Songs of the Century - Joe Mabel

Here they are: a song for every year of the Twentieth Century (1900-1999. I know some people say the century starts in 1901 and ends in 2000, but they're kidding themselves). Not a song written or recorded that year, but a song that mentions that year, either in the lyrics or in the title.

Marina Snyder and I started this out with about 20 songs. In just 3 days more than half of the years were covered. As of December 16, 1999, we have a song for every year (but I'll keep adding worthwhile also-rans). When the going gets tough...Ian Hill and Michael Takasaki get going. Neither contributed anything until April '99, so all the easy ones were gone before they started. Since then, they've been our leading contributors (and Michael, at least, seems to be carrying on the project of iproving the list even now that it's complete). Sometimes I feel more like their stenographer than the person who started this thing! Both have used search engines, but have found most of their additions the traditional way (e.g. browsing at record stores, listening to the radio, things like that).

On April 16, 2002, I learned that someone else has a similar site to this! Check out A Century of Songs . Oh, and please don't send me anything he's already listed.

We'd love to hear from you if you think you have "better" entries (or if you find any broken links).

Most years mentioned in one song: "One Piece At A Time" mentions 22 different years. Of these, not one lacks another song!

Most songs with years as titles by one writer? Here are the serious contenders:

• Julie Ritter (ex-Mary's Danish) has written songs called "1971", "1978", "1986", "1989", "1990", "1991", "1992", and "1993." My list does not use any of these. Fortunately, the list was complete before any of these arrived, so I didn't even have to consider stooping so low.
• Nor does my list use Robert Fripp's "1984", "1985", "1986", "1987", "1988", and "1989", all on his 1981 album Let the Power Fall .

1/3/2000: Ian Hill just found a song with bunches of years in it: "Endless Art" by the band A House. It mentions 1901, 1912, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1935, '40, 1941, 1946, 1956, 1961, 1964, 1967, 1969, '77, 1978, '80. (Also, for good measure, 1573, 1631, 1775, 1804, 1809, 1840, 1844, 1851, 1853, 1857, 1864, 1888, 1889, 1890, [18]'92, 1896, and 1899.) And we don't even need to use it!

Here are my rules; some of these are moot now that it's all filled in, but I'm leaving them here for historical reasons:

• No song can count more than once even if it mentions lots of years
• David Bowie and Prince trump all others (1984!, 1999!)
• Better known song trumps lesser known song
• I reserve the right to be arbitrary
• Songs with the year in the title are preferred
• Almost anyone trumps Al Stewart...
• ...but even Al Stewart trumps Homer and Jethro (new rule February 12, 1999)
• It's OK if it just says something like "'64 World's Fair" ("Anna Eng" by TMBG), but better if it actually says "1964" (Neil Sedaka's "Queen of 1964")
• If we really want to stretch it, we could accept songs that refer to events that happened in a particular year (e.g. Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald" for 1975), but I'd rather see if we can do without those. (And we did! - JM 12/19/99). As of July 15, 1999 I'm accepting entries in this category for otherwise uncovered years, but I'm viewing them only as placeholders: the date will be in parentheses and I won't count it toward the number of years accounted for.
• (new rule Feb 8, 1999:) Anything trumps a parody. Even Al Stewart. If I don't already have something for that year & a parody shows up, I'll put it in the list till something better comes along. If I already have something for that year, I'm probably not even going to list it as a non-starter. (But I reserve the right to be arbitrary!)
• (new rule Feb 10, 1999:) Even below parodies are remixes with the year in the title to indicate the remix. Thus "Fame '90", even though it's by David Bowie, could be trumped by anything. Even Al Stewart. Hell, even Kenny G. As of July 15, 1999 I'm accepting entries in this category only for otherwise uncovered years, and I'm viewing them only as placeholders: the date will be in parentheses and I won't count it toward the number of years accounted for.
• (new rule April 16, 2002:) Someone else now has a similar site to this! Check out A Century of Songs . Oh, and please don't send me anything he's already listed.

Charles Clinton sent a lot of songs early on, but he admitted to using a search engine. At that time I thought he'd done all that could be done that way, but Michael Takasaki and Ian Hill both apparently came up with some clever searching strategies (or more has been indexed), because they both found more with search engines later. It should be noted that both relied more on the traditional means: browsing record stores, listening to the radio, and just knowing a lot of music. Each of these guys found at least ten songs without using search engine, after 69 years had already been covered by others. Many thanks also to my cousin Rachel Myr on the folk front, my brother Matthew on the pop/rock front, and my former colleague Ty Thorsen on the punk front.

