Musical Monday #153
Welcome to the 153rd edition of Musical Monday, the weekly quiz that Soccer Dad and I alternate hosting. This week we have a special guest contributor, TRN, who - as of course you already know - is one of our most avid weekly players! Thanks TRN for pitching in this week! And the best part is, now I get an extra week to play the game!
As always, the challenge is to identify the title and artist of each song quote below, as well as the common theme of the entire set of songs.
1) ". . . a cobra snake for a necktie"
2) "If you want to keep something precious"
3) "There's a girl right next to you"
4) "We sang every song that driver knew"
5) "Friend only to the undertaker"
6) "I can't seem to stand on my own two feet"
7) "You don't have to shout or leap about"
8) "Are the stars out tonight?"
9) "Nobody calling on the phone"
10) "When I'm drivin' in my car and a man comes on the radio"
11) "Don't you think you want someone to talk to?"
12) "I just love when you call me lady"
13) "But the press let the story leak"
14) "For my darlin' I love you, and I always will"
15) "Tell me you love me and don't let me cry"
16) "I'll do such things to ease your pain"
17) "You'll never know it hurt me so"
18) "Could you be falling for me?"
19) "Sunday's on the phone to Monday"
20) "See I'd have all the money in the world"
21) "It could happen to us any day"
22) "I have scaled these city walls"
23) "Each time the doorbell rings I still run"
24) "But after all it's what we've done that makes us what we are"
25) "Are you somewhere feeling lonely, or is someone loving you?"
26) "We meet every day at the same cafe"
27) "To give away the day that you were mine"
28) "I wake up feeling sorry I met you"
29) "Any time we have a date"
30) "You darken my door"
31) "Whatever colors you have in your mind"
32) "I'd thank my lucky stars to be living here today"
33) "And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids"
Good luck and enjoy!
posted by Elie @ 8/09/2010 06:12:00 PM -
54 Comments:
Thanks so much Elie. Enjoy!
1. "Who do you love?" Bo Diddley
13. "Me and Julio down by the Schoolyard" Paul Simon
31. "Lay, Lady, Lay" Bob Dylan
8. I Only Have Eyes for You - Ella Fitzgerald and others
22. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
29. Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby - Dinah Washington
32. Proud to Be an American
2 - If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free - Sting
3 - Love the One You're With - Stephen Stills
4 - Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
5 - War - Edwin Starr
7 - It Don't Come Easy - Ringo Starr
10 - Jumpin' Jack Flash - The Rolling Stones
11 - Lay Down Sally - Eric Clapton
14 - Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley
19 - She Came In Through the Bathroom Window - The Beatles
21 - How Long - Ace
25 - Hello - Lionel Richie
It's alright, Clayton, in fact it's a gas, but 10 is "Satisfaction."
Well now that's an embarrassing mistake isn't it. What was I thinking??
There is something about those 2 or 3 signature Stones songs. I thought of "Get off my coud" for a second.
15) Angel Baby by the immortal Toby Beau.
"Um, who?"
1.Who do you Love-George Thorogood, Bo Diddley
5.War-Bruce Springsteen
6.All Shook Up-Elvis Presley
7.It Don't Come Easy-Ringo Starr
8.I Only Have Eyes for You-The Platters
10.Satisfaction-The Rolling Stones
14.Love Me Tender-Elvis Presley
19.She Came in Through the Bathroom Window-The Beatles
22.I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For-U2
32.God Bless the USA-Lee Greenwood
26) Let Gail answer it. She better know it by now.
:-)
Might 25 be In your wildest dreams by the Moody Blues?
Do the song titles create some sort of "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl comes in through bathroom window" narrative?
23 - one less bell to answer - 5th dimension
24 - one less set of footsteps - jim croce
26. Me and Mrs. Jones - Billy Paul
Hat tip: SoccerDad
: )
15. Not sure, but it might be Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue - Crystal Gayle
Do the song titles create some sort of "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl comes in through bathroom window" narrative?
That is so great. I like that.
No, not a narrative.
Hm. So #32 is not the "girl is tried for breaking and entering, boy is grateful for the US criminal justice system" part of the story, then...
Hm. So #32 is not the "girl is tried for breaking and entering, boy is grateful for the US criminal justice system" part of the story, then...
That is fantastic.
I regret having interfered with my comment. It would be so great to see where this creative line of group thinking could go.
Congratulations, trn, you've stumped us... for now. :) Let's take a look and see if we can't turn that around:
1) Who Do You Love - Bo Diddley, George Thorogood
2) If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free - Sting
3) Love the One You're With - Stephen Stills
4) Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
5) War - Edwin Starr, Bruce Springsteen
6) All Shook Up - Elvis Presley
7) It Don't Come Easy - Ringo Starr
8) I Only Have Eyes For You - Ella Fitzgerald, The Platters, et al.
