I had no say in these selections, although I do like many of them. Today, I’m only a messenger delivering a stroll down a musical memory lane. Have fun with the post; learn what BMI says were the songs people loved between 1900 and 2000 – although you won’t find many tunes here that go back before 1950. I’ve placed a link for each song, so if you decide to roll back the years, it will be as easy as clicking a link.

BMI Announces Top 100 Songs of the Century

Originally Posted on December 13, 1999

‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ‘ Is Number One

Today, BMI announced the Top 100 Songs of the Century, listing the songs that were played the most on American radio and television. Leading the list is the anthemic “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” written by Barry Mann, Phil Spector, and Cynthia Weil, which recently passed the historic 8 million performance plateau. It was originally recorded by The Righteous Brothers and produced by Spector.

The second, third, and fourth-place songs have all attained more than 7 million airplay. They are: “Never My Love,” written by Donald and Richard Addrisi; “Yesterday” by John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney; and “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Rounding out the Top 10 are the six-million-plateau performers: “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio; “Sitting On the Dock Of the Bay” by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper; Paul Simon’s “Mrs. Robinson”; “Baby I Need Your Loving” by the legendary Motown writers Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland; John Gummoe’s “Rhythm Of The Rain”; and the evergreen “Georgia On My Mind” written by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell.

John Lennon and Paul Simon each have four songs in the Top 100. Lennon’s contributions are his Beatles’s classics “Yesterday,” “Michelle” (#42), and “Let It Be” (#89), all co-written by McCartney, as well as his solo outing “Imagine” (#96). In addition to “Mrs. Robinson,” Simon is represented on the list with “The Sound of Silence” (# 18), “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (#19), and “Scarborough Fair” (#31), co-written by his long-time partner Art Garfunkel. Other songwriters with multiple listings include, with three songs each, Norman Gimbel, Mark James, Barry Mann, McCartney and Roy Orbison, as well as the teams of Holland-Dozier-Holland and Sir Elton John-Bernie Taupin (PRS). Mann, co-writer of the #1 song, is also co-writer (with Dan Hill-SOCAN) of the #100 song, “Sometimes When We Touch.” With two songs each, Sam Cooke, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Kris Kristofferson, Joe Melson, J.D. Souther, Jimmy Webb, and Cynthia Weil made the list, along with the teams of Leiber-Stoller and Bert Kaempfert (GEMA)-Eddie Snyder-Charles Singleton.

Most of the songs became hits several times over when they were “covered” by various artists. However, as performers of the Top 100, The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel scored the most spots with four original versions of the songs. The Association was responsible for three (“Never My Love,” “Cherish” #22 and “Windy” #61), as were The Drifters (“On Broadway” #45, “Save the Last Dance for Me” #49 and “Up On the Roof” #92), Elton John (“Your Song” #37, “Daniel” #66 and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” #76), and Roy Orbison (“Oh Pretty Woman” #26, “Crying” #74 and “Blue Bayou” #85).

BMI is a performing rights organization that represents more than 250,000 songwriters, composers, and publishers. It has a repertoire of more than 3 million songs and compositions from around the world and in all genres of music. The company annually monitors approximately 450,000 hours of commercial and non-commercial radio airplay and more than 6,000,000 hours of television programming. BMI collects license fees from the commercial users of music and, after deducting operating costs, distributes those fees to its affiliates as royalties.

One million continuous performances of a song of the average length of 3 minutes represents 5.7 years of continuous airplay. The 8 million performances of “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling’ ” equals more than 45 years of back-to-back play.

