The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature is a popular science book written by the McGill University neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, first published by Dutton Penguin in the U.S. and Canada in 2008.

Levitin's second New York Times bestseller, following the publication of This Is Your Brain on Music, received praise from a wide variety of readers including Sir George Martin, Sting, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Adam Gopnik.

"[1] The Times wrote "Levitin is such an enthusiastic anthropologist, such an exuberant song and dance man, such a natural-born associative thinker, that you gotta love the guy.

Levitin identifies six fundamental song functions or types (friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love) then shows how each in its own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve.

He shows, in effect, how these six song types function in our brains to preserve the emotional and literal history of our lives and species.