We've had some "theme songs" suggested: Mark Bolan's Twentieth Century Boy and Noel Coward's Twentieth Century Blues, both great. Michael Takasaki also notes a fine Chicago folkie entry, Steve Goodman and John Prine's The Twentieth Century is Almost Over . As it happens, that mentions a year: 1899. Do we want to start extending the list backwards?

Please send contributions (and corrections!) to jmabel@joemabel.com. Ideally, I'd like exact title, author, and performer plus a link to lyrics. Anywhere I'm short of that, I'd love more information. Also, please feel free to let me know about links that have "gone stale", especially if you can tell me where to find a more current link to the same song. I try to link to reasonably stable sites without too many nasty pop-ups. If you know a better link for a song, feel free to write me.

The list so far:

1900 (tie)	1900 Yesterday	Liz Damon's Orient Express. (Can't argue about the title.)
1900 (tie)	Scofield Mine Disaster	U. Utah Phillips (Certainly a better known performer, and nice to have him next to the contingent listed for 1901, but mention of the year is much less prominent than Liz Damon's.)
1901	Belle Starr	Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger/Jack Elliot (also mentions 1885)
1902	Death of Harry Bradford	W.J. Taylor (recorded by someone named Beck. Not that Beck.)
1903	Dayton, Ohio - 1903	Randy Newman (on Sail Away)
1904	No More Cane on the Brazos	Traditional. Probably best known from the repertoire of The Band. Also mentions 1910. There's also a variant called "Go Down Old Hannah"
1905	Symphony Number 11 in G Minor, The Year 1905	Dmitri Shostakovich (OK, so it's a symphony, not a song. Sue me.)
1906	Memories of Jacqueline 1906	Olivia Tremor Control (from the album Dusk at Cubist Castle)
1907	Ol' Bill Miner (The Gentleman Bandit)	Norman Blake (album: Chattanooga Sugar Babe) (also mentions 1901)
1908	Big League Dreams, Minor League Town	Cheesemoose
1909	Stornoway	Tom Robinson (Sector 27)
1910	Halley's Comet	Linda Allen
1911	Ballad of the Triangle Fire	Ruth Rubin
1912	God Moves Over The Water	Traditional? Collected by Alan Lomax from Lightnin' Washington, Texas, 1933 (The first of several contributed songs about the Titanic. Another is "The Titanic (Cold and Icy Sea)" )
1913	1913 Massacre	Woody Guthrie
1914	Children's Crusade	Sting (also mentions 1984)
1915	The Band Played Waltzing Matilda	Eric Bogle, who recorded it, but best known through the singing of June Tabor.
1916	1916	Motorhead
1917	1917	David Olney (also recorded by Emmylou Harris & Linda Rondstat)
1918	MLF Lullaby	Tom Lehrer
1919	Paris 1919	John Cale
1920	Brown Eyed Women	Grateful Dead (also mentions 1930)
1921	You Didn't Hear It (1921)	Pete Townsend (The Who) (another nice link for this )
1922	Thoroughly Modern Millie	Sammy Kahn/Elmer Bernstein (sung by Julie Andrews in the musical of the same name). Correspondent Thoroughly Modern Jenna has kindly provided the lyrics as sung by Ms. Andrews over the credits.
1923	Radio Rodeo	George Scherer and the Juke Joint Gypsies
1924	Didn't She Really Thrill Them (Back in 1924)	The Oak Ridge Boys
1925	Elsie	Marie-Lynn Hammond (Can we say obscure? Thank you, Ian Hill.)
1926	The Old Man's Song	Ian Campbell (I found this in a British leftist song collection called "The Big Red Songbook". They say he recorded it in '66 on an LP "The Circle Game")
1927	Louisiana 1927	Randy Newman
1928(tie)	Nineteen Twenty Eight	Woody Guthrie (also mentions '29, '30, '31, '32, '33, '34)
1928(tie)	My Mother the Car	(Television theme song. Really stupid, but I couldn't resist.)
1929	Pictures of Lily	Pete Townsend (The Who)
1930	Fattening Frogs For Snakes	Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) (also mentions 1957)
