Pop: Lyric Sheets

A new concept album representing examples of music from the last 2,000 years is due out soon. `Twenty Centuries of Hits' ranges from fragments of ancient Greek music through plainsong right up to Hoagy Carmichael's `Stardust' and the Kingsmen's `Louie Louie'.

Number One with a Slingshot

All the way from AD1

Twenty centuries at the top

It's "Epitaph of Seikilos"

(Ancient Greek drinking song)

Still at number three

In the Big 2.0.0.0.

It hasn't shifted yet.

"Oxyrhynchus Hymn Fragment."

There's an ickle story behind this;

It's the anonymous Greek words

and notation of a 3rd-century hymn

found on a bit of papyrus in 1922.

Down to Number Eight

Another anonymous early

English hymn from Salisbury.

"Urbs Ierusalem Beata."

Wow. How Oasis is that?

The Anonymous Benedictine

Still holding steady at Number Nine

With "Ave Maris Stella"

No thanks, matey.

Gives me a headache

Watch out Saxons!

Brand new at Number Eleven

Is Wipo Of Burgundy

With "Victimae Paschali Laudes".

At Fifteen, "Quam Pulcra Est". Quite.

Then Number 16, "Greensleeves"

Not the Remix-Feat. Henry VIII.

The original by Richard Jones.

No change at Seventeen, "Barbara Allen"

Nineteen: "Swannee River"/"Amazing Grace"

Right up to the present time,

A double new entry at Number Twenty.

It's Bing with "Stardust".

And The Kingsmen with "Louie Louie".

Can't see that one lasting, pop pickers.