It’s time for me to update the Top 20 Songs. I have been running this for four years now and for this chart the totals are shown as 2021/2024 and as always, excluding Christmas songs. Statistics from Secondhandsongs.com March 2024. Special notation for songs only in the top 100 for all genre (## overall/all genre). This list includes both vocal and instrumental versions.

1. “Yesterday” Covered 1,009/1255 times, credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, written by Paul McCartney, by The Beatles. “Yesterday” is the 8th most covered song of all time (for all genre).
2. “Eleanor Rigby” Covered 633/789 times, credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, written by Paul McCartney, by The Beatles. #46 overall/all genre.
3. “Bridge over Troubled Water” Covered 584/695 times, written by Paul Simon, by Simon and Garfunkel. #73 overall/all genre.
4. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” *Covered 522/661 times, written by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore and George David Weiss, by Elvis Presley overall #84/all genre
5. “Unchained Melody” *Covered 515/648 times, written by Hy Zaret and Alex North, biggest hit by The Righteous Brothers
6. “Let it Be” Covered 501/644 times, credited to Lennon/McCartney, written by Paul McCartney, by The Beatles
7. “Something” Covered 519/642 times, written by George Harrison, by The Beatles
8. “Hey Jude” Covered 508/640 times, credited to Lennon /McCartney, written by Paul McCartney, by The Beatles
9. “Michelle” Covered 522/633 times, by The Beatles
10. “Imagine” Covered 497/632 times, written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono¹, recorded by John Lennon
11. “Fever” Covered 528/621 times, written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell originally sung by Little Willie John
12. “Here, There and Everywhere” Covered at 496/618, by The Beatles
13. “Blackbird”, Covered 468/618 times, by The Beatles
14. “And I Love Her” Covered 490/616 times, by The Beatles
15. “Hallelujah” Covered 300/609 times, written and first recorded by Leonard Cohen
16. “The Look of Love”, Covered 483/581 times, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, by Dusty Springfield
17. “Norwegian Wood” (This Bird Has Flown)”, Covered 472/563, by The Beatles
18. “Come Together” Covered 451/532, by The Beatles
19. “Both Sides Now” Covered 461/ 529, written by Joni Mitchell recorded by Judy Collins
20. “Sunny” Covered 451/506, written and first recorded by Bobby Hebb

I’m afraid the numbers don’t lie, The Beatles have 12 of the Top 20 most covered songs. Since I first started tracking these songs year over year, The Beatles and it’s former members cover song numbers have continued to rise. If you compare my list from last year there are some songs that have been replaced. I revaluate the songs periodically and some were removed based on various factors. One being the original genre of the song, another being the number of cover versions qualifying it as a ‘Pop’ song.

The song with the biggest increase over the past three years is “Hallelujah” that has more than doubled in numbers. This however does not mean that 300 + versions have been recorded in the past three years, rather they have been documented. As you can imagine gathering statistics for anything is rarely a real time exercise. In the case of “Hallelujah” for example 16 of the newly added covers were recorded in the wake of the death of Leonard Cohen on November 7, 2016, through to the end of 2017.

New covers of any song are added to the data base as they are submitted and then verified and could have been recorded in any year.

Christmas songs are excluded from my lists as they dominate the overall cover song list, being 14 of the top 20. Pop songs seem to be of the greatest interest, however, I have listed others for Country, Folk, and many more.

1. The US National Music Publishers Association confirms as of March 2024 Yoko Ono has been given a song credit for “Imagine”. ↩︎

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