Listen to the original Top of the Pops! Scientists reveal Britain’s chart hits from the 17th century – from a song about pirates to a bizarre ballad about a Scotsman trying to seduce his sister
Although the UK Singles Chart only launched in 1952, Britons have been enjoying the most popular pop hits for centuries, academics reveal.
The experts have ranked 120 popular songs from the Elizabethan and Stuart eras – and they’re a little more risqué than those of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.
The 17th century ‘top of the pops’ includes the song about the Scotsman who felt the wrath of God after he tried to seduce his sister.
Another composition is about a woman who kept her imprisoned father alive by breastfeeding him through the bars of his cell.
Musicians have made new recordings of the historic hits for today’s audiences to enjoy – providing a fascinating insight into the origins of pop music.
Number one on the list and therefore ‘top of the 17th century pops’ is ‘The Wandering Prince of Troy’, a ballad that was first printed in the 1660s
The ‘100 Ballads’ project is the work of two British historians: Professor Christopher Marsh of Queen’s University Belfast and Dr Angela McShane of the University of Warwick.
The 120 songs from 17th-century Britain contain stories of lovers, pirates, ghosts, murders, battles, strange romances and ‘patriotic hero worship’.
“We identify and present here a collection of the greatest hits from seventeenth-century England,” say the academics at the recently published 100 Ballads website.
“Such an exercise has never been attempted before.”
Professor Marsh and Dr McShane describe the songs as ‘broadside ballads’: songs on loose sheets that were widely sold and performed in places such as taverns and town squares.
Their ranking is based on several statistics, including how many known printed editions of the sheet music there have been, and how many editions have been published historically in a short period of time.
Number one on the list – and therefore ‘top music of the 17th century’ – is ‘The Wandering Prince of Troy’, a ballad that was first printed in the 1660s.
It tells the story of the mythological Trojan Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s epic poem ‘Aeneid’, during his journey after the fall of Troy in the 13th or 12th century BC.
One of the most colorful songs is a bizarre ballad about Jasper Coningham from Aberdeen who tried to seduce his sister.
Mr Coningham believed that there was no god, nor devil, heaven nor hell – and so had no qualms about telling his ‘beautiful and clever’ sister: ‘Let me have fun.’
Shortly thereafter came a “severe judgment which the Lord brought upon him” and “his eyes fell from his head” and “his filthy, blasphemous tongue rotted away.”
Professor Marsh told MailOnline: ‘The unfortunate Scottish gentleman, Jasper Coningham, is burned to death at the climax of number 77.
‘It wasn’t good to be an incestuous atheist in seventeenth-century England!’
Many were about love, but there were also hits about family relationships, heroic escapades, supernatural kidnappings, kings in disguise, religion, politics and death (file photo)
Another notable composition, placed at number 32 on the list, is about Kent’s John Ward, the fearless pirate who later converted to Islam and terrorized English ships.
As ‘The Seaman’s Song of Captain Ward’ reads, the ‘wealth he has acquired’ and acquired through bloodshed ‘may well be sufficient to maintain a king’.
John Ward (1553-1622) is known as the inspiration for Jack Sparrow, the fictional pirate in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ film franchise, played by Johnny Depp.
Unfortunately, the frame for this composition includes the words but no new recording, as the original tune has been lost to history, Professor Marsh said.
Another pirate song at number 21 honors the Sotian sailor Andrew Barton (1466-1511), who gained fame as a privateer who raided Portuguese ships.
Legend has it that Barton was shot and killed by an English archer after his ship was captured by the English off the coast of Kent.
‘In these songs the pirates seem condemned and celebrated at the same time,’ Professor Marsh told MailOnline.
The Death of Andrew Barton, illustrated in James Grant’s British Battles on Land and Sea, 1873
The academic’s other ‘personal favourites’ include number 38 (about a woman who keeps her imprisoned father alive by breastfeeding him through the bars of his cell).
This song, which describes the “extreme act of submission,” was very successful for about 200 years after its first appearance in the late 16th century.
“The sexual undertones of the story are undoubtedly even more disturbing,” the academics admit.
Meanwhile, track 98 is a ‘sex ballad’ in which the sound of the nightingale’s song is a euphemism for the woman’s orgasm.
Most of the songs were re-recorded for the project by English folk musician Andy Watts, together with more than twenty other musicians.
The project website presents the recordings for free to all users, along with facsimile images of the original songs, full transcriptions and a wide range of contextual information.