Pre-1800
Top 1%
- writer(s) unknown “Greensleeves” (1580)
- Thomas d’Urfey (m), Frederick Thomas Nettleingham (w) “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (1706)
- Robert Burns (adapted by) “Auld Lang Syne” (1711)
- George Frideric Handel (m), Isaac Watts (w), Lowell Mason (arranged) “Joy to the World” (1719)
- writer(s) unknown “Baa Baa Black Sheep” (1744)
- writer(s) unknown “London Bridge is Falling Down” (1744)
- writer(s) unknown “O Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)” (1751)
- Dr. Richard Schukburgh (w), traditional (m) “Yankee Doodle (aka ‘Yankee Doodle Went to Town’)” (1754)
- Charles Bradlee (w), unknown (m) “The Alphabet Song” (1761)
- John Newton (w) “Amazing Grace” (1779)
- Philip Phile (m), Joseph Hopkinson (w) “Hail Columbia (The President’s March)” (1789)
Top 2%
- unknown “Coventry Carol” (1534)
- unknown “Three Blind Mice” (1609)
- Dr. Theodore Baker (translated and arranged by) “We Gather Together (Thanksgiving Prayer)” (1630)
- unknown “The Grand Old Duke of York” (1642)
- unknown “Rain, Rain, Go Away” (1687)
- unknown “Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake, Baker’s Man” (1698)
- anonymous “A Froggie Went A-Courtin’” (1700)
- unknown “Old King Cole” (1708)
- traditional “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” (1709)
- writer(s) unknown “What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?” (1740)
- traditional “Sing a Song of Sixpence” (1744)
- traditional “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” (1760)
- Augustus Montague Toplady (w), Thomas Hastings (m) “Rock of Ages” (1763)
- John Dickinson (w), William Boyce (m) “The Liberty Song (In Freedom We’re Born)” (1768)
- unknown “Frère Jacques (Are You Sleeping?)” (1780)
- Frederic Austin, traditional “Twelve Days of Christmas” (1780)
- unknown “Bingo (B-I-N-G-O)” (1780)
- unknown “Humpty Dumpty” (1797)
1800-1889
Top 1%
- Jane Taylor (w), unknown (m) “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (1806)
- Francis Scott Key (w), John Stafford Smith (m) “The Star-Spangled Banner” (1814)
- Joseph Mohr (w), Franz Gruber (m), John Freeman Young (English translation) “Silent Night, Holy Night (Stille Nacht, Heilge Nacht)” (12/24/1818)
- Franz Schubert (m), Walter Scott (w) “Ave Maria” (1825), Johann Sebastian Bach and Charles Gounod (m) “Ave Maria” (1859)
- Davies Gilbert “The First Noel” (1823)
- John Howard Payne (w), Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (m) “Home Sweet Home” (1823)
- Ernst Anschütz (w), "Ach Tannenbaum" (m) “O Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum)” (1824)
- Samuel Francis Smith (w), traditional (m) “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (1831)
- Carl Sandburg “Skip to My Lou” (1832)
- Cool White (w) “Buffalo Gals Will You Come Out Tonight” (1844)
- Adolphe Adam and John Sullivan Dwight (composers) “O Holy Night (Minuit, Chrétiens)” (1847)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “Oh! Susanna” (1847)
- traditional “Jimmy Crack Corn (The Blue Tail Fly)” (1848)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “Camptown Races (Gwine to Run All Night)” (1850)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “The Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)” (1851)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair” (1854)
- Felix Mendelssohn (m), Charles Wesley (w) “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” (1855)
- Richard Milburn (m), Septimus Winner as Alice Hawthorne (w) “Listen to the Mocking Bird (aka “The Mocking Bird”)” (1856)
- James S. Pierpont (m/w) “Jingle Bells” (1857)
- John Henry Hopkins Jr. (m/w) “We Three Kings of Orient Are” (1857)
- Daniel Decatur Emmett (m/w) “Dixie” (1859)
- Julia Ward Howe (w) and William Steffe (m) “The Battle Hymn of the Republic (aka ‘Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!’)” (1861)
- George F. Root (composer) “The Battle Cry of Freedom” (1862)