1931	Beans, Bacon, and Gravy	Traditional (also mentions 1894)
1932	My Old Man	Ewan MacColl
1933	Theme Song from Tiny Toons Adventures	Anyone know who wrote this?
1934	Last Day of June 1934	Al Stewart
1935(tie)	The Letter Home	Elvis Costello (From The Juliet Letters)
1935(tie)	Huppes Taiuts 1935	Jo-El Sonnier (a tie because this is obscure but has the year in the title)
1935(tie)	1935	David Qualey (instrumental, from the album Handmade) (still only a tie because... ditto)
1936	King of the Passing Chord	Steve Ono
1937	Da jeg var en liten gutt	Øystein Sunde (Rachel has a lot to say about this one.)
1938	Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)	David Bowie (omigod, one of the last dates to fill in and Michael Takasaki finds it in the title of a David Bowie song. Are we all blind?)
1939	Spanish Bombs	The Clash
1940	Various Times	The Fall (from Live at the Witch Trials; also mentions 1980)
1941	New York Mining Disaster, 1941	B Gibb/R Gibb (Bee Gees)
1942 (tie)	Waist Deep in the Big Muddy	Pete Seeger
1942 (tie)	Summer of '42	Biddu
1943	Denmark 1943	Fred Small
1944	1944	Down By Law
1945	Forty-Five	Elvis Costello (He puns on "45" and "33 1/3", but the title clearly refers to 1945 as the end of WWII and it clearly relates to the cultural aftermath of the war.)
1946	Der Legendare Wixerblues Vom 7 Oktober 1946	Georg Danzer (on the album Narrenhaus)
1947	Texas 1947	Guy Clark
1948 (tie)	Take Back Your Mink	Frank Loesser (from Guys and Dolls)
1948 (tie)	Come On, Come On	Mary Chapin Carpenter
1948 (tie)	Winter 1948	Patrick Doyle , from the soundtrack of Dead Again. Not sure if this really qualifies as a song, and it doesn't have as much justification as, say, Shostakovich for 1905.
1949 (tie)	Tennessee 1949	Larry Sparks (Classic Bluegrass)
1949 (tie)	Little Egypt	Leiber and Stoller (recorded by the Coasters)
1950	1950 Blues	Tampa Red
1951	The Way It Was In '51	Merle Haggard. Here's a link/a> to lyrics, but it's an annoying site that tries to be come your home page.
1952 (tie)	1952 Vincent Black Lightning	Richard Thompson
1952 (tie)	Video Killed the Radio Star	Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn (of The Buggles), Bruce Wooley.
1953	The 1953 Dear John, Honky Tonk Blues	Harold Reid and Don Reid (recorded by Dave Dudley, also apparently by the Statler Brothers)
1954	Cheering the Queen	Cyril Tawney
1955	Ol' 55	Tom Waits; also covered by the Eagles
1956	Love Potion Number 9	Leiber & Stoller (A hit for both the Clovers and The Searchers)
1957 (tie)	I've Got a Rock and Roll Heart	Eric Clapton
1957 (tie)	Raised on Robbery	Joni Mitchell (I'd rather have Eric's '57 Chevy than Joni's '57 Biscayne, but I think this is the better song. Also - this just goes to show ya' - when Marina and I were first playing this game back in February '99 we were racking our brains for Joni Mitchell songs that qualified for the list, and I finally thought of this one more than 3 years later...and it's one of my favorite songs of hers.)
1958 (tie)	Born Late '58	Overend Watts (Mott the Hoople)
1958 (tie)	Ballad of Springhill (a.k.a. Springhill Mine Disaster)	Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger (I said I could be arbitrary. "Born Late '58" got here first, and has the year in the title, but this is such a great song it just has to be in the list.)
1959(tie)	1959	Sisters Of Mercy (from Floodland)
1959(tie)	1959	Patti Smith (written with Tony Shanahan, on the album Peace and Noise )
1960	10/5/60	Sid Griffin (of the Long Ryders)
1961	It Seems So Long Ago, Nancy	Leonard Cohen
1962	Night Moves	Bob Seger (also mentions '60)
1963 (tie)	1963	Jonathan Richman
1963 (tie)	December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)	Bob Gaudio/Judy Parker (Four Seasons) Here's a link to lyrics, but it drove me batty with pop-ups.
