What is the Oldest Song You Know?

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Imagery from Getty
Sound Design by Graham Haerther

[thepoopybaby]

Caveman beating on sticks was very influential for noise rock

[jacksongatens]

The song that immediately comes to mind for me is “The House of the Rising Sun” the oldest possible origin of the song is from a 16th century broadside ballad by the name of “The Unfortunate Rake”

[tecpaocelotl]

Two songs that come in mind is Xicochi Conetzintle Xochipitzahuac. It's an old cradle song from before the conquest of Mexico that has been "beowulfed" with some Christian ideas. I usually hear it around Christmas and usually sing it to my daughter when I try to get her to sleep.

Another song that I always hear is Bolom Chon. It's another old song that existed before the conquest though its obvious the instruments used has been modify. Jorge Gutierrez has the song always in his works.

[evanc.]

Hey, as a Gregorian chant nerd, I actually do know Dies Irae all the way through! It’s startlingly profound, highly suggest reading through it and listening. Aside from that, the Te Deum I think is probably one of the oldest songs I know. I think it was written in the 4th century AD.

[ThaetusZain]

Another thing about those old hymns is tuning, a lot of cultures not touched by pythagoras have very different tuning systems. Probably done by ear "whatever sounds right". I wouldn't be surprised if most of them where tuned by the song in between songs and the tuning was part of the performers "mark". Like guitar tone is used today.

[AndreaCanton]

I think you're missing lots of pre-gregorian chants that are basically still the same since 400-500 A.D. Original music for Te Deum, Veni Creator, Alleluja are late-Roman early-Medieval and are still the same today.

[MattLTT]

If you like 'Sumer is icumen in' then check out 'Miri it is while Sumer ilast', another medieval English folk song. They deal with similar subjects, a longing for summer and a fear of winter, and always make me think of how scary a simple changing of the seasons used to be for the majority of people. Summer meant warm weather, longer days, and access to food. Winter, on the other hand, heralded in freezing temperatures and food shortages. I wish I could say these issues had been left in the past, but unfortunately many people still struggle for food and warmth during the winter months.

[SamuelKristopher]

Awesome video! But in those old lyrics "ye" isn't really pronounced with a "y" - it's the way they wrote "the" back in the day. So it really should be "the Lady Green Sleves". The reason why is because English used to have a different letter similar to þ to write "th" but in the early days of printing they didn't have this letter exactly and used "y" instead.

[asdasdasd]

This music brings horror to Hong Kong students. It is used in listening exams for high school public exams. It is used to fill in between recordings and the rest of the exam after the recording ends. My hands still have phantom pain when I hear this song. That mad dash to finish the writing portion of the exam is hand cramp inducing

[lindawolffkashmir]

I want to flip this. A thousand+ years from now, will any of today’s artists be relevant? Can even The Beatles withstand the test of time? Or Elvis? You may think so, but unfortunately, people’s memories when it comes to popular music are quite short. You only remember some of them when you hear them on an oldies station or something. Especially one-hit-wonder songs, which are not tied to any really popular artist. A quick example of this is to see how many hits from the 20s or 30s you can think of. Songs pass through the societal consciousness so quickly. Yes, they can all be written down and recorded now, compared to just being passed on by memory and word of mouth, but sitting in some unused music book on a dusty shelf is just another way of forgetting.

[arrobamarcos]

In Galicia "Santa Maria, Strela do Dia"(1270 approx) is still pretty well know as it's written in our dying language (technically in galician-portuguese) and it's still taught in schools (also it's a good song). It's probably also know in Portugal and maybe even Brazil and other ex Portuguese colonies.

It's the oldest song that came to mind as I sometimes find myself singing it.

[DMC-octu]

"Sumer is icumen in" is actually decently well known in the UK. I remember being taught it at school in the '90s and seeing it get referenced in The Beano (a kid's comic). It's probably not as well known as Greensleeves but it's definitely more well known than most traditional folk songs imo.

Obviously I realise this is made for an international audience but thought I'd point that out!

[louis-pierreremondin]

In french culture, I would say "sur le pont d'Avignon" a very famous nursery rhyme, every child learns it at preschool. It's quite known abroad too, at least the melody. The actual form of the song is from the XIXth century, but it would come from XVth century (wikipedia).
More anecdotal, I know a lovely voice song from the XVIth century, "Belle qui tiens ma vie" typical of what we call l'Amour Courtois (courtly love). It was popularized in 2000s by a major french tv show called Kaamelott.

[eraigames]

I grew up in Southern Japan and the culture there has more in common with the Ryukyu culture (present day Okinawa and Taiwan) than with Japanese culture. I grew up singing lots of Ryukyu folk songs. Some were probably relatively modern, but some were likely from 1000 to 2000 BCE judging by the usage of words that were more common in that bygone era than they are now.

[katekeeney]

I'll say that if you know a poem written before 1500, you probably know a really old song! Most poetic traditions have their roots in music, and a lot of poetry was designed explicitly to be sung. The bible falls into the same category, especially things like the psalms and song of songs.

[JoeHopkinsmusic]

The oldest song I know is Be Thou My Vision. The tune is from the 8th century and became a popular hymn again in the 1920's. My wife and I had it in our playlist when we were a gospel folk act and I always loved playing it.

[ExperimentIV]

the earliest one i thought of was “Drømde mik en drøm i nat” which is less recognisable but it’s probably 200 years older than greensleeves. it was used as danish radio’s signoff sound, i think? idk i’ve just heard the tune before and now i know it lol

[a.vanwijk]

For Dutch people it simply is the national anthem of the Netherlands "Wilhelmus van Nassaue". The text dates from somewhere between 1568 and 1572. The melody was added a little later, but came from a French song that is at least as old as 1568, but maybe older.

[Glassandcandy]

Just started watching if the Seikilos epitaph isn’t here I’m going to RIOT

Update: I finished and there was no mention of the Seikilos epitaph. I am genuinely surprised. This is the oldest piece of music to be preserved in its entirety in a legible form of musical notation, complete with original lyrics and we know exactly the instrumentation that was to be used (sometime between the 1st-2nd century A.D.). It’s so well preserved that we don’t have to “reconstruct” it, we know exactly what it is supposed to sound like, just like we do with medieval music that was actually preserved in manuscript form.

moreover, it’s extremely commonly used in documentaries on the ancient world and in historical games including Civilization and Assassins creed Odyssey, so if you’ve ever watched one of those or played a game set in Ancient Greece or Rome, you’ve probably heard it at least once.

[kevincronk]

The song that came to mind was yankee doodle. It's probably not as old as greensleeves, but I rememeber hearing that the melody, with all sort of different lyrics, was pretty popular for a very long time in England and is quite old