The oldest song is an interesting topic, especially for students of Music History, who study primarily the history of "Western Music" inasmuchas the hand written & printed documents of music are more likely to be from "Europe" since written languages go back only so far in history, and "The Church" had the money to pay persons to transcribe texts, and later to hire musicians. Therefore when "we" study Music History, we are mainly studying the history of the music of "The Christian (mainly Catholic) Church." There have been found pictoral records of history in the form of carvings on rocks, cave & temple walls, tablets, blocks of wood, etc. We do not study ancient music--middle & far east music-- for the simple reason that there is little or no recorded history. Some Hebrew scholars maintain that the Old Testament is "Jewish Mythology" and not to be accepted as fact, but as stories handed down from generation to generation by oral means. Whether the stories are fact or based upon partial facts if unknown. If we are to accept the Old Testament as recorded history, there are many passages referring to music--instrumental & song. As a guest pointed out The Song of Solomon, it has been considered by some to be song, but by others to be verse. If we accept this, there are many singers such as David, and Deborah of ancient times. There have been heiroglyphics from temples & pyramids translated which are believed to have been songs--especially when the writings or pictorals are interjected with drawings/carvings of humans playing musical instruments. There was even an ancient roman song about how to make beer found! Perhaps this is old enough to be considered "European" since the Biblical passages take place in what we now call the middle east. The songs from Egypt would also be considered the middle east. The oral tradition was the best they had at one time, but when writing began, they could truly record history. The first known recorded date was 4241 BC from an Egyptian calendar; 3760 is the first year of the Jewish canendar. The first known writing of phonetic sounds, not actual "language" was @3500 BC. The Assyrians were in power in Egypt & had a 24 character alphabet in @ 2000-1500 B.C. It is believed that @1500-1000 B.C. Charleton Heston (lol)aka Moses left Egypt & got the 10 commandments--supposedly written by God. In order to read them, there would have to be an alphabet & written language. Then about 900-1000 B.C. David wrote songs & Solomon took over the throne from David. SO---somewhere in there was song first recorded, BUT--western europe was pretty much uncivilized with no known written language. SO, that would take us to maybe the early Phoenicians @ 800 B.C. Scholars think that The Illiad & The Oddessey were published in Greece about 810 B.C. The Greeks had written language by then. I learned in Music History class that the earliest known written music was Greek, in about 700-800 B.C. Therefore, the earliest known written European music would have to be around there, if one considers Greece to be a part of Europe. The song about making beer would be around 800 B.C. We don't really have much knowledge of the ancient music of Sumer, & Babylonia, and just a little of Egypt. However--A quote from Boethius, a Roman from @480-524 B.C. is translated as: "Nothing is more characteristic of human nature than to be soothed by sweet modes and stirred up by their opposites. Infants, youths, and old people as well are so naturally attuned to musical modes by a kind of spontaneous feeling that no age is without delight in sweet song." We know that there has probably been music & song since there was language. The voice is considered by some to have been the first instrument, followed by hand clapping & slapping, then sticks & rocks, then drumlike & flutelike instruments. Some say it was the hands & then sticks & rocks. We will never know, because the ancient music went unrecorded & has fallen into eternity. I guess the best answer to the question is, "we aren't sure!" The only songs from ancient times still sung are probably in Hebrew. Who really knows?