On this day in 1997, British musician Paul McCartney was knighted in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, an honor later bestowed to fellow musicians Elton John (in 1998), Mick Jagger (in 2003), and George Shearing (in 2008). To commemorate this event, in this post I take a look at the concept of knighthood as it is represented in songs from the Billboard year-end Top Thirty charts (1951-2015).

The word knight appears six times in the collection (seven, if its use as a name, namely in the case of Gladys Knight, which appears in "Slow Jamz" [2004], is counted). The six songs are "St. George and the Dragonet" (1953), "Lady" (1981), "Glory of Love" (1986), "All for Love" (1992), "This Kiss" (1998), and "Dark Horse" (2014). In three of these songs ("Lady," "Glory of Love," and "Dark Horse"), the word appears as part of the phrase "knight in shining armor."

In addition, I investigated occurrences in the collection of sir and dame, which are the titles of men and women, respectively, who are respected, among their other uses). Of these, sir is the most common, occurring 28 times in 15 songs. Sir co-occurs with knight in only one of these songs ("St. George and the Dragonet"), and its use in this song and in 12 others is not as a title for a knight, but as a term of address for a man, as in "Paperback Writer" (1966) and "To Sir with Love" (1967) (the first written by McCartney and John Lennon, and performed by The Beatles, and the second written by Don Black and Mark London, and performed by Lulu).

Only one time in the collection is sir possibly used as a title of knighthood: in reference to a "Professor Sir Cedric Pentingmode of the British Institute," a fictional character in the novelty song "The Flying Saucer Parts 1 and 2" (1956) written and performed by Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman.

Finally, sir is used as a title of respect for the great jazzman Duke Ellington in "Sir Duke" (1976), although, as an American, Ellington was never knighted, nor was he eligible to be honored in such a way.

In comparison, dame(s) appears only five time in five songs, namely "Honey Baby" (1955), "Naughty Girls Need Love Too" (1988), , and "Regulate" (1994), and "Dilemma" (2002), as well as "Baby Got Back" (1992), performed, incidentally, by Sir-Mix-A-Lot. Additionally, rather than being used to convey respect as sir is, dame(s) is sometimes used pejoratively in the collection.

As a bonus, here is a video of a song that didn't appear in the Billboard year-end Hot 100 charts, but does include a reference to Sir Galahad: America's "Tin Man" (1974). Sir George Martin, who died earlier this week and figured prominently (to put it mildly) in the life of McCartney, and who was himself knighted in 1996, produced and played piano on the studio version of the song.