"Which songs of the 20th C do you see being found in the oral tradition in 100 years time?"

Interesting question. If as you say, we weren't able to record songs (which was how things were until the late 19th/early 20th century), which songs would survive the "filtering" process (mentioned above by Guest chris) and be on people's lips in the future? Would it just be stuff like the Beatles' songs, which just about everybody knows, or maybe 'songs from the shows' (Broadway musicals and the like) - or would it include any of the very good but not perhaps so widely known songs being written today by some of the excellent writers we here know, but the public at large doesn't?

GUEST 13 Oct 06 - 04:47 AM has some sensible things to say too, that I largely agree with. The people who composed the old songs we still sing today were just singing about the way things were then, about things that affected their lives, with no conscious attempts to preserve anything. I think any such attempts will end in failure. Yes, some writers still living today have written songs about times before they were alive, and that's fine, but what future generations will also want to hear are songs about the way things are now, so although such songs might not be 'traditional' now, they could be in the centuries to come.