9) "Nobody calling on the phone"
10) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
11) Lay Down Sally - Eric Clapton
12) "I just love when you call me lady"
13) Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard - Paul Simon
14) Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley
15) Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue - Crystal Gayle
16) "I'll do such things to ease your pain"
17) "You'll never know it hurt me so"
18) "Could you be falling for me?"
19) She Came In Through the Bathroom Window - The Beatles
20) "See I'd have all the money in the world"
21) How Long - Ace
22) I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
23) One Less Bell to Answer - The 5th Dimension
24) One Less Set of Footsteps - Jim Croce
25) Hello - Lionel Richie
26) Me and Mrs. Jones - Billy Paul
27) "To give away the day that you were mine"
28) "I wake up feeling sorry I met you"
29) Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby - Dinah Washington
30) "You darken my door"
31) Lay, Lady, Lay - Bob Dylan
32) God Bless the USA - Lee Greenwood
33) "And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids"
"Don't pass me by" - Beatles
Oops, that was 17
Aw, thank you Clayton. I'm confident you all can get this.
Here are some hints:
9) She has theological questions.
12) Chicken of the Sea is tuna!
16) She emphatically states her desire.
18) It's one way to respond to lashon hara.
20) She's no Tevye.
27) GPS probably wouldn't have helped.
28) I like Motown. Don't you?
30) He no longer wants to be hospitable.
33) Be happy, it's a singer-songwriter.
And Yitzchak's identification alleviates the need for a hint for 17.
No hints right now about the theme. Clayton's list should help.
9 - One of Us - Joan Osborne
At least some of the answers fall into groups:
"Me and ____" songs.
"Lay" songs
"Don't" songs
"One less" songs
"I" songs
18. Something to Talk About - Bonnie Raitt
27 - Must Of Got Lost - J. Geils Band
In an e-mail TRN indicated that Clayton was on the right track. Not all of the songs id'd so far obviously fit into this category, but I think they can be coaxed to.
Are these songs about having "loved and lost?"
Some of the tougher ones would be "Me and Mrs. Jones" but at the end there's a lyric of "holding hands like we used to" as if the affair was in the past. God bless the USA talks about starting over without his wife and kids.
On the other hand Don't it make my brown eyes blue, Must of got lost, How long, One less bell to answer, one less set of footsteps, would all fit.
But then 13 and 14 (for example) pretty clearly don't fit.
I'm stumped.
The inclusion of "War" seems designed to invalidate all guesses, although as a result the answers include two songs by somebody named Starr. You guys know the joke in which a father tells his son a riddle and the punchline is "I just put that in to make it hard."
That's it! The theme is Starr-crossed love.
*rimshot*
Actually, it's Yitzchak, in his Friday morning observations of the titles, who is most on the right track.
While songs weren't chosen specifically because of words the titles contain and there aren't any sub-themes (though classifications could perhaps be made), some of the attributes Yitzchak notes are common in conjunction with this theme. Why might that be?
The theme does not concern the topic of the songs. For most of the songs, one can see the theme reflected in the title alone. For some, one needs to look at the lyrics associated with the title. For the last two songs, the relevant portion does not involve the title.
The song War is one of the songs for which the next bit of the refrain has to be considered. I didn't include any songs just to make it hard. (Great joke!) I'm not that clever!
Though for some of the songs it is perhaps debatable whether they merit inclusion, the theme itself it fairly straightforward. I'm not trying to trick anyone.
If you would like a more direct hint, let me know.
Please forgive me if this was not a good theme. It is a list I've been keeping for a while, and I was excited to present it.
First of all, to some degree the first 4 seem to be a progression.
1) Who Do You Love - Bo Diddley, George Thorogood
2) If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free - Sting
3) Love the One You're With - Stephen Stills
4) Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
Regardless based on what TRN said about Yitz's guess, it seems that there is perhaps some sequence. Perhaps words form the titles or key phrases form a sentence.
trn said: "The theme does not concern the topic of the songs. For most of the songs, one can see the theme reflected in the title alone. For some, one needs to look at the lyrics associated with the title."
Combining this with Yitzchak's guess, I notice that the words "I", "you" and "me" or variations on them show up a lot. Examples not in the titles include "I'm all shook up", "you know it don't come easy", "Tuesday's on the phone to me".
If this is relevant, then the ultimate song for this theme might be the Turtles' "Happy Together": "I can't see me loving nobody but you..." :)
If this is relevant, then the ultimate song for this theme might be the Turtles' "Happy Together": "I can't see me loving nobody but you..."