1963(tie)	1963	New Order (from Substance).
1964	Queen of 1964	Neil Sedaka
1965	Mustang Sally	Mack Rice (Wilson Pickett had the hit. Buddy Guy does a fine job with it, too.)
1966	Sweet Little '66	Steve Earle (also mentions 1979. See comment below.)
1967 (tie)	1967	Adrian Belew
1967 (tie)	Hey Nineteen	Becker/Fagen (Steely Dan) (better known, but the date's not in the title)
1968 (tie)	1968	Dave Alvin and Chris Gaffney (recorded by Alvin on Blackjack David and Gaffney on Mi Vida Loca)
1968 (tie)	The SixTeens	Sweet
1969 (tie)	Summer of '69	Bryan Adams
1969 (tie)	1969 Again	Adam Ant Here's a link to lyrics, but there are an awful lot of pop-ups, attempted downloads, etc.
1970 (tie)	1970	Iggy Pop (Stooges)
1970 (tie)	Student Demonstration Time	Beach Boys (better known, but Mike Love's lyric is a parody of Lieber & Stoller's "Riot in Cell Block Number 9"; year is not in title, but is significant: the Kent State Massacre.)
1971	Summer of '71	Helen Reddy
1972	Saturday Gigs	Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople) (also mentions '69, '70, '71, '73, '74)
1973	The Wake-Up Bomb	REM
1974 (tie)	Rock This Town	Stray Cats
1974 (tie)	Line 'Em Up	James Taylor
1974, 1975	'74-'75	The Connells (Two years in the title, and a fine song at that, but lesser known than my other picks for either year.)
1975	Galveston Bay	Bruce Springsteen (Also mentions '68)
1976	The Spirit of '76	The Alarm
1977	1977	The Clash
1978	Married 2 Kids	Fall (from Code. Also mentions 1992.)
1979	1979	Smashing Pumpkins
1980	Ignoreland	R.E.M. (also mentions 1979, '84, '88, & '92)
1981 (tie)	New Gold Dream '81 '82 '83 '84	Simple Minds (also mentions '82, '83, '84. Duh. Never heard this. Trusting Ian Hill here.)
1981 (tie)	The Way Life's Meant To Be	Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) (one of the few that mentions the year it was written/recorded in)
1982 (tie)	Heat of the Moment	Asia (This wins over other candidates for '82 because it was a hit & the year is actually relevant to the lyric.)
1982 (tie)	Radar	Morphine (ditto)
1983	1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)	Jimi Hendrix
1984	1984	David Bowie
1985 (tie)	Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five	Paul McCartney and Wings
1985 (tie)	1985	Bowling for Soup. A 3-minute critical anthology of a decade's pop. Not nearly as famous as McCartney, of course, but fame isn't everything.
1986	Modern Woman	Billy Joel
1987(tie)	Dollaz & Sense	DJ Quick
1987(tie)	15 August 1987	Members of the Wandjina People (from Music from the Wandjina People . Doubtless valid, has the date in the title, but awfully obscure.)
1988	Aliens (Christmas 1988)	The Rheostatics (Canadian band, on their album Melville)
1989(tie)	Sketch for a Manchester Summer 1989 (instrumental)	Vini Reilly
1989(tie)	Happy New Year	Abba
1989(tie)	Fight the Power	Public Enemy
1990	Theme From Flood	They Might Be Giants
1991	The Curse of Millhaven	Nick Cave (Ian Hill comments:"I thought at first it might be 1891, but since the next verse mentions Prozac, I think we're safe here. ")
1992	1992	Blur, from 13 (Arbitrarily chosen from several good entries for 1992, because I love the album, although my favorite track on it is certainly Tender .)
1993	1993	Boz Skaggs (from Down 2 Then Left)
1994	Shoe Box	Barenaked Ladies (also mentions 1990)
1995	1995	Mudhoney
1996	1996	Marilyn Manson
1997(tie)	Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997	Beck
1997(tie)	Chinese Takeaway (Hong Kong 1997)	John Cale (Title presumably refers to the reunification of HK with China)
1997(tie)	Satanic Reverses	Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (another HK reference; song also mentions 1989, 1992, 1999)
1998	1998	Rancid
1999	1999	Prince

