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.)
Creep by Radiohead, imagine how annoyed that would make Thom Yorke.
Probably helps to be featured or mentioned in other notable media, as greensleaves is mentioned in Shakespeare, and creep is part of the fight club soundtrack, so it has that going for it I guess 😅
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”.
The guy who put that high note in a drinking song is one of my favorite humans.
Coincidentally, Elvis’ is only the second best song titled “Love Me Tender”. Nothing could ever be better than this absolute, uh, masterpiece
XcQ, link stays blue
Well, green.
So, 500 years from now people will still be doing this?
I can see it
I want to click, but I don’t want to click
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!
Green Onions
the entertainer by scott joplin
I say this with the deepest respect for the King of Ragtime, but Joplin has been dead for over a century now.
I always forget there was a real historical figure and assume Greensleeves is Gull’s little sister from those old Magic books.
Not sure how well they hold up, but like 25 years ago Arena and the Greensleeves trilogy seemed like the best books ever.
“I like to f*ck” by Tila Tequila.
Essentially the same lyrics, even.
It’s it a hummer?
7 nation army by the white stripes. It gets played after a goal is scored in football stadiums across the world.
Yeah, choosing something that will end up in the background of a lot of archives and memories is probably as good a strategy as any.
I have a feeling that this will be one that everyone knows, but doesn’t know the title of, like Power House by Raymond Scott.
Link.
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.
Sweet Caroline is getting that way for Football. Especially now that the English nicked it from us
Don’t forget Freed from Desire
We will rock you by Queen another contender for similar reasons.
It’s…
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME.
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY WITH A BASEBALL BAT
While not what one would think of when they think of songs that survive hundreds of years from now, the only song I can think of that’s not a folk song that’s both archived and hummable (and actually has a tune, so that excludes pop songs)… is the Pokémon theme song. Go up to anyone and say in tune that you wanna be the very best and someone’s gonna ask “like no one ever was”.
i have this thing where when i’m focused, but switching tasks, i’ll click my tongue but it’s always the tune of nick nick nick n’nick nick nick o lo dea onnn
Orange you glad …
You need more Nick. One before n’nick and one after.
Source: I kinda still want to go to space camp.
Define “today”? My first pick would be Yesterday, but that’s about 60 years old already.
On the scale of Greensleeves, I would suggest Yesterday is today.
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.
Chumbawumba Tubthumping.
Nah it got knocked down.
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
As much as I want TiK ToK by Kesha to be a recognizable tune in half a millenia I know that’s not happening. Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode is one of the most covered songs of the past 50 years so that very well may become immortalized through diffusion alone. There’s a couple dozen jazz standards that could have that kind of staying power as well, especially considering their ubiquity in performance repitoires and books of sheet music.
Bored music teacher in 2200: “and here children, we find the most important contributions to late 20th centure music: a phonograph of Depeche Mode’s Violator.”
I can only hope, deep into the future, some dork leans toward his friend and mutters “101 was better.”
Anyone who would say that would say Black Celebration instead.
I would’ve said Songs Of Faith And Devotion, but a short name made a better gag, and I could not bring myself to say Ultra.
And seriously, 101 fucking rules. It’s an energetic best-of before they asked themselves what made them special and stripped back everything for the iconoclastic rose album everyone knows them for. Which is okay.
On reflection, far from sober, it is surprising the Deftones have never covered “In Your Room.”
Funny. Seems like you see Violator as the start of a new era for them, and I see it as the end of the classic era. There are isolated songs I like after Violator, but no whole albums. (For reference, SoFaD was their newest album when I started listening, and I got it as the same time as Violator.)
Violator is a band asking themselves what they’re about and finding a crystal clear answer. The result is deliberately transitional. In going to the extremes, in excising everything that is not strictly necessary, they built a framework for a sound that is distinctly their own, without being more of what they’d already done.
Songs Of Faith And Devotion is bombastic, but all its power is built on that same crisp restraint. Especially in the 90s - it would have been easy to be louder and busier just by adding a little distortion, a little fuzz, a little taste of metal or grunge. Instead they stuck with clean synths and tasteful reverb, but made them fucking hit. (By contrast, see Playing The Angel. Or don’t.)
Ultra does the opposite trick, applying that sparse soundscape to more-general instrumentation. It kinda works. Exciter does a better job of it, but still stumbles on tracks like “Dead Of Night” and “Comatose.” Good demos! How long until they’re complete? Oh. (“Freelove” nearly makes up for all of it.)
Everything after that… look, I actually like Playing The Angel, but I’m the kind of mutant who sincerely argues that Violator was merely okay. And even I can’t find any love for Delta Machine.
All their work leading up to Violator was much more organic than how they made Violator. Their masterpiece, in the sense of getting their shit together and being taken seriously, was Construction Time Again, with “Everything Counts” as a tentpole. Some Great Reward was Gore going ‘oh we can get real weird with this, huh’ and leaning way the hell into the kink and the darkness, god bless him. Black Celebration was the peak of that arc.
Music For The Masses never rises to quite the same level, but in that album you can see the transition forming. “Behind The Wheel” is probably the crescendo of their old sound. Y’know, synthpop where someone’s credited for playing the trash can. And then immediately there’s “To Have And To Hold,” which is maybe one degree too loose for Violator. It is emblematic of the sound they wanted.
As much as I want TiK ToK by Kesha to be a recognizable tune in half a millenia I know that’s not happening.
I heard it on the radio recently and they censored the beginning:
Wake up in the morning feeling like [redacted]
I heard a live performance where the line was changed to:
Wake up in the morning saying Fuck P Diddy
??? Why
P Diddy/Sean Combs has a lot of ongoing allegations right now