- Louis Lambert as Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore (m/w) “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” (1863)
- Percy Montrose “Clementine” (1863)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “Beautiful Dreamer” (1864)
- Lewis Redner (m), Phillips Brooks (w) “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (1868)
- traditional “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” (1870)
- Wallace Willis, Henry Thacker Burleigh (arranged by) “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (1872)
- Dr. Brewster M. Higley (w), Daniel E. Kelly (m) “Home on the Range” (1873)
- Thomas P. Westendorf (m/w) “I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” (1875)
- Henry C. Work (m/w) “Grandfather’s Clock” (1876)
- James Ramsey Murray (m) and Charles H. Gabriel (w) “Away in a Manger” (1882)
Top 2%
- James Sanderson (m), Albert Gamse (w) “Hail to the Chief” (1810)
- traditional/George Washington Dixon, Bob Farrell, Otto Bunnell “Turkey in the Straw” (1820)
- Ernst Anschütz (w), “Ach Tannenbaum” (m) “O Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum)” (1824)
- unknown “The Hokey Pokey” (1826)
- Lowell Mason (m), Sarah Josepha Hale (w) “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (1830)
- unknown “I Saw Three Ships” (1833)
- unknown (w/m) “Shenandoah” (1837)
- traditional “On Top of Old Smoky” (1841)
- traditional “This Old Man (Nick Nack Pattiwack)” (1842)
- Daniel Decatur Emmett “Old Dan Tucker” (1843)
- Daniel Decatur Emmett “Polly Wolly Doodle (All the Day)” (1843)
- Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears (w) and Richard Storrs Willis (m) “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” (1850)
- John Mason Neale (w), traditional (m) “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (1851)
- Eugene Raymond (adapted) “Pop Goes the Weasel” (1852)
- Eliphalet Oram Lyte “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” (1852)
- Stephen Foster (m/w) “My Old Kentucky Home” (1853)
- John Kelly, later adapted by Don George “The Yellow Rose of Texas” (1853)
- Rev. H.D.L. Webster (w), Joseph Philbrick Webster (m) “Lorena” (1857)
- Felix Mendelssohn (composer) “Wedding March from Midsummer’s Night Dream” (1858)
- John Mason Neale (w) “Good King Wenceslas” (1860)
- Annie Chabers-Ketchum (w), Henry “Harry” Macarthy (m) “The Bonnie Blue Flag” (1861)
- James Chadwick (paraphrased), Edward Shippen Barnes (arranged), “Gloria” (music) “Angels We Have Heard on High” (1862)
- Thomas Oliphant (w), Nos Galan (m) “Deck the Halls” (1862)
- Robert Lowry (composer) “Shall We Gather at the River?” (aka “Beautiful River” and “Hanson Place”) (1864)
- Septimus Winner (m/w) “O Where, O Where Has My Little Dog Gone” (1864)
- William Chatterton Dix (w), “Greensleeves” (m) “What Child Is This?” (1865)
- John Wesley Work (composer) “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1865)
- George Leybourne & Alfred Lee “The Man on the Flying Trapeze” (1867)
- traditional “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” (1867)
- Johannes Brahms (composer) “Brahms’ Lullaby (Wiegenleid) (aka “Cradle Song”) (1868)
- Sanford F. Bennett (w), Joseph Philbrick Webster (m) “In the Sweet By-and-By” (1868)
- Billy Reeves (w), Frank Campbell (m), and Rollin Howard (arranger) “Shoo Fly Don’t Bother Me” (1869)
- Sabine Baring-Gould (w) and Sir Arthur Sullivan (m) “Onward Christian Soldiers” (1871)
- Hartius Bonar (w), Charles Crozat Converse (m) “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” (1876)
- traditional “Alouette” (1879)
- Luiji Denza (m) “Funicili Funicula” (1880)
- Charles E. Pratt “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” (1881)
- unknown “The Farmer in the Dell” (1883)
- Effie I. Canning (m/w) “Rock-a-Bye Baby” (1884)
- Carl Boberg (w) “How Great Thou Art” (1885)
- Reginald DeKoven (m), Clement Scott (w) “Oh Promise Me” (1889)
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