The 100 most clichéd clichés in pop song titles

Andy Baio has been writing about The Whitburn Project - a vast spreadsheet with data about the 37,000 songs that have been hits on the Billboard Chart since 1890. Those 37,000 song titles use a vocabulary of fewer than 9,000 different words, and here are the top hundred most frequently used:

ain't alone angel arms around away baby bad beautiful believe blue boy change christmas comes crazy cry dance days dear dream ever everybody everything eyes fall feel fire fool forever girl gone gonna goodbye happy heart heaven hey hold kiss la lady leave life light lonely love lover mama man mind mine miss moon moonlight morning mr music night nobody oh people play please rain red remember river rock roll rose sing smile somebody something song soul star stay stop street summer sun sweet sweetheart talk tears theme things think tonight town true walk wanna wish woman wonderful world young

created at TagCrowd.com

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

"Theme"??

# posted by

KeithHandy : 11:34 pm

Oh, I take that back... I thought we were doing lyrics, not titles. So "theme" makes sense. Don't mind me.

# posted by

KeithHandy : 11:35 pm

I did the same thing for artist names. 'Orchestra' was way out in front. After that, it was just common boy's names - 'Billy', 'Paul', 'John', with 'Elvis', 'Presley' and 'Sinatra'.

# posted by

Tom Whitwell : 11:43 pm

alright. "Man-Girl With the Angel Arms," the latest top 40 single.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:50 am

Fun (obsessive) project:

Write a song using only those 100 words.

Syntax alone should be interesting: "Theme town nobody play mama goodbye." Okay, I've started . . .

# posted by

K. R. Seward : 2:01 am

How about 'Blue Baby'?

# posted by

paulskiogorki : 2:41 am

Right, I'm inspired. "Lonely love" sounds like a good song, for one...

# posted by

Rollo : 1:09 pm

"Aint Gonna Wanna Walk" That sounds like a sad country song haha!... hey, it could make it to number 1... I am sure of it!

# posted by

Dustin : 7:01 pm

This would make a good set of refrigerator magnets.

I'd also like to see the next hundred down, from #101 to #200.

# posted by

KeithHandy : 10:52 pm

couple of possible slayer titles in there if you just read it straight through

'feel fire' and 'please rain red'

# posted by

mdk : 10:29 am

both link point to "..._onehit_wonders_and_pop_longevity". where can i find the post about lyrics?

# posted by

Dave : 10:18 am

Um...

I'm afraid whoever compiled this list put a heavy artistic filter on it. I can see why they cut out words like 'the' or 'a'. But I don't agree with many of the choices, such as 'you', 'I', 'time', 'little', etc.

Here's the real top 100:

6384 the
4205 you
3215 i
2916 love
2901 a
2508 me
2252 in
2248 my
2223 of
2218 to
1278 and
1274 it
1243 on
980 your
933 for
904 be
866 don't
828 is
754 i'm
699 little
673 all
651 do
625 baby
623 heart
606 with
542 that
533 time
530 it's
527 when
522 one
486 girl
479 what
477 song
467 get
465 man
461 night
452 got
451 like
440 go
421 up
418 just
416 no
404 can't
400 you're
392 if
388 so
387 from
373 this
373 good
373 down
371 back
365 home
362 come
350 way
350 old
344 blue
341 want
333 i'll
332 out
327 again
323 are
321 have
319 never
318 let
312 know
304 can
302 day
301 at
291 world
285 over
284 blues
281 we
281 sweet
277 take
274 by
274 away
270 how
265 now
262 part
260 make
250 eyes
245 long
244 say
242 life
240 there
231 boy
225 dream
222 more
220 where
219 moon
217 too
216 tonight
213 ain't
212 oh
211 woman
211 gonna
210 tell
206 rock
205 only
204 will

# posted by

Bill : 12:22 am

I didn't put a 'heavy artistic filter on it' - the tagcrowd software has a 'common words' filter.

# posted by

Tom Whitwell : 10:16 am

If billboard included time signature, bpm, and key (C#, E, etc) you'd be able to come up with a formula for a chart hit. I seem to recall reading that some company claimed to have written software that can deliver guaranteed chart hits based on this premise. See also: The Manual by KLF.

# posted by

revmatty : 3:18 pm

a good title for a song would be "moonlit morning"
(:

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:26 pm

"Aint Alone Angel" aw. first 3 words of this make a great song title!

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:12 am

I have a theory and I would like to see if this data could be used to confirm it. I have been a DJ for almost twenty years, and I beleive that the most popular word used in song LYRICS is not "love" or "girl" or even "you"....but "baby". If this wasn't the most used word before Whitney Houston's "I'm Your Baby Tonight", that song probably put it over the top. The word is used like punctuation in almost every pop song.

So, can you tell me, what are the most frequently used words in pop music LYRICS, in order?

# posted by

Anonymous : 5:08 pm