Previously in the table, but knocked out by others:

1906	GPU	Tom Glazer? (also mentions 1928. Parody, so it was just waiting to be trumped. To the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan's "When I was a Lad" from H.M.S. Pinafore)
1914	Day Before the War	R. Johnson / Moose & Raffi, D. Pike /Homeland (Roy Bailey)
1916	No Man's Land	Eric Bogle (on the list for 1915 with "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda". Both excellent songs, best known through the singing of June Tabor.)
1917	The Halifax Explosion	Traditional? collected 1933, Halifax, N.S. There is also an entire web site devoted to a recent set of songs about the same incident.
1917	Belleau Wood 1917	Garth Brooks
1918	The Ballad of John MacLean	Matt McGinn (also mentions 1914. I found this in a British leftist song collection called "The Big Red Songbook". Matt's daughter Ealeanor confirms this: he recorded it in '67 on an LP "Matt McGinn Again")
1919	It Can Be Done	The Redskins (from Neither Washington Nor Moscow)
1921	Warren Harding	Al Stewart
1924	Patricia the Stripper	Chris de Burgh
(1936)	Hans Beimler	Ernst Busch. Doesn't actually mention the year, so this is a real stretch. Hans Beimler, a former member of the Bavarian Diet, was imprisoned at Dachau, escaped, went to fight for the Spanish Republic, became Chief Political Commisar of the International Brigade and was killed in action in December 1936. & That's what the song's about.
1939	Laughing Into 1939	Al Stewart
1943	She Cracked	Jonathan Richman (Modern Lovers) (ok, so it barely mentions the year. Great song.)
1943	4 Marzo 1943	Lucio Dalla
1943	Dixie Flyer	Randy Newman
1945	1945	Social Distortion
1947	My Name is Lisa Kalvelage	Pete Seeger
1949	Eyeball Kid	Tom Waits
1950	One Piece At A Time	W.Kemp (Whoever that may be. Johnny Cash recorded it. This song mentions every year from '49 to '70, some more prominently than others.)
1952	Neal and Jack and Me	Adrian Belew
1955	Juke Box Jive	Bickerton & Waddington (The Rubettes)
1959	The Battle of Camp Kookamonga	JJ Reynolds (Homer and Jethro)
1959	Post World War II Blues	Al Stewart
1962 (maybe)	Talking 1962 Blues	Lalah H. Gray (Michael Takasaki found this in the index for Broadside magazine issues 9 and 10, but he admits that all he knows.)
1963	San Quentin	Johnny Cash
1964	Anna Eng	They Might Be Giants
1966	Lord Nelson	Tommy Makem (When Charles Clinton sent this one in, I decided this was a tie to Steve Earle's "Sweet Little '66": "I'm being arbitrary. Steve Earle is better known, and has the year in his title, but the IRA blowing up Lord Nelson's column seems to me to say more about 1966 than Steve having a car.". My brother Matthew (who submitted "Sweet Little '66") sent an email comparing me to Republicans appropriating "Born In the USA". So I reread the Steve Earle's lyrics. I'm still not sure it's quite as socially significant as Tommy Makem's, but I guess they're close enough that what with the year in the title...a TKO for Mr. Earle. Sorry, Tommy.)
1968	The 6-Teens	Nicky Chinn/Mike Chapman (The Sweet)
1968	The Last Time I Saw Richard	Joni Mitchell (special honors to Jude Hudson for coming up with this. Whe we were first trying to make a list, Marina and I were trying to come up with anywhere Joni Mitchell mentions a date in a song and couldn't. But now it's been trumped. Raised on Robbery keeps her on the list above for '57.)
1969	Malibu '69	Grant McClennan
1969	1969	Stooges (sorry, the Bryan Adams song was a hit.)
1971	Ballad of Crowfoot	Willie Dunn
1973	You Keep It All In	Beautiful South (also mentions '62. According to Neil Stewart -- and I'm sure he's right -- "That robbery in '62" is the Great Train Robbery and "That murder in '73" refers to Lord Lucan's murder of his nanny. For the young and American among my readers, these were stories with UK profiles as high as the OJ Simpson trial recently in the US.)
1977	Biko	Peter Gabriel (He's recorded this in both English and German. I'm sad to see this trumped, but it just mentions the date in passing and the Clash song is called "1977" - JM)
(1978)	Strutter '78	Kiss (dubious entry: this is a remix.)
1982	1982	Buddy Blackmon/Vip Vipperman (recorded by Randy Travis, a bit obscure)
1982	When I Was Cruel (Number 2)	Elvis Costello (well known, but the mention of the year is almost a throw-away).
1982	Daria	Cake (again, pretty well known, but the mention of the year is a throw-away).
1982	Battle Lines	Tommy Keene
1983	Member of the Tribe	Adrian Belew
1985	1985(instrumental)	Archers of Loaf
1986	24 Hours to Live	Mase (the lyrics linked to show only '89, but Ian Hill says on the record Black Rob says, "Jump the whip, git them cats I wanted to git/ since the Tavern on the Green robbery in eighty-six."
1986	1986	Philip Jeck
1986	I Quit Lyin' in 1986	Pirates of the Mississippi (linked just to prove Michael T. isn't making this one up.)
1988	88 - 92 - 96	Six by Seven (On the album The Things We Make. Also, obviously, mentions '92, '96. Never heard this. Trusting Ian Hill here.)
1990	Fame '90	David Bowie (a remix. Almost doesn't count. The original was co-written with John Lennon & Carlos Alomar, (Bowie's stage rhythm guitarist & sometime musical Director.)
1990	May 1, 1990	Adrian Belew
1992	Vietnam	Pavilhão 9 (From Brazil, in Portuguese. Also mentions '93. Translated and printed in Index On Censorship, 1/99)
1992	Western Front 1992 CE	Julian Cope
1992	April 29, 1992	Sublime: a cynical take on the Rodney King riots.
1992	King Size Papa	Julia Lee and Her Boyfriends
1993	Spahn Dirge	Skinny Puppy
1997	Candle In the Wind 1997	Elton John (a somewhat dubious entry, since year in the title is just to differentiate the Princess lyrics from the Movie Star lyrics. Still, better than a remix: at least the rewritten lyrics have something to do with the year in question.)
1998	Three Lions 1998	Baddiel & Skinner & the Lightning Seeds (British football crap -- that's soccer crap to us Yanks. Mercifully, we found another for this year.).

