See subject line - Thanks in advance 
*Mary Had A Little Lamb. *
Oh, you weren’t talking about Edison’s cylinders?
Sorry, the Vitaphone answer is “My Mammy” by Walter Donaldson
Lyrics by Sam Lewis (I) and Joe Young (I) sung by Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927).
Both titles are disputed, however, as is the one you really want, I’m sure.
(I don’t know about CD’s, so I’ll just give this thread a needed boost.)
Don’t know if you could call this the first single, but the first piece of music recorded to a CD was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
This was done because the president of Phillips asked for something that could play the aforementioned piece of music, his favourite piece of music, a 74-minute piece of music, all the way through without stopping.
See what happens when you run a powerful company?
When Sony introduced the CD player in October 1982 (The US didn’t see one until 1983) it had several dozen CD’s lined up for releases at that time. It also had some CD singles. In fact the Japanese CD singles were 3.5 inches (some American CD singles, notably Columbia records releases as they’re owned by Sony were too). There is no absolute first CD single.
Also, the first piece of music recorded on a CD wasn’t Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It wasn’t until the standard was changed from 115mm to 120mm prior to release that it was possible to do that. By then research had been going on for 10 years and somebody had to record some music on there before then.
There is a certain Urban Legendness about the exact reason for the 74 minutes. To a certain extent it is a result of the final determination of the size. But rumors persist that it is to fit Beethoven’s Ninth on a CD. I found no reference on the web to having it that length because Philip’s ( one “l” if you want to save trouble if you’re looking it up on the web yourself)President wanted Beethoven’s Ninth on CD. Neither Sony or Philips mentions it in their official histories on their web pages. Although I now know more about both companies than I ever wanted to.