyl' age group with the majority of posters on this thread, I'm going to go a little more recent and say Michael Morales "Who Do You Give Your Love To?", and Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science" both stand the test of a little less time. Back in my becoming an audiophile days, "Baby, Now That I Found You" by the Foundations, and "Red Rubber Ball" by The Cyrkle always made me reach for the volume knob. In the surf genre, "New York's a Lonely Town" by The Trade Winds gets a nod as well.

I've had to give a thumbs up to pretty much every tune listed on this thread so far. We got to grow up during a time when music itself was growing up. Being able to say, "I remember when that song came out on the AM radio" puts us in an especially privileged group of music lovers, because in those pre MTV days, the AM radio station DJ's were ultimately the ones who decided which songs were hits. Air time was expensive, and they wouldn't waste it on songs that didn't have what it took to stay on the charts, or even songs that ran over a certain time limit.  When Phil Spector produced The Righteous Brothers "You've Lost That Loving Feeling", a song that ran almost four minutes, he knew it was a chart topper. He also knew that most stations wouldn't play a song that long, so he deliberately misprinted the label time as 3:05 to make sure it got the air time it deserved. By the time the DJ's figured out the scam, it was too big of a hit to stop playing it. That's always been one of my favorite stories from the halcyon days of rock music. I'm glad I got to be a part of that special era.

@ericsch 

"Comin Back to Me" is one of my all-time favorite songs, but I wouldn't call it pop. It was never a hit, and it's just a piece of art. as is the song before it on the same disc, "Today."