What are the most Iconic songs that seem to live on and on?

Thriller is pretty iconic.

All we are saying is give peace a chance

An iconic mantra

Deep Purple(song) has been on the charts numerous times since it was written in the 30’s.

Two are surely “White Christmas” (particularly Bing Crosby’s version) and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” They capture perfectly the feelings and memories both joyous and melancholy we harbor about this holiday, as do many other Christmas-themed songs including “The Christmas Song,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”

Imagine

@WillWorkForChocolate Thriller was a piece of pop, no meaning at all other than dance beat that aged and a video of a pop culture star. But it does not convey any cultural meaning.

@MadMadMax I appreciate your question, and give it a GQ, although I don’t find “What a Wonderful World” iconic. It was a mild hit in the US, only being resurrected by being in the movie “Good Morning Vietnam” 20 years later.

Freebird!

Hotel California ,by the Eagles.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HRa4X07jdE

Stairway to Heaven?

Music is hard to call “Iconic”, because tastes and perception vary so wildly. People born the same year as me aren’t familiar with half the music I would consider required reading.

“I don’t find “What a Wonderful World” iconic. It was a mild hit in the US, only being resurrected by being in the movie “Good Morning Vietnam” 20 years later.”

I have to disagree. People are moved by it. It’s used in numerous films. It’s sung at parties.

Restaurants hand out copies and sing it on New Years. It’s known worldwide and was especially popular in the UK.

It’s how we all want to see the world. And how we all wish we could fee. It’s a secular hymn to humanity.

@MadMadMax I’m just going by your definition. ”..Popular, beyond the vogue, virtually timeless…” Maybe in Great Britain, certainly not in California. Here it seems to be a piece of crafted sentimentality.

zenvelo Many people think it’s an old jazz tune. In fact it was performed in 1967 in response to civil rights movement, the antiwar protests, and more. A reminder of what life is all about.

It’s purposefully sentimental. It’s a message.

I do think it is timeless.

I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston

Yankee Doodle Dandy

I totally agree with IMAGINE,

I’ll relent in my criticism, and I understand it is iconic to you and others.

zenvelo: Duh, I just remembered something. It was in Santa Barbara that we sang it in a restaurant on New Years Eve. It’s was in Venice Beach that it was sung in a huge crowd almost spontaneously. I think by the time we were singing the second round, the number of people who joined in must have reached 200 out of nowhere – and somehow everyone knew the words.

zenvelo you’re an honorable person. I salute you and I have say White Christmas is amazingly iconic, you just included too many songs in your answer for me to agree.

White Christmas is the essence of Iconic

Obviously, Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday” would have to be included as iconic since it’s the most-recorded song in history.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Imagine is so interesting. It is iconic and so popular with so many people but the lyrics read no heaven, no hell, no religion, nothing fight or die for.

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

@zenvelo I simply mentioned Thriller because it’s been popular since it first came out, and is still famous. Almost everyone knows “Hey, it’s Thriller!” by the first two-three bars that play, and that seems iconic to me.

@MadMadMax That concern was the basis of a whole episode of WKRP in CIncninatti 35 years ago.

@zenvelo Mark me down as one of those “almost” people because I can honestly say I’ve never heard “Thriller” and since it’s Michael “The Molester” Jackson, I really have no desire to hear it!! Definitely wouldn’t consider it iconic even if I knew it by heart.

I couldn’t identify thriller easily either. I honestly can’t see it as iconic. My sons don’t know the words to thriller and my youngest said he never heard it.

So I’d have to respectfully disagree

Form the point oft view of a christmas shopper in the city centers:“Last Christmas – George Michael”

Satisfaction – Stones

That’s a hard one. I’ll take a jab at it, but take note of the question marks.

Amazing Grace?
Respect by Aretha Franklin?
We are the Champions by Queen?

I don’t get how anyone has gone their whole lives without hearing Thriller. What rock have you been living under? I’m only 23 and I can recognize it within just a couple seconds. And child molester or not, Michael was an amazing entertainer and made a huge impact on the music industry. Good music is good music, no matter who’s behind the mic. Is the song iconic? I don’t know, but it’s certainly extremely well-known.

@livelaughlove21 Hey guy, I had a trainer at my fitness center who was 42, from New York City and he had never heard of Bob Dylan.

That’s life.

Hotel California
Stairway to Heaven
You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling

And I don’t like any of them.

@livelaughlove21 See? That’s what I was thinking!

Sing,Sing,Sing by Benny Goodman

In the Mood
Stardust.
Not the words but the music epitomizes a time in history.

Blowin’ In the Wind
Also captures the mood of a particular time.