Non-starters. Thanks for your e-mail, but already had an equal or better candidate:

1903	(1903-70)	Idlewild (the dates refer to the birth and death dates of painter Mark Rothko. Nice submission, but both of these years definitely have strong listings already.)
1905	1905	Shona Laing (from the album 1905-1990(Retrospective))
1906	San Francisco 1906	Synergy (from the album The Jupiter Menace)
1909	Indian Head Penny	Guy Clark (on Cold Dog Soup; also mentions a '61 Chevy)
1910	Patrick Russell	Tom Russell (on The Man from God Knows Where)
1911	The Cross Mountain Explosion	Ruth Rubin
1913	The C & O Wreck	Traditional?
1913	Dublin City	Donagh McDonagh
1916	Zombie	The Cranberries
1921	Rubens Has Been Shot!	Chumbawamba
1923	Love Me	Collin Raye
1927	Talking Dust Bowl Blues	Woody Guthrie
1928	Ballad of Charlie Birger	recorded by Vernon Dalhart, who attributes it to Carson Robinson, but it might have been written by Blind Andrew Jenkins. Don't you just love credits like that?
1929	Run Come See, Jerusalem	traditional (?)
1935	Wounded Knee	Four Hour Ramona (Also mentions 1942. A Seattle band. BTW, their name is taken from a dry cleaning shop.)
1941	1941	Harry Nilsson. A fine song, but unlike the Bee Gees NY Mining Disiaster, 1941 not a hit. Also mentions 1944, '45, '46, '55, 1961, 1964, '65.
1942	Chicago Blues	Lonnie Johnson
1943	The Winter Comes	David Buskin (an excellent and underrated songwriter)
1944	Flying/Spring of '44	Marie-Lynn Hammond
1945	Southampton Dock	Roger Waters
1945	The Day The Nazi Died	Chumbawamba
1947	Du må'kke komme her og komme her	Øystein Sunde
1951	Soon Forgotten	J. Oden, recorded by Muddy Waters (on the Live at Newport album)
1953	Alimony	R.L. Jones, W. Young, R. Higginbotham (recorded by Ry Cooder)
1953	If It's News to You, Baby	Little Esther
1955	Rockabilly Blues (Texas 1955)	Johnny Cash
1956, 1957	Roadrunner (Radio On)	Jonathan Richman (Modern Lovers)
1957	Class of '57	Statler Brothers
1957	L'Anne de Secont Set	Alex Broussard (the title is presumably a phonetic spelling of Cajun French "l'annee de cinq an sept")
1962	Who Killed Marilyn	Misfits
1962	Border Radio	Dave Alvin (The Blasters)
1962	My Book	Beautiful South (also mentions '68, '89)
1963	Run, Baby, Run	B. Bottrell, D. Baerwald, S. Crow (Sheryl Crow)
1963	1963	New Order
1963	On Saturday Afternoons in 1963	Rickie Lee Jones
1963	Hey Joni	Sonic Youth (also mentions 1964, 1957, 1962)
1963	Life in a Northern Town	Dream Academy
1965	The Boston Rag	Becker/Fagen (Steely Dan)
1965	Nineteen	Paul Hardcastle (Date is very relevant to song, the title of which refers to the age of the average American soldier sent to Vietnam. But how could I displace "Mustang Sally"? Even Ian Hill, who sent this one in, agrees.)
1965	Camouflage	Stan Ridgeway (Date is, again, very relevant to song. & same comments apply.)
1965	1965	Lambretta
1966	Heard it on the X	ZZ Top
1969	Hotel California	The Eagles
1969	1969	Sisters of Mercy (from the album Some Girls Wander By Mistake)
1969	My Hooptie	Sir Mix-a-Lot
1972	Me and the Major	Belle and Sebastian
1973	This is the Sea	The Waterboys
1975	The State I'm In	Belle and Sebastian (Also mentions 1995)
1975	The Killing of Georgie, Parts I & II	Rod Stewart
1975	One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces	Ben Folds 5
1975	War Movie	Paul Kantner
1966, 1967	Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner	Warren Zevon {co-written with David Lindell}. Congo War and the years '66 and '67.
1980	Crush (1980 ME)	Darren Hayes
1980	1980	Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson
1980-81	80-81	Pat Metheny, recorded with Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, and Dewey Redman.
1983	1983	John Mayer
1984	1984	Spirit (on the album The 13th Dream a.k.a. Spirit of 84)
1984	Sexcrime(Nineteen Eighty-Four)	Eurythmics Spirit of 84)
1985	Ashes in the Wind	Ben Vezner, recorded by Kathy Mattea
1988	Before Your Time	Sarah Slean
1990	hotelofthelake1990 (instrumental)	Durruti Column
1990	Candy Girl	Iggy Pop
1992	The Big Heat	Stan Ridgway
1992	Get out!	Sublime, also mentions 1993
1993	Fuck This Town	Robbie Fulks (Definitely some misogynist/homophobic lyrics here, but, hey, isn't that what country music used to be all about?)
1997	Bonnie & Clyde	Tori Amos
1998	Destroy 1998	Trumans Water (instrumental)
1998	August 87th, 1998	Jazz Passengers (instrumental)

