Pre-1800
Top 1%Top 2%
- writer(s) unknown “Greensleeves” (1580)
- anonymous “A Froggie Went A-Courtin’” (1700)
- Thomas D'Urfey (m), Frederick Thomas Nettingham (w) “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (1706)
- writer(s) unknown “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” (1709)
- writer(s) unknown “Baa Baa Black Sheep” (1744)
- writer(s) unknown “London Bridge is Falling Down” (1744)
- Dr. Richard Schukburgh (w), traditional (m) “Yankee Doodle” (aka “Yankee Doodle Went to Town”) (1754)
- traditional “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” (1760)
- Charles Bradlee (w), unknown (m) “The Alphabet Song” (1761)
- Augustus Montague Toplady (w), Thomas Hastings (m) “Rock of Ages” (1763)
- John Dickinson (w), William Boyce (m) “The Liberty Song (In Freedom We’re Born)” (1768)
- unknown “Frère Jacques (Are You Sleeping?)” (1780)
- Frederic Austin, traditional “Twelve Days of Christmas” (1780)
1800-1889
Top 1%
- Jane Taylor (w), unknown (m) “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (1806)
- Francis Scott Key (w), John Stafford Smith (m) “The Star-Spangled Banner” (1814)
- Joseph Mohr (w), Franz Gruber (m), John Freeman Young (English translation) “Silent Night, Holy Night (Stille Nacht, Heilge Nacht)” (12/24/1818)
- Franz Schubert (m), Walter Scott (w) “Ave Maria” (1825), Johann Sebastian Bach and Charles Gounod (m) “Ave Maria” (1859)
- Davies Gilbert “The First Noel” (1823)
- Samuel Francis Smith (w), traditional (m) “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (1831)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “Oh! Susanna” (1847)
- Adolphe Adam and John Sullivan Dwight (composers) “O Holy Night (Minuit, Chrétiens)” (1847)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “Camptown Races (Gwine to Run All Night)” (1850)
- Felix Mendelssohn (m), Charles Wesley (w) “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” (1855)
- James S. Pierpont (m/w) “Jingle Bells” (1857)
- Daniel Decatur Emmett (m/w) “Dixie” (1859)
- Julia Ward Howe (w) and William Steffe (m) “The Battle Hymn of the Republic (aka ‘Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!’)” (1861)
- Louis Lambert as Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore (m/w) “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” (1863)
- Wallace Willis, Henry Thacker Burleigh (arranged by) “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (1872)
- Dr. Brewster M. Higley (w), Daniel E. Kelly (m) “Home on the Range” (1873)
- traditional “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” (1881)
- James Ramsey Murray (m) and Charles H. Gabriel (w) “Away in a Manger” (1882)
Top 2%
- James Sanderson (m), Albert Gamse (w) “Hail to the Chief” (1810)
- writer(s) unknown “Au Clair de la Lune” (1811)
- John Howard Payne (w), Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (m) “Home Sweet Home” (1823)
- Gioacchino Rossini “William Tell Overture” (1829)
- Lowell Mason (m), Sarah Josepha Hale (w) “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (1830)
- Carl Sandburg “Skip to My Lou” (1832)
- traditional “On Top of Old Smoky” (1841)
- traditional “This Old Man (Nick Nack Paddiwak)” (1841)
- Thomas Haynes Bayly (m/w) “Long Long Ago” (1843)
- Daniel Decatur Emmett “Old Dan Tucker” (1843)
- Daniel Decatur Emmett “Polly Wolly Doodle (All the Day)” (1843)
- Cool White (w) “Buffalo Gals Will You Come Out Tonight” (1844)
- unknown (w/m) “Vive la Compagnie (Vive l’Amour)” (1844)
- Edwin Pearce Christy “Goodnight Ladies” (1847)
- traditional “Jimmy Crack Corn (The Blue Tail Fly)” (1848)
- Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears (w) and Richard Storrs Willis (m) “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” (1850)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “The Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)” (1851)
- John Mason Neale (w), traditional (m) “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (1851)
- Eugene Raymond (adapted) “Pop Goes the Weasel” (1852)
- Eliphalet Oram Lyte “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” (1852)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “My Old Kentucky Home” (1853)
- John Kelly, later adapted by Don George “The Yellow Rose of Texas” (1853)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair” (1854)
- Richard Milburn (m), Septimus Winner as Alice Hawthorne (w) “Listen to the Mocking Bird (aka “The Mocking Bird”)” (1856)
- John Henry Hopkins Jr. (m/w) “We Three Kings of Orient Are” (1857)
