I read somewhere that the red neck part came from the red clay/dirt in the south. Where the backwoodsman usually had their neck covered by the dust. Hence redneck.
This made me wonder what the oldest tune that would still be familiar to a lot of people today would be. Dies Irae is a good candidate. It’s around 800 years old and is probably best known today from the 1980 version of The Shining, although I know it best from the Dr. Tongue stages in Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
The leitmotif for Palpatine is (loosely) based on the Dies Irae. And, AMAZINGLY, that leitmotif shows up in the happy singing of children during the parade scene at the end of the Phantom Menace. Because John Williams is a fucking genius.
The poem was written in the medieval period, but finally set to music in 1935-1936. It still took till the 1970s to be used in TV/Film and became so widely used, it is now known as the most overused piece of music in film history.
“O Fortuna” has been called “the most overused piece of music in film history”, and Harper’s Magazine columnist Scott Horton has commented that “Orff’s setting may have been spoiled by its popularization” and its use “in movies and commercials often as a jingle, detached in any meaningful way from its powerful message.”
Probably a Jazz song since the musicians often cover the same Songs over and over again and thats how they could stay very long? Dont know which one though. A Train? Misty?
Amen Brother by The Winstons, more specifically the drum break on it. It’s by far the most used sample of any song ever, and once you know of it you’ll hear it everywhere kind of like the Wilhelm Scream in movies.
One of my favorite little details of Blood and Wine, Witcher 3, is random people humming or singing small refrains of modern pop songs like the Beatles, implying these tunes are exactly what you’re asking about.
en.wikipedia.org
Oldest