But we still have the problem of how "War" fits in.
War, huh, yeah
What theme is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What theme is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again y'all
War, huh, good God
What theme is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me
Was is making me come unglued
It's stopping trivia from being pursued
Was is the enemy of Musical Monday
At this rate we'll still be stumped on Sunday
I said War, huh . . .
I've been staying out of this one to avoid any appearence of inside information (which I don't have!). But after looking at all the discussion I still don't have anything helpful to add. I don't think "I" "you" songs can be it, because that's probably 75% of songs overall. It has to be something much more specific.
TRN, give us a few more days - maybe it will hit one of us!
Here's something I just noticed that seems to apply to many of the songs, though perhaps not all: A pattern of lyrics where a line begins with a word or phrase, and the next line begins with the same word or phrase but ends differently. Some random examples from the list:
"Love me tender
Love me sweet"
"I'm on my way
I'm taking my time but I don't know where"
"Don't know when I've felt so blue
Don't know what's come over you"
"One less man to walk in
One less pair of jeans upon your door"
I certainly haven't checked them all, but am I on the right track?
So Satisfaction has:
I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no girl reaction (?)
Love the one you're with I think has consecutive lines starting with "If you're..."
So the theme is Anaphora?
"Don't pass me by" goes "Don't pass me by, don't make me cry, don't make me blue"
"Who do you love" has "got a cobra snake . . . got a brand new house . . . got a brand new chimney . . ."
"War" has all those lines beginning with the word "war," I guess.
For your consideration, in an email to me last night, trn wrote:
"Interestingly, I considered including Happy Together because of that very line. You don't quite have the right reason, though.
The theme can be stated very simply; it's not anything convoluted."
(Yitzchak: For what it's worth, I had decided that "War" fit with my previous idea because of the contraction "y'all" for "you all".)
Reading back, I noticed again some things trn said:
"...songs weren't chosen specifically because of words the titles contain...", but "some of the attributes Yitzchak notes are common in conjunction with this theme", and "For most of the songs, one can see the theme reflected in the title alone. For some, one needs to look at the lyrics associated with the title."
So, that seems to rule out both the I/you/me idea and the lyrical patterns, as the same sort of patterns don't seem to be represented in any titles ID'd so far (except "Lay, Lady, Lay").
Another possibility:
Words which address somebody:
"Lay, Lady lay"
"Come on take a little walk with me, Arlene . . ."
"Buddy, that was good enough for me"
"Good G-d, Y'all . . . "
"You know, it don't come easy . . ."
"You see, I'm on a losin' streak . . ."
"If you can't be with the one you love, Honey . . ."
"See you, Me and Julio . . . "
Thank you Yitzchak, SJ, Clayton, Soccer Dad, LEL, Anonymous, Gail, and Elie for participating in this edition of Musical Monday. Your comments have been great!
I appreciate your continued efforts to figure out the theme. You came up with many interesting ideas! It wasn't my intention to make it so challenging.
Even without being able to use the theme to help you, together you identified 27 out of 33 songs! Here is the full list:
1) ". . . a cobra snake for a necktie"
Who Do You Love?
Bo Diddley, George Thorogood and the Destroyers
2) "If you want to keep something precious"
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free
Sting
3) "There's a girl right next to you"
Love the One You're With
Stephen Stills
4) "We sang every song that driver knew"
Me and Bobby McGee
Janis Joplin
5) "Friend only to the undertaker"
War
Edwin Starr, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, The Temptations
6) "I can't seem to stand on my own two feet"
All Shook Up
Elvis Presley, Billy Joel
7) "You don't have to shout or leap about"
It Don't Come Easy
Ringo Starr
8) "Are the stars out tonight?"
I Only Have Eyes for You
The Flamingos, Ella Fitzgerald, The Platters
9) "Nobody calling on the phone"
One of Us
Joan Osborne
10) "When I'm drivin' in my car and a man comes on the radio"
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
The Rolling Stones
11) "Don't you think you want someone to talk to?"
Lay Down Sally
Eric Clapton
12) "I just love when you call me lady"
Between You & I
Jessica Simpson
13) "But the press let the story leak"
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard
Paul Simon
14) "For my darlin' I love you, and I always will"
Love Me Tender
Elvis Presley
15) "Tell me you love me and don't let me cry"
Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
Crystal Gayle
16) "I'll do such things to ease your pain"
Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover
Sophie B. Hawkins
17) "You'll never know it hurt me so"
Don't Pass Me By
The Beatles
18) "Could you be falling for me?"
Something to Talk About
Bonnie Raitt
19) "Sunday's on the phone to Monday"
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
The Beatles
20) "See I'd have all the money in the world"
Rich Girl
Gwen Stefani
21) "It could happen to us any day"
How Long?
