"The Beat Goes On" is a Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 hit song written by Sonny Bono and recorded by Sonny & Cher. It was issued as a single and appeared on their 1967 album In Case You're in Love. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart on January 14, 1967, peaking at #6.

The backing track for the song was recorded using the renowned group of Los Angeles session musicians who are now collectively known as "The Wrecking Crew". The arrangement is credited to Harold Battiste, but Wrecking Crew bassist Carol Kaye asserts that at the session she devised the distinctive syncopated bass line that is featured on the released recording, replacing the original walking bass line in the prepared arrangement:

The song was sung at Sonny Bono's funeral, and the phrase "And the beat goes on" appears on his tombstone.

AllMusic highlighted this track in its review of the In Case You're in Love album.

Sonny and Cher performed the song many times on their hit 70s television variety shows, as well as in their live concerts. The song was included in the "Sonny and Cher" video montages during Cher's Do You Believe? Tour and The Farewell Tour. Cher performed the song live with Sonny's voice track on her successful Cher at the Colosseum show as well as her 2014 Dressed to Kill Tour.

Over the years the song has been covered by numerous artists. In 1967, American jazz musician Buddy Rich made a version on his Big Swing Face album with his daughter Cathy on vocals. The song was covered by Turkish band Silüetler and Gabor Szabo on his 1967 album The Sorcerer. In 1968, Vanilla Fudge released, The Beat Goes On (Vanilla Fudge album), which used The Beat Goes On as its central theme. R&B band Booker T. & the M.G.'s released it on Doin' Our Thing album in April 1968. Other versions were recorded by jazz pianist/singer Patricia Barber, Italian singer Mina, and the French duo Casino Music. In Germany singer Inga Rumpf did a German-language version, still entitled "The beat goes on"(H.U. Weigel supplied the lyrics) and in Italy rock band La ragazza 77 did it in Italian with "Il beat cos'è". In 1982, the Canadian dance act Orbit remade the single into an electro-funk track, produced by John Lewis, Jack Tann and Don Was, featuring American gospel singer Carol Hall on vocals. Although this version never charted in the United States, it did receive some airplay on the radio. An Australian version, produced by former Skyhooks guitarist Red Symons, became a Top 20 hit in 1983; it was recorded by Melbourne cabaret duo The Globos, which featured singers Wendy De Waal and Mark Trevorrow, (who later gained renown for his comedic alter-ego Bob Downe).

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