Song · Citizen Cope
“Sideways” by Citizen Cope
From the album The Clarence Greenwood Recordings (2004)
“Sideways” by Citizen Cope appears on 9 radio countdowns from 3 stations between 2009 and 2024. It was first released in 2004 on the album The Clarence Greenwood Recordings. Its best result is #43 on the WXPN 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium (2013). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #4,299 indie & aaa song of all time.
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Clarence Greenwood, the man behind Citizen Cope, gave "Sideways" away before he kept it: the song first appeared in 2002 on Santana's Shaman, with Cope singing, before he put his own take on his 2004 album The Clarence Greenwood Recordings. It's a slow-burning song about feelings that refuse to leave and keep throwing him off balance, which is where the title comes from.
Cope's version runs past five minutes and never hurries, his husky, half-sung drawl riding a loose, laid-back groove that feels like a late night with the windows open. It never charted, yet it kept turning up all over pop culture: Sheryl Crow, John Mayer and Tyler James all covered it, and it went gold in 2019.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 735 | WYEP | WYEP 913 Songs That Matter from the Last Decade | 913 |
| 2009 | 241 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009) | 885 |
| 2013 | 43 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium (2013) | 885 |
| 2014 | 653 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2014) | 885 |
| 2018 | 251 | WTMD | WTMD Listeners' Top 897 Songs, 2003-2018 | 896 |
| 2019 | 967 | WYEP | WYEP Big Spring Countdown 2019 | 1017 |
| 2019 | 967 | WYEP | WYEP Labor Day Weekend Countdown 2019 | 1099 |
| 2020 | 1639 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2024 | 431 | WXPN | WXPN The 885 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century (2024) | 885 |
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