List: Songs most 40-somethings should know and be able sing most words
I can't sing.
I'm trying to come up with a list of songs to play on a guitar (primarily acoustic) that a group of typical 40 year olds should be able to sing *most* of the words, not just the chorus.
The point is to have them do the singing if we're just sitting around a campfire, tailgating, etc.
Something like Jimmy Buffet - Margaritaville, maybe Tom Petty - Free Fallin.
September 03, 2019, 04:05 PM
CPD SIG
American Pie. Don McLean
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September 03, 2019, 04:27 PM
joel9507
40 year olds.... so born circa 1979?
I'm guessing most folks start picking up songs during their mid-teens.....so adding 15 years to 1979 would target popular songs starting around 1994.
If any of the above makes sense - and it may not as I am just thinking this through - then I am not sure that '70s Jimmy Buffet/Don McLean or '80s Tom Petty - great as they are - are sure bets for those born around 1979.
Worse, I have no idea what songs might have been popular in the mid'90s. Relative to that era, my musical tastes run pretty much to neanderthal hits with the beat driven by mastodon bones played on saber-tooth-tiger-skin drums... [i.e., songs like Margaritaville, American Pie, Free Fallin. ]
I would bet we have some SIGforumers of more recent vintage than I who can chime in as to sure-fire singalong songs of the mid '90s. Failing that, one could Google American Billboard chart ratings of the mid '90s with an eye to finding a guitarable, singable tune having had had staying power during the period your target audience was receptive.
September 03, 2019, 05:11 PM
oddball
quote:
Originally posted by Oz_Shadow: Something like Jimmy Buffet - Margaritaville,
Do 40-somethings even know this song?
I know a couple of 30-somethings who don't know any Rolling Stone songs, not familiar with them. As far as those 40+, maybe Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"? Or REM "Losing My Religion" and Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun"?
Or some old standards like "Show Me The Way To Go Home", "This Land Is Your Land" "Theme From The Flinstones"
"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
September 03, 2019, 05:32 PM
ffips
Hotel California - Eagles
Desperado - Eagles
Friends in Low Places - Garth Brooks
On the Road Again - Willie Nelson
Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
Boys of Summer - Don Henley
All My Exes Live in Texas - George Strait
more to come....
Jessie's Girl - Rick Springfield
Jack and Diane - John Cougar Mellencamp
Every Rose Has Its Thorn - Poison
Sister Christian - Night Ranger
September 03, 2019, 05:39 PM
LS1 GTO
Louie, Louie
Theme from Gilligan's Island
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September 03, 2019, 05:42 PM
Oz_Shadow
Born in the 70s and yes, Margaritaville is well known.
American Pie - not a chance
September 03, 2019, 07:07 PM
kkina
Lyin' Eyes -Eagles Stairway to Heaven -Led Zeppelin Sweet Caroline -Neil Diamond Song Sung Blue -Neil Diamond Take Me Home, Country Roads -John Denver Here Comes the Sun -The Beatles Yesterday -The Beatles Let It Be -The Beatles Can't Buy Me Love -The Beatles Blowin' in the Wind -Bob Dylan Dust in the Wind -Kansas
^ All songs from the Sixties and Seventies? Come on, kkina.
Like oddball suggested, the song playlist should be more heavily skewed toward the late Eighties and Nineties.
"I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet raised to an alarming extent by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak!" - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes"
September 03, 2019, 07:40 PM
kkina
quote:
All songs from the Sixties and Seventies? Come on, kkina.
Nope, not following that. These are songs most people of any age should know. These are the songs I used to do around the campfire to 40-somethings. Of course, that was 20 years ago.
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September 03, 2019, 08:11 PM
erj_pilot
Just listen to Chicago's greatest hits album. That'll keep anyone busy for HOURS...
"If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24
September 03, 2019, 08:15 PM
Orguss
quote:
Originally posted by kkina: Nope, not following that. These are songs most people of any age should know. These are the songs I used to do around the campfire to 40-somethings. Of course, that was 20 years ago.
Yeah, when people in their 40s had been listening to music from the '60s and '70s in their teens and early twenties.
"I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet raised to an alarming extent by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak!" - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes"
September 03, 2019, 08:16 PM
oddball
"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
September 03, 2019, 08:49 PM
kkina
quote:
Originally posted by Orguss:
quote:
Originally posted by kkina: Nope, not following that. These are songs most people of any age should know. These are the songs I used to do around the campfire to 40-somethings. Of course, that was 20 years ago.
Yeah, when people in their 40s had been listening to music from the '60s and '70s in their teens and early twenties.
There were 30- and even 20- somethings in that group, too.
I'm not saying don't do the new stuff. I'm saying start with the classics. They're classic for a reason.
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." Sherlock Holmes
September 03, 2019, 09:16 PM
Oz_Shadow
Totally forgot about that Tonic song. Used to play it a lot but it’s been many years.