The all-time also-ran is "This Old Town" by Janis Ian (recorded by Nanci Griffith on "Other Voices, Other Rooms"). It mentions 1929, 1931, 1944, and 1956, but by the time my cousin Rachel Myr got it to me Feb 8, 1999, all of these years had already been taken. I could have let it beat out "Beans, Bacon, and Gravy" (which Rachel also mentioned, as Charles Clinton did even sooner), but I kind of like the idea that a mere 3 days into this process something could lose on 4 counts.

Similarly, Pete Seeger's fine I Mind My Own Business (King Henry) is trumped by hits for '63, '64, and '65. I guess it can have 1520 all to itself, though.

Contributors: Joe Mabel, Marina Snyder, Matthew Mabel, Kasmir Zaratkiewicz, Michael Jacques, Ty Thorsen, Charles "Charles" Clinton, Rachel Myr, Jude Hudson, Michael P.J. Stopa, Simon Hill, Kevin Richart, Simon Briercliffe, Karen Terry, D Barnes, Bill Spaniel, Ian Hill (no relation to Simon), Peter Inwood, Robert Smith, Andy Henderson, David Ford, Helene Kaplan, Neil Stewart, Richard Hudson, Michael Takasaki, Brian Clough, Richard L. Hess, Phil Plante, Gary Mathews, Eleanor McGinn, Peter Humphreys, Erik Bauer, George Gibson, Thoroughly Modern Jenna, Thomas Lirén, Todd Bruder (who I assume is the same person as "t bruder", also a contributor), Andrew Baio, Des Devlin, Thomas Liren, Rusty Watrous, "Alaric (att)", Peter Vollan, Charlie Munro, with late, but excellent additions from Gerry Myerson.

Charles Clinton relied heavily on search engines. Ian Hill and Michael Takasaki also admit to some use of search engines, but clearly draw on extensive musical knowledge.

My e-mail address is jmabel@joemabel.com. Normally, I check this at least every 48 hours, more often during the working week.