- Felix Mendelssohn (composer) “Wedding March from Midsummer’s Night Dream” (1858)
- John Mason Neale (w) “Good King Wenceslas” (1860)
- George F. Root (composer) “The Battle Cry of Freedom” (1862)
- Percy Montrose “Clementine” (1863)
- Septimus Winner (m/w) “O Where, O Where Has My Little Dog Gone” (1864)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “Beautiful Dreamer” (1864)
- Robert Lowry (composer) “Shall We Gather at the River?” (aka “Beautiful River” and “Hanson Place”) (1864)
- William Chatterton Dix (w), “Greensleeves” (m) “What Child Is This?” (1865)
- John Wesley Work (composer) “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1865)
- traditional “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” (1867)
- Lewis Redner (m), Phillips Brooks (w) “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (1868)
- Johannes Brahms (composer) “Brahms’ Lullaby (Wiegenleid) (aka “Cradle Song”) (1868)
- George Leybourne & Alfred Lee “The Man on the Flying Trapeze” (1868)
- Sanford F. Bennett (w), Joseph Philbrick Webster (m) “In the Sweet By-and-By” (1868)
- Billy Reeves (w), Frank Campbell (m), and Rollin Howard (arranger) “Shoo Fly Don’t Bother Me” (1869)
- Joseph Eastburn Winner as R.A. Eastburn (m/w) “The Little Brown Jug” (1869)
- traditional “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” (1870)
- Sabine Baring-Gould (w) and Sir Arthur Sullivan (m) “Onward Christian Soldiers” (1871)
- Thomas P. Westendorf (m/w) “I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” (1875)
- Hartius Bonar (w), Charles Crozat Converse (m) (1876)
- Henry C. Work (m/w) “Grandfather’s Clock” (1876)
- Euphemia Allen as Arthur de Lulli “Chopsticks” (1877)
- traditional “Alouette” (1879)
- Luiji Denza (m) “Funicili Funicula” (1880)
- Charles E. Pratt “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” (1881)
- Effie I. Canning (m/w) “Rock-a-Bye Baby” (1884)
- Carl Boberg (w) “How Great Thou Art” (1885)
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Absolutely my favorite list of songs and is ultimately the granddaddy of song lists!!! Nice work and I wanna keep it!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I appreciate the positive feedback.
DeleteYou should put what songs were added and removed when you update this.
ReplyDeleteAre you a teeny bopper that works for rolling stone? Because that's what your list makes you look like
ReplyDeleteThis comment doesn't make sense on three levels. You say this makes me look like a teeny bopper who works for Rolling Stone.
Delete1) This isn't a personal best-of list. As I explain in the first paragraph, this is an aggregate of hundreds of best-of lists.
2) Teeny bopper? Wouldn't a teenager's choices be largely confined to music of the 21st century? That would exclude more than 800 songs on this list from the average teenager's consideration.
3) Rolling Stone? Considering the magazine debuted in the 1960s and typically doesn't reach back any further than the 1950s in their best-of lists, than that would take 400+ songs off the table from what they would typically consider.
It'd be cool to see a list of the top 100 non-english songs of all time.
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to compile this amazing list. I plan on making a playlist and I was hoping that you can create a changelog of any new songs when you update this list in the future so I don't miss out on anything. Again, I really appreciate the work youre doing. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. That's awesome that you are making a playlist based on this. I know I've been exposed to a lot of music - especially pre-1950s - as a result of compiling lists this this.
DeleteAs for a changelog, I definitely understand why it would be helpful. I'm sorry I haven't done that. It might in the future, but this is a bear of a list to maintain as it is!
There's a typo on number 276 with 2 songs on the same number
ReplyDeleteThanks for the catch! I'm grateful to have someone keep me in check. It has been corrected.
DeleteWhy is there 1060 songs now?
ReplyDeleteoh nvm, I see it now, top 1%
DeleteWonderful! Thanks Dave.
ReplyDeleteListening to all of these in order, as I am doing, is quite the experience!
ReplyDeleteThere are songs listed twice; Just One of Those Things in 1935, A Boy Named Sue in 1969, and Jack & Diane in 1982. It would be neat if these three spots are replaced with other songs.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the catch! I've made the corrections.
Delete