List of best-selling sheet music

This list contains some of the best-selling songs in terms of sheet music sales in music publishing history.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.
Sheet music cover of "After the Ball" showing songwriter Charles K. Harris (bottom left) and performer J. Aldrich Libbey (main photo). Harris became the first composer to sold over one million for a title of sheet music,[1] in a 12-month period[2]

During the Tin Pan Alley era, the sheet music sales determined if a song was a "hit", rather than Billboard charts and remained as the main indicator at least until 1929 during the Great Depression.[3][4] Canadian historian Jason Wilson, commented the period "churned out the early modern world's most popular music".[5] During that time, various lead sheet rose considerable amount of copies sold and music publishers profited.[3] Although in music publishing industry overall, revenues and royalties were of relatively small scale as each individual copies were sold in terms of a few cents.

Before "Oh! Susanna" (1848) no American song had sold more than five thousand copies of sheet music.[6] Stephen Foster's "Massa's in the Cold Ground" sales of 75,000 copies by 1852, was considered "phenomenal" since music publishers did not try to promote songs.[7] The first song to became "popular" through a national advertising campaign was "My Grandfather's Clock" in 1876.[7] Mass production of piano in the late-19th century helped boost sheet music sales.[7] Toward the end of the century, sheet music was sold by dozens and even hundreds of publishing companies.[8]

The first title to sell one million ever (in a 12-month period[2]) of sheet music is "After the Ball" on 1892 or 1893.[9][2] However, according to other reports "Funiculì, Funiculà" achieved sales of one million copies in 1880 alone.[10] From 1900 to 1910, over one hundred songs sold more than a million copies.[3] Various "hit songs" sold as many as two or three million copies in print.[9][11] With the advent of the radio broadcasting, sheet music sales of popular songs decreased and print figures failed to make a significant recovery after the World War II as Billboard reported by 1955 that the best-performed songs attained sheet music sales of only 300,000 units.[9] By 1966, the United States House Committee on the Judiciary informed 100,000 copies of a title were "rares".[12] "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" (1953) is believed to be the last song to sell one million of sheet music.[13]

Selected million-sellers
Year Composer / Lyricist Title Notable recording artist(s) Sales
(in million)[lower-alpha 1]		 Notes
1891 Charles K. Harris "After the Ball" Bing Crosby; various 10[3][2] Sales as of 1903.
1901 Carrie Jacobs-Bond "I Love You Truly" 8[14]
1905 Beth Slater Whitson "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" 8[15]
1910 Carrie Jacobs-Bond "A Perfect Day" 8[14]
1949 Johnny Marks "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" Gene Autry 8[16]
7[17]
1910 Leo Friedman
Beth Slater Whitson		 "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" Bing Crosby; various 6[18]
1912 Tell Taylor "Down by the Old Mill Stream" Bing Crosby; various 6[18]
1912 Jack Judge
Harry Williams		 "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" Various 6[19]
1917 Billy Baskette
Benny Davis		 "Good Bye Broadway, Hello France" Bing Crosby 4[20]
1914 James Royce Shannon
Lee Edgar Settle		 "Missouri Waltz" Various 3.5[21]
1918 Richard A. Whiting
Raymond B. Egan		 "Till We Meet Again" Various 3.5[22]
1914 Harry Carroll
Harold R. Atteridge		 "By the Beautiful Sea" American Quartet 3[23]
1942 Irving Berlin "White Christmas" Bing Crosby 3[24] 4-5 years sales
1900 Harry Von Tilzer
Arthur J. Lamb		 "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" 2[15]
1911 Irving Berlin "Alexander's Ragtime Band" Various 2[25] 2-years sales
1917 George M. Cohan "Over There" Nora Bayes 2[19]

Best-selling individuals
Century Composer(s) Sales
(in million)		 Notes
20th Jay Livingston-Ray Evans 46[26] With eighteen songs, (5 million in USA, and the rest in foreign countries)
19th William Shakespeare 25[27] Credited to 350 songs.

See also

Notes
  1. Based on estimated sales.

References
  1. Cryer, Max (2008). Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Favourite Songs. Exisle Publishing. p. 142. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  2. Baskerville, David (2006). Music Business Handbook and Career Guide. SAGE Publications. p. 9. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  3. Axford, Elizabeth C. (2004). Song Sheets to Software: A Guide to Print Music, Software, and Web Sites for Musicians. Scarecrow Press. pp. 13, 29. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  4. Tyler, Don (2016). Music of the First World War. ABC-CLIO. p. 4. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  5. Wilson, Jason (2012). Soldiers of Song. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  6. Steyn, Mark (2014). The Undocumented Mark Steyn. Simon and Schuster. p. 236. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
  7. Furia, Philip (2016). The American Song Book: The Tin Pan Alley Era. Oxford University Press. p. 7. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  8. Facts on File (2010). Careers in Focus. Infobase Publishing. p. 185. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  9. Hull, Geoffrey P. (2004). The Recording Industry. Psychology Press. p. 70. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  10. Plastino, Goffredo; Sciorra, Joseph (2016). Neapolitan Postcards: The Canzone Napoletana as Transnational Subject. Scarecrow Press. p. 2. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  11. Kohn (2019). Kohn on Music Licensing, 5th Edition (Plan IL). Wolters Kluwer. pp. 6–7. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  12. United States House Committee on the Judiciary (1966). Copyright Law Revision: Hearings Before Subcommittee. United States Government Publishing Office. p. 278. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  13. Humphries, Patrick (2012). Lonnie Donegan and the Birth of British Rock & Roll. Biteback Publishing. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  14. Dotterer, Ronald L.; Bowers, Susan (1992). Politics, Gender, and the Arts: Women, the Arts, and Society. Susquehanna University Press. p. 199. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  15. Batchelor, Bob (2002). The 1900s. Greenwood Press. p. 179. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  16. Hardy, Phil; Laing, Dave (1995). The Da Capo Companion To 20th-century Popular Music. Da Capo Press. p. 616. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  17. Jasen, David A. (2004). Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song. Taylor & Francis. p. 208. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  18. Averill, Gage (2003). Four Parts, No Waiting. Oxford University Press. p. 74. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  19. Smith, Kathleen E.R. (2021). God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War. University Press of Kentucky. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  20. Tyler, Don (2007). Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era. McFarland & Company. p. 91. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  21. Kohn (2019). Kohn on Music Licensing, 5th Edition (Plan IL). Wolters Kluwer. p. 14. ISBN 9781543803860. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  22. Dickinson, Kay (2003). Movie Music, the Film Reader. Psychology Press. p. 69. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  23. Jasen, David A. (2004). Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song. Routledge. p. 194. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  24. Young, William H.; Young, Nancy K. (2010). World War II and the Postwar Years in America. ABC-CLIO. p. 775. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  25. Pinne, Peter; Johnston, Peter Wyllie (2019). The Australian Musical: From the beginning. Allen & Unwin. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  26. Weber, Bruce (December 21, 1968). "Livingston & Evans Leave Coast Clear for 'Mods', B' way Bound". Billboard. p. 68. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  27. McFarland, Ron (2010). The Long Life of Evangeline. McFarland & Company. p. 161. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
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