Ace
22) "I have scaled these city walls"
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
U2
23) "Each time the doorbell rings I still run"
One Less Bell to Answer
The 5th Dimension
24) "But after all it's what we've done that makes us what we are"
One Less Set of Footsteps
Jim Croce
25) "Are you somewhere feeling lonely, or is someone loving you?"
Hello
Lionel Richie
26) "We meet every day at the same cafe"
Me and Mrs. Jones
Billy Paul
27) "To give away the day that you were mine"
Must of Got Lost
J. Geils Band
28) "I wake up feeling sorry I met you"
Nowhere to Run
Martha and the Vandellas
29) "Any time we have a date"
Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby
Louis Jordan, Dinah Washington
30) "You darken my door"
Don't Come Around Here No More
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
31) "Whatever colors you have in your mind"
Lay Lady Lay
Bob Dylan
32) "I'd thank my lucky stars to be living here today"
God Bless the USA
Lee Greenwood
33) "And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids"
Southern California Wants to Be Western New York
Dar Williams
Any last guesses about the theme?
Uncertainty about love?
The theme is an attribute one might notice about any one of these songs individually.
One song I meant to include and regret that I mistakenly did not is Who Killed Davey Moore? by Bob Dylan.
A song I realized would have been a good fit when I subsequently heard it on the radio is Hello It's Me by Todd Rundgren.
There were others I had considered including, but I wanted to limit the scope of the theme. They include:
I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag, Country Joe and the Fish
Happy Together, The Turtles
You Can't Hurry Love, The Supremes
Another Brick in the Wall, Part II, Pink Floyd
California Dreamin', The Mamas and the Papas
Coincidentally, Soccer Dad's theme for 156 is related to the theme for this edition.
A bonus: "He gonna make pretty womens jump and shout"
So Yitz, does that mean that you've figured out the theme?
I think so. Here's another bonus, form an artist that was already used:
"Child, his crime have outgrew him"
And another bonus:
"then she called me long distance, she wanna know/where was I am"
Another bonus:
"But in this ever-changing world in which we live in"
"But in this ever-changing world in which we live in")Live and Let Die- Paul McCartney and Wings.
Right, LEL. Someone once wrote that this line exemplifies the approach of "throw in an extra preposition and call it art."
If this theme is related to that of #156, could it have something to do with bad grammar in either the titles or the lyrics? There are several examples of both represented, with Yitzchak's bonuses being particularly good ones. (Although, in defense of Paul McCartney, I've always thought that despite the way it sounds, the lyrics to Live and Let Die were actually "...if this ever-changing world in which we're livin' makes you give in...", which makes more sense. :)
If this theme is related to that of #156, could it have something to do with bad grammar in either the titles or the lyrics?
"Who do you love?" has the line "you shoulda heard just what I seen."
"War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker"
It should be "Lie down, Sally."
"Mrs. Jones and I."
"Lie, Lady, lie"
"Me and Bobby McGee" is actually correct since the phrase is the object of the preposition "for," but there is other bad grammar in the song.
"I must have gotten lost."
"Love me tenderly"
"I can't get any satisfaction"
"All shaken up"
"It doesn't come easily"
"If you love somebody set him (or her) free"
I am not too familiar with some of the other songs.
"I can't see myself loving anyone but you"
"Don't come around here any more"
"Are you, or are you not my baby?"
From One less set of footsteps:
So don't be getting excited, instead of So don't get excited.
And while it's not ungrammatical, Jim Croce had one of the best syntatical mixup in any song, "... with my best old ex-friend Ray ..." from operator.
The theme remaining unidentified is something up with which I would not have been able to put, so thanks to Yitzchak and Clayton.
And thanks to Soccer Dad for encouraging everyone to keep playing, and of course to both Soccer Dad and Elie for allowing me to contribute an edition.
Yes, these are all songs that are grammatically incorrect!
Keep in mind that except for the last two songs, the relevant portion is the refrain associated with the title, so there is no need to go looking elsewhere in the song for possible grammar errors.
The last song is the only one for which the line in question is not a repeated line.
The other songs I listed as ones I had considered including do have the problematic grammar in the refrain, but the titles are not involved. The grammar of these songs did not seem notable enough to include in spite of that, unlike the fantastic examples of the last two on the original list.
In general, dialectical variations, idioms, or uses of slang did not qualify a song for inclusion.
Additionally, when I was choosing the lyrics to represent each song, I tried not to include any that were not grammatically sound. Had I chosen "But won't you make yourself at home and stay with me?" for Lay Down Sally, that might have been accomplished.
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