4 Songs That High Schoolers in 1968 Knew Every Word To

Oh, to live in a time when The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and so many classics were mainstream radio. Here are some 1968 hits. You definitely sang these obsessively if you were a teenager at the time.

“Hey Jude” by The Beatles

Written by Paul McCartney, “Hey Jude” was meant to be a song of comfort during what would have likely been a difficult time for John Lennon’s son, Julian. Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia, were in the midst of their divorce, and McCartney was on his way to visit the family when he came up with the song.

“Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf

I could totally imagine a rebellious teenager scream-singing this in the car. “Born To Be Wild” demands that its listeners go out and live life in a big way, even saying, “Fire all of your guns at once and explode into space” in the first verse. “Born To Be Wild” was Steppenwolf’s third song released and first major hit. According to Songfacts, it was also the first song to use the phrase “heavy metal,” which partly describes Steppenwolf’s sound.

Leading man John Kay explained, “For me, heavy metal music had its beginnings in Led Zeppelin and beyond. We always considered Steppenwolf to be a hard rock, blues-based band, with some exceptions in terms of the material.”

“Build Me Up Buttercup” by The Foundations

If you’ve ever been a teenager, you know that half the time you’re falling in love. The other half of the time you’re putting yourself back together after heartbreak. That’s kind of what “Butter Me Up Buttercup” by The Foundations feels like. In hindsight, this song sounds like a classic case of what the kids call love-bombing to me. You know, the situation where someone “butters you up” just to leave you stranded. Writers Mike d’Abo and Tony Macaulay might not have had that term in mind back then, but they were definitely accurate in their description of it.

“(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” by Otis Redding

As with many artists of this era, Otis Redding drew inspiration from The Beatles when writing “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay”. The popular boy band had just released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, and Redding was apparently obsessed. This was also the first posthumous hit in the United States, fun fact, as Redding recorded it about three days before he died in a plane crash.

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