Songs with the name Sally

Few names have traveled so well through music. Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" from 1956 is rock and roll at full sprint — a stomping piano, a hoarse shout, and a woman the singer can't keep up with. Mack Rice recorded "Mustang Sally" first in 1965 as a souled-up groove, before Wilson Pickett's 1966 version made it famous: a steady, swaggering Southern soul record about a girl who loves her car more than her man, with a guitar riff nobody forgets. The Jaynetts' "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" (1963) is stranger and lovelier — a hushed, eerie girl-group record where the roses keep a secret, all echo and slow handclaps.

The name kept turning up wherever songwriters needed someone to sing to or about. Lou Reed's "Sally Can't Dance" (1974) rides a cynical, strutting New York groove, his deadpan voice draped over a big band-like arrangement. Eric Clapton's "Lay Down Sally" (1977) is warm, laid-back country-blues, closer to Tulsa than to London, a gentle plea to stay the night. The Pogues gave Sally a different life in "Sally MacLennane" (1985), a beer-soaked, fiddle-driven Irish farewell to a barmaid and the pub itself. Paul McCartney and Wings' "Sally G" (1974) is a chirpy country pastiche, while Cyndi Lauper's "Sally's Pigeons" (1993) is the quiet ache of the set — a tender ballad about a childhood friend lost too young, sung with real grief.