Hit Songs With Fewer Than 10 Unique Words In The Lyrics

It's a rare and novel achievement: to make a song that lands on the music charts, plus its lyrics adhere to a limit of under 10 words. While there are only so many musical notes, artists have rearranged them in seemingly infinite ways to produce countless songs. The words that form the lyrics, which turn a melody or an instrumental composition into a full-fledged pop song, aren't usually treated with such economy. Not counting fully and intentionally word-free tunes, like the charming instrumental love song that held the No. spot the longest in 1960, some songs with an extremely limited need for lyrics have become major hits across various Billboard charts. (Honestly, who needs words anyway? Rock history is littered with sad lyrics and songs so corny our ears are still burning from embarrassment.)

It's truly impressive that these songs, which reside in the relatively rare space between instrumental and lyric-heavy, became fan favorites with only a handful of words. Here are some of the biggest hits of all time that didn't even employ 10 words to get the job done.

The 1967 plane crash responsible for the tragic death of Otis Redding also claimed the lives of multiple members of his backing band, the Bar-Kays, a Memphis group that specialized in wordless R&B. The same year as the accident, the Bar-Kays had just charted its first hit single, "Soul Finger," which peaked at No. 17 on the Hot 100. "Soul Finger" has some pretty easy to remember lyrics: "soul finger!"

Dance music can be repetitive, by design and intent. It's supposed to keep people out on the dance floor, dancing, and that's exactly what the German studio project Silver Convention did in 1978 with "Fly, Robin, Fly." The lyrics are almost an unnecessary afterthought to the hypnotic melody, sung by three session singers essentially in unison. Not only does the trio belt out "fly, robin, fly" over and over, but they mix it up with the occasional "up, up to the sky." That's a total of six unique words.

Harry Bauer Rodrigues, or Baauer, is an electronic music artist, or DJ, whose frenetic and jittery "Harlem Shake" unleashed a fad in 2013. The song was used for countless homemade videos of people acting wild when the title of the song dropped. All that attention helped "Harlem Shake" secure a five-week run at No. 1. Not counting "ay," the song only utilizes eight words, some of them in Spanish ("con lost terroristas") and some in English ("then do the Harlem Shake").

More than 15 years before it hit No. 2 with its Record of the Year Grammy-winning Pharrell Williams collaboration "Get Lucky" in 2013, enigmatic French electronic music duo Daft Punk went to No. 1 on the U.S. dance chart (and No. 61 on the Hot 100) with the propulsive and robotic "Around the World." The lyrics to the 1997 song are minor — merely the three-word title phrase "around the world," sung dozens of times.

In 1975, Van McCoy, a one-hit wonder you didn't know passed away, led the Soul City Symphony to No. 1 with "The Hustle." Referencing and soundtracking one of the first disco-era dance crazes, the catchy, flute-driven song uses just four words altogether. Some background singers whisper "do it" during the song's introduction and then repeatedly urge listeners to "do the hustle." "The Hustle" spent a single week at No. 1 in July 1975.

Challenge Records executive and session guitarist Dave Burgess had a free studio after a recording, so he called in some musicians, among them saxophone player Danny Flores. The band, which would adopt the name the Champs, quickly recorded a Flores contribution. Led by Flores' braying and insistent saxophone, the raucous music stops every now and then for the musician to shout out the only lyric in the song, which also happens to be its name: "Tequila." The one-word wonder went on to spend five weeks at No. 1 in 1958.

A No. 2 hit in the summer of 1963 (and a Top hit again in the summer of 1966), "Wipe Out" is one of the five songs that capture what '60s surf rock was all about, and it's almost an instrumental. Amid pounding drums and a blisteringly fast guitar line that evokes the feel and excitement of surfing, "Wipe Out" didn't need to be very wordy to get the message across. It opens with some laughter and a snarky voice pointing out a "wipe out." After identifying the name of the song, nobody utters another word.