Not just a song that can be found in the archives, but one that almost everyone can hum, even today.
(Somebody asked what was meant by “today’s…” Throw whatever you want out, somebody tossed out “Love me tender” as being a tune from in the 1860s.)
Happy Birthday, Pop Goes the Weasel, Auld Lang Syne, Here Comes the Bride are obviously here to stay. Lots of Christmas music has potential as well: Jingle Bells, and POSSIBLY Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano, as well as All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey.
But I also think Barbie Girl by Aqua has a decent chance of being practically universal. In that vein, maybe the Hampster Dance too, but idk. Dragostea Din Tei?
I think the real answer though is that most of the popular songs are probably ones that are connected to specific uses outside of the song itself. Pop Goes the Weasel is used in like, every pop-goes-the-weasel type toy, and even in movies when something scary is about to pop out at you. Happy Birthday is literally sung at every birthday. (That reminds me of For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow as well.) Auld Lang Syne is a popular New Years song across the world at this point. Here Comes the Bride at every wedding, etc. Maybe National Anthems will also hold the test of time, depending on if the nation lasts long enough and doesn’t change its anthem.
The point is, if it’s a practical and traditional tune it’s more likely to last, I think.
Oh. I forgot Reveille which is the military wake-up call bugle song lmao
Dragostea Din Tei
I don’t think that one outlasts the next couple decades. Yeah, it’s fun and the lyrics are weird, but Romanian isn’t all that widely spoken, so the vast majority of the world population cannot sing it.
IDK, i was obsessed with that song as a teenager and learned to enunciate the whole song without knowing what it said. but, i have 99 Luftballons on my personal playlist so maybe i just like catchy foreign songs lol
Oh, I totally get it, I loved it too. I just don’t think it will stick in quite the same way when people don’t have lyrics to attach to the song. Like, I can’t play it at karaoke night.
I think more people would be familiar with “Call to Post,” than “Reveille.” Dunno. I guess it depends on how many scouts and military members there are vs horse racing fans.
You won’t like the answer, but I’ll tell you anyway.
It’s The Macarena, by Los Del Rio.
i don’t think so considering your the first and the only one who has even mentioned the song in the last 65 years.
Unfortunately, that’s entirely untrue. I don’t think you’ve put any effort into this exercise at all.
Creep by Radiohead, imagine how much that would annoy Thom Yorke.
Based on what I hear playing, my money is on Mr. Brightside.
Gershwin’s Summertime is my real answer. It has been covered by so many artists already, it might keep going.
What? “Baby Shark” hasn’t been mentioned here yet?
It’s been a day camp classic for at least one generation.
Wow. I’d managed to forget how much I despised singing at camp.
Here Comes the Sun. Simple melody, timeless lyrics, and it’s the most-streamed Beatles song out of an already strong and memorable catalog.
I hate that song, it makes me sad as fuck every time I hear it, and if I never heard that song again in my life it’d be a better one.
Why does it make you sad?
Something about it just ruins my mood. I think it’s linked to how my parents put that song over old home videos and as a kid I would watch them and just ball uncontrollably at the loss of such simpler times (when you’re a baby and don’t have to worry about shit, you’re just cared for and loved).
Fittingly similar to the theme of “Sumer Is Icumen In,” a British round from the late 1200s.
7 nation army by the white stripes. It gets played after a goal is scored in football stadiums across the world.
Not even after goals. It’s like the wave, you can start it up at most sporting events with the help of four other people.
Don’t forget Freed from Desire
Sweet Caroline is getting that way for Football. Especially now that the English nicked it from us
Define “today”? My first pick would be Yesterday, but that’s about 60 years old already.
How many 1700s drinking songs does anyone know the tune of today? Well, there’s “To Anacreon in Heaven”, better known as “The Star Spangled Banner”.
“Aura Lee” is from the 1860s, but the tune is better known today as Elvis’s “Love Me Tender”.
Dirty Maggie Mae, they have taken her away!
The guy who put that high note in a drinking song is one of my favorite humans.
Fly me to the Moon - Frank Sinatra
Simple, yet very recognizable melody. Easy to whistle, but could also be extended to a whole orchestra with vocals.
Happy Birthday has the kind of universal recognition you’d be looking for. Maybe in 300 years there’ll be a lyrical shift towards something more interesting. I know multiple versions of Greensleeves. The Cuckoo is the other song that I can think of with a long history. The wiki article doesn’t fully capture it. I’ll stick something in here later.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo_(song)
Happy Birthday owes it’s place to function. I don’t think anybody actually enjoys it as music.
My 2 year old begs to differ!
You just dug up the rap song Happy Birthday by Flipsyde ft. Piper from the depths of my memory after it had been buried for 14 years.
O Fortuna, Carmina Burana.
The poem was written in the medieval period, but finally set to music in 1935-1936. It still took till the 1970s to be used in TV/Film and became so widely used, it is now known as the most overused piece of music in film history.
It’s not overused, it’s just used a lot (not that I have heard it in anyway)
“O Fortuna” has been called “the most overused piece of music in film history”, and Harper’s Magazine columnist Scott Horton has commented that “Orff’s setting may have been spoiled by its popularization” and its use “in movies and commercials often as a jingle, detached in any meaningful way from its powerful message.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Fortuna
I’m not the one that called it that.
Chumbawumba Tubthumping.
I hate to break this to you, but its Chumbawamba, with an A not a second U. And it always has been.
My life has been a lie
Bohemian Rhapsody
It’s…
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME.
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY
