Money for nothin’
Chicks for free
Get your money for nothin’
And your chicks for free
Oozin’ money for nothin’
And your chicks for free
Get your money for nothin’
Chicks for free

Dire Straits, ‘Money for Nothing‘ written by Sting (Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner) and Mark Knopfler, album: Brothers in Arms, 1985

I was looking for a money song to lead off the next few posts which will be about market security trading and the next thing you know I’m down the rabbit hole heading for White Rabbit’s house to retrieve his gloves, finding a zillion money songs along the way. Wonderland is a strange place as Grace Slick sang in Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 ‘Surrealistic Pillow‘ album. I digress.

Johnny Carson during one of his rare appearances on the Late Show, asked his country music star guest, Buck Owens, what the most common theme in music was. Owens answered with one word before Johnny even finished the question: love. Maybe for Owens and country music love is the constant but a study by North Carolina State University of songs making into Billboard pop charts from 1960 to 2009 found that the breakup of romantic relationships; ‘Breaking up is Hard to Do‘, thank your Mr. Sedaka, is number one. Which is depressing since I like my music on the happy side, but the study’s results show pop music gravitating further into the mirthless with time. The researchers found that songs have been getting steadily more depressing as they moved out of the 1960s and on into the first decade of 2000s. But love at least came in second. Bad love, good love, love to hate love, love comes, love goes. Money, alas, didn’t make the list.

So, it’s up to me to make one. Not an original idea or task, but I’ll make up for it with quantity. Below is a list of 400+ songs including duplicates performed by multiple artists.

Jay-Z and The Beatles recorded the most songs about money and I must say that worked out fairly well for them. The single word song title ‘Money‘ turns up 17 times in the list below but, is multiple different songs written by different artists with that title. Just for the record Pink Floyd’s ‘Money‘ is the cream of the money crop. ‘Easy Money‘ is another song title with at least a dozen different lyrical compositions and writers. I’ve listed 5 with Billy Joel’s version probably being the best known. Harlan Howard’s song ‘Busted‘ is covered by 6 different artists listed below including the soulful renditions by Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. ‘Money (That’s What I Want)‘ written by Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford and first performed by Barrett Strong is another money song covered by a plethora of bands including the Beatles and The Kingsmen. ‘Money (That’s What I Want)‘ was the first hit for the record label Motown.

Enough nostalgia. Enjoy.

Additional Money Song Lists:

• A (Fairly) Comprehensive List of Songs with ‘Money’ in the Title… — Bozz’s Blog — 2011
• 15 Best Songs About Money — Billboard — 2016
• Top 40 Songs About Money — Hub Pages — 2018
• The Best Rock Songs About Money — Ranker — 2019
• The Best Songs About Money — DigitalTrends –2019
• The Best Songs With Cash in the Title — Ranker — 2019
• 35 Best Songs About Money, The Good & Bad Side of that Dollar Bill — 2020
• Top 10 Classic Rock Money Songs — 94.7 WCSX Detroit — 2020
• 20 Songs About Making Money… — PlayTheTunes — 2021
• The 21 All-Time Best Songs About Money — Timeout — 2021
• 20 Songs with Money in the Title — MusicalMum — 2022
• Songs About Money: 31 Tunes About Cash — UDiscoverMusic — 2022
• The 23 Best Songs About Money Ever Written — Musician Tuts — 2022
• The Best Pop Songs About Money — Ranker — 2022
• 20 Old Songs About Money — MusicalMum — 2023
• 20 Songs With Money in the Title — Singersroom — 2023
• 20+ Songs with “Money” in the Title — GemTracks — 2023
• 21 Best Songs About Money — Music Grotto — 2023
• 52 Best Songs About Money & Getting Rich — Audio Tips — 2023
• The 12 Best Songs About Money. EVER. — 20 Something Finance — 2023
• 20 Best Songs About Money — Repeat Replay — No Date
• Songs About Money — SongFacts — No Date
• Songs with Coins in the Title — SongFacts — No Date
• Top 100 Songs about Money — Entertainment Blog – ExpertsColumn.com — No Date
• The 15 Greatest Songs About Money Ever Written — Trim Bytes — No Date