A Trivia game I played with senior citizens recently focused on musical songs that contained numbers in their titles. The experience stayed with me and later woke me at 3 am while I laid in bed unable to dismiss the songs not mentioned some 12 to 13 hours earlier at the Upper Merion Senior Service Center in King of Prussia, PA.

The songs we played included “One, Two Three” by Len Barry, “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Nine to Five” by Dolly Parton, “One is the Loneliest Number” by Three Dog Night, “December ‘63 (Oh What a Night” by the Four Seasons, and “When I’m 64” and “Eight Days a Week” by the Beatles. I began to add more songs in my awakened state of mind and knew I’d get no further sleep until I get the songs out of my system and onto paper.

Here are a few I came up with:

“The First Time I Saw Your Face” Roberta Flack  ”5 Will Get You 10” We Five

“10 Things I Hate About You” Leah Kate  ”15 Miles on Erie Canal” Seeger

“A Hundred Pounds of Clay” Gene McDaniels  “A Thousand Stars” Young

“ Thousand Miles Away” the Heartbeats   “A Million to One” Jimmy Charles

• The Number 16 had a great number of songs. My favorite was “16 Candles” by the Johnny Maestro and the Crests. The Sound of Music composers Rodgers and Hammerstein gave us “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” while Chuck Berry provided “Sweet Little Sixteen.”

•   “Sixteen Reasons” was offered by Connie Stevens while Ringo singing without the Beatles gave us an updated version of “You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful and You’re Mine.” Meanwhile, Neil Sedaka recorded “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen.”

• My favorite number three song was “Quarter to Three” by Gary “U.S. Bonds and as well as the Frank Sinatra song “One for My Baby (and One More for The Road) which started off with the lyrics: “It’s quarter to three, there’s no one in the place but you and me.”
• “Three Times a Lady” was also offered by the Commodores, while the Four Aces gave us “Three Coins in a Fountain.”

“One” was by far the most used number in songs I recalled and double-checked on Google.

Check ’em out:

“One and Only You” the Platters      ”Wonderful One” Marvin Gaye

“Once in a While” the Chimes       “One Summer Night” the Danleers

“One Hand, One Heart” West Side Story   “One of Us” Abba

 “One More Night” Phil Collins       ”One for the Money” Escape the Fate

“One Fine Day” the Chiffons        “One Voice” Barry Manilow

“One Way of Another” Blondie       “One Tin Soldier” Billy Jack film

        Number songs also included these offerings:

“Beechwood 4-5789“by the Marvelettes   ”Do the 81” Candy and the Kisses

“It Takes Two” Marvin Gaye and Kin Weston  “1001 Arbian Nights” ChipZ

 “Land of 1,000 Dances” Wilson Pickett    “1812 Overture” Tchaikovsky

“Five O’Clock World” the Vogues       ”Three Blind Mice” Nursery Rhyme

“Five Will Get You Ten” We Five       “Fourth of July” Sufjan Stevens

“Ten Things I Hate About You” Leah Kate   “Take Five” Dave Brubeck

“Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest“– Robert Louis Stevenson in Treasure Island

“Twenty-four Hours from Tulsa” Gene Pitney  “Eight Miles High” by the Byrds

 “19th Nervous Breakdown” Rolling Stones   “In the Year 2525” by Zager & Evans

“The 12^th of Never” by Johnny Mathis   “50 Ways to Leave Lover” Paul Simon

“Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall“  –  Traditional drinking song

“I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten-Cent Store“  - Fanny Brice

“60 Minute Man” Billy Ward and Dominoes  “High Noon” Tex Ritter

“Midnight at the Oasis” Maria Muldaur  ”Cloud 9” the Temptations

“In the Midnight Hour” Wilson Pickett  ”Love Potion Number 9” The Clovers

“Midnight Train to Georgia” Gladys Knight ”10,000 Kisses” Jackie Edwards

“A Thousand Kisses Deep” Leonard Cohen

                   And finally, “Number-Like” Last Titles:

“Save the Last Dance For Me” The Drifters   “The Last Song” by Edward Bear

“The Last Thing on My Mind” by Tom Paxton.