My Darling Clementine
As long as there are Boy Scouts and campfires

Forever Young by Bob Dylan has had many iterations over the years being covered by artists too numerous to count.

And yet its as modern as today. It’s currently the theme song for the TV show “Parenthood” (which is the caffeinated frenetic version sung by Dylan himself. )

It was a hit in the 60s-70s sung by Joan Baez at a significantly slower tempo and likely the one most people are familiar with.

Nora Jones sung it in tribute to Steve Jobs at the memorial service for him.

It was also featured on the soundtrack of Sons of Anarchy (I believe first season) with a hauntingly beautiful acappella
version by Audra Mae.

And even now its part of a Kohl’s Christmas ad with a slightly different acappella take on it also sung by Audra Mae.

And this is one of the few commercials that I actually look forward to and don’t fast-forward through in annoyance.

Both the words and tune are so beautiful that I can imagine new generations rediscovering it 50–100 years down the road. It really has a timeless quality to it which transcends genre.

You can find all the versions I’ve mentioned on YouTube plus more covers of it by Springsteen and countless others.

How is it possible that I don’t remember a Bob Dylan song called Forever Young? I knew the words to every Bob Dylan song up to Nashville Skyline. Every word.

Time to Google!

Did HE write it? People talk about what Bob Dylan meant by the song but I didn’t read that he even wrote it.

And staying forever young sounds like a song for someone dead.

Perhaps because most remember it as being sung by Joan Baez?

Dylan wrote many songs which keep popping up again and again in every genre. He had a singing voice like sandpaper but the soul and skill of a poet. He and John Denver were prolific songwriters and top my list of songwriters I love.

BTW: Are you familiar with the song “Wagon Wheel” recently popularized by Darius Rucker (formerly of Hootie and the Blowfish and now gone country)?

Dylan shares writing credit on that song along with Ketch Secor from Old Crow Medicine Show.

Ketch and his pal were ardent Dylan fans in their teen years and discovered just the chorus of the song on an old concert bootleg tape (from Germany I think).

So Ketch loved it so much he fleshed out the lyrics, contacted Dylan and they share credit for the song.

It was OCMS sort of theme song for many years before Rucker gave it a fresh audience.

But it all started with Dylan years and years ago.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Young_(Bob_Dylan_song)

Dylan was first in 1974. Years later Rod Stewart came out with a remarkably similar version in the 80s and agreed to share credit with Dylan.

You wrote:
“And staying forever young sounds like a song for someone dead.”

Actually most people see it as being written from a parent (or elder figure) to a child or young person.

“may your wishes all come true” couldn’t realistically apply to one already dead, right?

I had all Joan Baez’s albums until she married I think.

I saw her at the Filmore East in 1968 I think – she came on stage barefoot in a sleeveless shift with long dark hair and sang like an angel.

Then I saw her in Central Park. Maybe the skating rink—I went to a lot of concerts.

Later I saw her again in Madison Square Garden. I could hardly see her from my seat but her hair was cropped short and her voice has thickened. The most thing i remember most of that performance was that Leonard Cohen was called away over the loudspeaker for a phone call. It got a standing ovation.

It could be for a child or a parting lover – I don’t know but it doesn’t grab me. It has a “Now I lay me down to sleep….” appeal.

“Now I lay me down to sleep…”

I guess you haven’t heard the zippy version that’s the theme song of “Parenthood” then?

That version would have the kid bouncing up and down on the mattress or skipping around the room. It REALLY fast.

It took me a while to get used to it at that speed. But it did kind of grow on me (which is fortunate as I watch that show every week)

:D

I was speaking of the lyrics. I’ve never watched “Parenthood.” I missed a lot of “music” when I was raising my kids and going to school at the same time. I was a music freak but I just didn’t have time for a while other than stuff on radio which caught my attention.

Moving away from NYC also had an enormous effect since I was so into live performances. Suddenly concerts were a rarity.

In later years I would listen to Bob Dylan concerts echoing over a hill – just sitting on my porch never thinking I should have bought tickets.

Sometimes he sounded like his heart just wasn’t there or maybe he was mumbling.

Then bam my son started taking us to concerts while he was still in high school – Roger Waters, Jetho Tull again a lot older, the Moody Blues, Lou Reed…Jeez he got started on the musicians of our time.

@MadMadMax Forever Young is one of the only Bob Dylan songs I know, and only because it’s been covered so many times.

Shrug. I never heard it before – honest.

And as far as Iconic, if I were to choose a Bob Dylan song I think rates as Iconic it would be
Blowin’ in the Wind – hands down.