Song

The Hurrian songs are a collection of music inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets discovered in the ancient Amorite city of Ugarit, a headland in northern Syria. which date to approximately 1400 BC. While archaeologists managed to unearth 29 tablets during the project in the 1950s, only one of the texts was preserved well enough to allow modern reconstruction. The Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal (also known as the Hurrian cult hymn), is the oldest surviving song in the world. 

The Song of Moses was a victory song, similar to others sung in many cultures in the ancient world. Music was a creative way of passing down oral traditions. Moses' song is said to have come spontaneously as he led the nation into the desert after miraculously crossing the Red Sea, then watching the pursuing Egyptians drown.

The Song of Moses appears in Deuteronomy 32:1–43 of the Hebrew Bible, making it one of the oldest recorded songs. Most scholars hold that it was composed between the tenth and eighth centuries BC.

 Bible Illustrations by Sweet Media

St Godric of Finchale (c. 1065 – 21 May 1170) was a hermit whose compositions are the oldest English-language songs for which the original musical settings survive. According to Reginald of Durham, who recorded four songs of St Godric's, he learnt the first song after a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared to him. She taught Godric a song of consolation to overcome grief or temptation ("Saintë Marië Virginë").

During the 11th century song styles were monophonic, that is, they consisted solely of unharmonized melody; accompanying instruments duplicated or varied the singer's melody.

The great period of medieval monophonic secular songs reached its first peak around 1100 with the troubadours of southern France and Provence, whose influence was felt in northern France by the trouvères. Their counterparts in Germany were the minnesingers and meistersinger, whose songs were composed both in the courts and, with the rise of the meistersinger, in middle-class musicians' guilds that sprang up in almost every city.

The greatest of the chansons de geste is also one of the earliest, the famous "Song of Roland". Dated around 1100, it tells of Charlemagne's 778 invasion of Spain, but the attention is on his followers Roland and Oliver rather than the king himself.

Polyphony consists of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to monophony which is a musical texture with just one voice. Polyphonic songs first gained wide popularity in French chansons, which usually were written for three voices and most often contained two principal sections. These songs flourished in the 14th and 15th centuries, and leading composers included Guillaume de Machaut, who composed three-voice works in the formes fixes during the 14th century. Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois,

These French chanson composers were most active in the courts of France and Burgundy, though they traveled to Spain and Italy as well. Their travels inspired the invention of local forms of song, among them the madrigal in Italy, the romance in Spain, and the carol in England.

The first secular song printed in London was "Three Blind Mice" published by songwriter Thomas Ravenscroft in 1609. "Three Blind Mice” was allegedly an ode to Bloody Queen Mary’s reign, with the trio in question believed to be a group of Protestant bishops—Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Radley, and The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer—who (unsuccessfully) conspired to overthrow the queen and were burned at the stake for their heresy. The blindness in the title supposedly refers to their religious beliefs.

Art songs are songs created for performance by classical artists, usually with piano accompaniment, although they can be sung solo. The art song differs from the folk song in that it is often based upon the text of a poem and conveys subtle shades of emotion and feeling. During the 17th and 18th century, such solo songs were most often accompanied by simple figurations for the harpsichord, fortepiano, or piano. Earlier examples of songs of this sort had accompaniments that offered little of their own in the way of musical substance or emotional interest. The keyboard simply provided a harmonic framework in which the song was heard.

The German tradition of art song composition is perhaps the most prominent one; it is known as Lieder. These German solo songs were first written by the 17th-century composer Adam Krieger and the 18th-century composer George Frideric Handel. Later in the 18th century, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn wrote songs, though neither composer can be said to have specialized in the genre.

Before 1800 most popular music in America was brought to the New World by English, Irish, and Scottish immigrants. Sad sentimental songs introduced from England led to the beginning of the United States song-publishing industry in the 1790s.

Although Franz Schubert died at 32, he wrote more than 600 songs. They represented a new kind of musical expression that he did much to perfect-the art song, or lied, in which there is perfect artistic balance between the solo voice and the piano accompaniment. Schubert enhanced the emotional meaning of his songs with deft and sensitive accompaniments-most often for keyboard alone but sometimes for keyboard and such wind instruments as horn ("Auf dem Strom" 1828) or clarinet ("Der Hirt auf dem Felsen" 1828).

Bar five of Schubert's art song entitled Nacht und Träume

According to the 1976 publication The Guinness Book Of Music Facts And Feats, "Ein Ton" has the dubious honor of being the world's most monotonous song. Written in 1859 by the German composer Peter Cornelius (1824-74), the note B is repeated 80 times in 30 bars.

A 16-year-old English girl named Euphonia Allen wrote the piano favorite "Chopsticks", in 1877. The song was published under the name Arthur de Lulli and despite Euphoia's promising beginning; this was the only song she ever wrote. The name was derived from the chopping motion of the hands needed to play the waltz.

"Happy Birthday" was the first song to be performed in outer space. It was sung by the Apollo IX astronauts on March 8, 1969 to celebrate the birthday of Christopher Kraft, at that time director of NASA space operations.

"Happy Birthday" was named the highest-earning song of all time in the documentary The Richest Songs In The World, which aired on BBC Four on December 28, 2012. Runner-up was Irving Berlin's "White Christmas."

Kate Bush was the first woman to top the UK charts with a self-written song when "Wuthering Heights" reached #1 in 1978.

Kate Bush by Philip Chappell aka squidney

In 1999 the PRS announced "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" was the most played song of the 20th Century.

At 10:13, "All Too Well" by Taylor Swift is the longest song in history to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Eminem's song "Rap God" is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most words in a song: 1,560 words in 6:04 minutes at an average of 4.28 words per second.

UK copyright collection society and performance rights organization PRS For Music believe "Merry Christmas Everybody" by Slade to be the most heard song in the world. They estimate that 42 per cent of The Earth’s population has heard the tune.

"Mr. Blue Sky" by the Electric Light Orchestra was found to be the happiest song ever using a formula made by studying songs from a period of 50 years.

"Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey is the best-selling digital track from the 20th century, with over seven million copies sold in the United States.

Some Inuit groups use ridicule in the form of song duels as a means of conflict resolution. Two men who had failed to resolve a conflict by other means would secretly compose derisive songs about their adversary. The whole camp gathered in a large igloo to observe the song duel.

Compton's Encyclopedia, Mental Floss