1. Listen	You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’	Barry Mann, Phil Spector, Cynthia Weil
2. Listen	Never My Love	Donald & Richard Addrisi
3. Listen	Yesterday	John Lennon & Paul McCartney
4. Listen	Stand By Me	Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller
5. Listen	Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You	Bob Crewe & Bob Gaudio
6. Listen	Sitting on the Dock of the Bay	Steve Cropper & Otis Redding
7. Listen	Mrs. Robinson	Paul Simon
8. Listen	Baby, I Need Your Loving	Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland & Eddie Holland
9. Listen	Rhythm of the Rain	John Gummoe
10. Listen	Georgia on My Mind	Hoagy Carmichael & Stuart Gorrell
11. Listen	Killing Me Softly with His Song	Charles Fox & Norman Gimbel
12. Listen	More	Marcello Ciorciolini, Norman Newell, Nino Oliviero, Riz Ortolani
13. Listen	I Will Always Love You	Dolly Parton
14. Listen	When A Man Loves A Woman	Calvin Lewis & Andrew J. Wright
15. Listen	Every Breath You Take	Sting
16. Listen	Gentle on My Mind	John Hartford
17. Listen	Something	George Harrison
18. Listen	Sounds of Silence	Paul Simon
19. Listen	Bridge Over Troubled Water	Paul Simon
20. Listen	By the Time I Get to Phoenix	Jimmy Webb
21. Listen	Angel of the Morning	Chip Taylor
22. Listen	Cherish	Terry Kirkman
23. Listen	You Can’t Hurry Love	Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland & Eddie Holland
24. Listen	Proud Mary	John Fogerty
25. Listen	Sunny	Bobby Hebb
26. Listen	Oh Pretty Woman	William Dees & Roy Orbison
27. Listen	Everybody’s Talkin’	Fred Neil
28. Listen	I Heard It Through the Grapevine	Barrett Strong & Norman Whitfield
29. Listen	Goin’ Out of My Head	Teddy Randazzo & Bobby Weinstein
30. Listen	Suspicious Minds	Mark James
31. Listen	Scarborough Fair	Art Garfunkel & Paul Simon
32. Listen	Traces	Buddy Buie, J.R. Cobb, Emory Gordy
33. Listen	All I Have to Do Is Dream	Boudleaux Bryant
34. Listen	Only You	Ande Rand & Buck Ram
35. Listen	Canadian Sunset	Norman Gimbel & Eddie Heywood
36. Listen	Oh Girl	Eugene Record
37. Listen	Your Song	Elton John & Bernie Taupin
38. Listen	How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)	Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland & Eddie Holland
39. Listen	(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher	Gary Jackson, Raynard Miner & Carl William Smith
40. Listen	I Can’t Stop Loving You	Don Gibson
41. Listen	Wind Beneath My Wings	Larry Henley & Jeff Silbar
42. Listen	Michelle	John Lennon & Paul McCartney
43. Listen	Up, Up and Away	Jimmy Webb
44. Listen	Happy Together	Garry Bonner & Alan Gordon
45. Listen	On Broadway	Jerry Leiber, Barry Mann, Mike Stoller & Cynthia Weil
46. Listen	Twilight Time	Al Nevins, Morty Nevins & Buck Ram
47. Listen	Strangers in the Night	Bert Kaempfert, Charles Singleton & Eddie Snyder
48. Listen	Breaking Up Is Hard to Do	Howard Greenfield & Neil Sedaka
49. Listen	Save the Last Dance for Me	Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman
50. Listen	For the Good Times	Kris Kristofferson
51. Listen	We’ve Only Just Begun	Roger Nichols & Paul Williams
52. Listen	What a Wonderful World	Lou Adler, Herb Alpert & Sam Cooke
53. Listen	Snowbird	Gene MacLellan
54. Listen	Everlasting Love	Buzz Cason & Mac Gayden
55. Listen	My Special Angel	Jimmy Duncan
56. Listen	The Most Beautiful Girl	Rory Bourke, Billy Sherrill & Norro Wilson
57. Listen	Brown Eyed Girl	Van Morrison
58. Listen	Girl From Ipanema	Vinicius DeMoraes, Norman Gimbel & Antonio Carlos Jobim
59. Listen	My Cherie Amour	Sylvia Moy, Henry Cosby & Stevie Wonder
60. Listen	Always on My Mind	Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher & Mark James
61. Listen	Windy	Ruthann Friedman
62. Listen	If You Don’t Know Me by Now	Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff
63. Listen	Margaritaville	Jimmy Buffett
64. Listen	Spanish Eyes	Bert Kaempfert, Charles Singleton & Eddie Snyder
65. Listen	Daydream Believer	John Stewart
66. Listen	Daniel	Elton John and Bernie Taupin
67. Listen	Take It Easy	Glenn Frey & Jackson Browne
68. Listen	Let Your Love Flow	Larry Williams
69. Listen	The Rose	Amanda McBroom
70. Listen	The Heart of the Matter	Don Henley, J.D. Souther & Mike Campbell
71. Listen	Don’t Be Cruel	Otis Blackwell & Elvis Presley
72. Listen	Listen to the Music	Tom Johnston
73. Listen	A Groovy Kind of Love	Carole Bayer Sager & Toni Wine
74. Listen	Crying	Joe Melson & Roy Orbison
75. Listen	Put A Little Love In Your Heart	Jackie DeShannon, Jimmy Holiday & Randy Myers
76. Listen	Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me	Elton John & Bernie Taupin
77. Listen	Help Me Make It Through the Night	Kris Kristofferson
78. Listen	Best of My Love	Glenn Frey, Don Henley & J.D. Souther
79. Listen	The Letter	Wayne Carson
80. Listen	Dreams	Stevie Nicks
81. Listen	Mr. Bojangles	Jerry Jeff Walker
82. Listen	Fire and Rain	James Taylor
83. Listen	Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye	John D. Loudermilk
84. Listen	Hooked on a Feeling	Mark James
85. Listen	Blue Bayou	Joe Melson & Roy Orbison
86. Listen	Born Free	John Barry & Don Black
87. Listen	Release Me	Eddie Miller, Dub Williams & Robert Yount
88. Listen	It’s Just a Matter of Time	Brook Benton, Belford Hendricks & Clyde Otis
89. Listen	Let It Be	John Lennon & Paul McCartney
90. Listen	I’d Really Love to See You Tonight	Parker McGee
91. Listen	(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction	Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
92. Listen	Up on the Roof	Gerry Goffin & Carole King
93. Listen	Layla	Eric Clapton & Jim Gordon
94. Listen	I Honestly Love You	Peter Allen & Jeff Barry
95. Listen	California Girls	Mike Love & Brian Wilson
96. Listen	Imagine	John Lennon
97. Listen	You Send Me	Sam Cooke
98. Listen	How Deep Is Your Love	Barry, Maurice & Robin Gibb
99. Listen	I Never Promised You a Rose Garden	Joe South
100. Listen	Sometimes When We Touch	Barry Mann & Dan Hill

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