What was the most played song of the 20th century?
The results are in and it is official: America is the soppiest nation on Earth. Nobody swoons for a love song quite like the States, and the stats are out there to prove it. It is a fact that strikes at the heart of wholesome American optimism, a nation young and eternally prosperous enough not to have dashed hopes ingrained into its spiritual constitution.
As Stephen Fry said of the differences between European and American culture: “If you go into an American book shop, by far the biggest section is self help and improvement; the idea that life is refine-able and that you can learn a technique for anything. […] There is an unbelievable sense that life is improvable.” Even when there’s an acceptance that life can get you down, you can come out swinging and hit a home run.
This is echoed in the music. The sense of reconciling woe and then building towards an upbeat crescendo is palpable in many of the songs that make up the top ten most played songs of the 20th century on American TV and Radio—which makes them the most played pieces of Western culture in human history at this stage, though no doubt streaming might soon change that.
‘Never My Love’, ‘Stand By Me’, and ‘Baby, I Need Your Loving’, all follow this arc of a touch of struggle followed by a swell of triumph, whether that be romantic pursuit or abiding by God. Many of the tracks that US citizens heard the most over an epic 100 years of monumental change were underpinned by an early trepidation ultimately being overpowered by a bugle-blowing triumph.
What was the most played song of the 20th century in the US?
However, the most successful on this front was ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin‘ Feelin” by The Righteous Brothers. The song was written by Phil Spector, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil and released in 1964, where it became an instant hit. Thereafter, it simply never stopped being played. The data championing it as America’s most-hears song comes from BMI, “A performing rights organisation that represents more than 250,000 songwriters, composers and publishers with a repertoire of more than 3 million songs and compositions from around the world and in all genres of music.”
This organisation monitors TV and radio output to amass relevant information on song usage and protect artists’ rights and royalty entitlements. They claim that ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin‘ Feelin” was played more than eight million times, which equates to a whopping, mind-bending 45 years of back-to-back play… and a sweet, sweet fortune for all those involved with it.
So, it comes with a great deal of irony that The Righteous Brothers themselves had their doubts about it. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Bill Medley recalled, “We had no idea if it would be a hit. It was too slow, too long, and right in the middle of The Beatles and the British Invasion.” The track begins so slowly, in fact, when Barry Mann first heard it, he thought it was being incorrectly played at the wrong speed. But maybe that is why it instantly arrests the attention of the listener.
Above all, the song was also, simply put, good. Even the hippies couldn’t deny its competence. In fact, Andrew Loog Oldham felt the need to privately take out a full-page advert in Melody Maker just to share his thoughts, writing: “Already in the American Top Ten, this is Spector’s greatest production, the last word in Tomorrow’s sound Today, exposing the overall mediocrity of the Music Industry.” Not bad for a soppy old ballad that almost found itself discarded.
