Monday Trivia No. 32

Burt Likko 39 Comments

Ten songs all have something in common: All Along The Watchtower as performed by Jimi Hendrix, Breaking The Girl as performed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, A Hard Day’s Night as performed by the Beatles,  Hard Luck Woman as performed by Kiss, Just Like Heaven as performed by the Cure, Into The Lungs of Hell as performed by Megadeth, Nights In White Satin as performed by the Moody Blues, Space Oddity as performed by David Bowie, Wanted Dead or Alive as performed by Bon Jovi, Xanadu as performed by Rush. This is a non-exhaustive list.

Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering litigator. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Recovering Former Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.

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39 Comments

  1. Jennifer M.

    She was a freshman when I was a junior.

    As such, you could add “The Ghost In You” by The Psychedelic Furs to the list.

    • Good song. Not one that belongs on this list, unfortunately.

      There were lots of girls named Jennifer (alternatively, Jenn or Jenny) back in the 80’s and IIRC, a disproportioante number of them were cute. Seems like there’s not so many women named Jennifer running around these days. What happened to them all?

  2. Are all songs performed in part be musicians uncredited on the album? (e.g.: George Martin on Hard Days Night, Hendrix on Bass for Watchtower, etc)?

  3. Would All the Young Dudes as performed by Mott the Hoople be on this list?

  4. I don’t think this is right, since one (Into the Lungs of Hell) doesn’t appear to qualify, but all the rest appear to, so here goes:

    All are songs that are/were also the title of a movie or tv series with an entry on IMDB.

    • I had that as well, and was stumped by Megadeath too. The other one I had (also squelched by the Megadeath entry) is that each is the second single off the album, not the first.

      • Nights in White Satin is the last (tenth, I think) single on that album.

          • I think we’re talking past each other. You’re right that both Tuesday Afternoon and Nights in White Satin were commercial and radio successes. But there were a total of seven tracks (not ten as I thought before, although five are divided into two movements each):

            1. The Day Begins: “The Day Begins” and “Morning Glory”
            2. Dawn: “Dawn is a Feeling”
            3. The Morning: “Another Morning”
            4. Lunch Break: “Lunch Break” and “Peak Hour”
            5. The Afternoon: “Tuesday Afternoon” and “(Evening) Time to Get Away”
            6. Evening: “The Sunset” and “Twilight Time”
            7. The Night: “Nights in White Satin” and “Late Lament”

          • Ah, I think this is a generational semantics thing. Back in the day, singles were what we called the songs that got released separately on 45s; tracks were the individual songs on an album.

            I suppose in the age of iTunes all songs are singles.

          • Generational? As I understand it, you and I are in the same demographic age bracket. (Yes, I recall 45 rpm records, and I was born during the first Nixon Administration.)

          • Here I thought I was the only oldster out here! (Except for Bob, who I like to imagine is 76.) I’m oddly comforted by learning this about you.

          • If we’re calling Nixon babies “oldsters”, what’s the word for those of us born while he was VP?

          • Yeah, singles means “released as a 45,” not “tracks” — check Wikipedia, the word is still used that way.

  5. I think it has something to do with guitar chords. At least Just Like Heaven and Hard Day’s Night either begin or end with a solitary chord.

  6. Oh, wait… I think I might have just gotten it.

    Is it that none of these songs have a traditional chorus that breaks off from the verse? This may not be the answer you sought, but I think it’s a commonality (except maybe the Megadeath, I don;t know that song).

  7. Ah ha, got it. 12-string guitar.

    BTW, hung out w/Greg Lake once and he showed me his tricked gtr I think he used on his acoustic stuff. Take a 6-string and substitute a light E string [.007 or so] for the G string and tune it up an octave. You get most of the effect of a 12-string without all the jumble.

    [You do have to put a little bit of matchbook cover in the nut to keep it from rattling, or superglue it shut and carve a new notch.]

    • Yup, I think that’s it all right.

      I feel really, really dumb, since when I was trying to figure it out I stumbled on bits in Wikipedia about the use of a 12-string in both Hard Days Night and Watchtower, and each time said “Hey! I never knew there was a 12 string in that!” And yet the penny still never dropped.

      • Tod, hope somebody will try Greg Lake’s trick & get back to me. It’s absolutely brill: all those nothing chords you’ve been playing all these years sound brand new and fresh and you feel like you’re 14 again except your joints don’t ache and your fingers don’t bleed when you make an F.

        As for this Zelig moment, I still bow to the late great BlaiseP, who probably taught it to Greg in the first place.

          • OK, RTod, run before you can walk.

            ;-P

            But if you do this, do the trick at the nut with a little thin cardboard or it’ll keep going out of tune, sliding around in a too-big notch.

    • Props to our own Tom Van Dyke this week; “12-string guitar” is the answer the judges were looking for. I kind of figured that it would be either he or Jaybird. I also had to find a diverse enough sample that did not mention either Stairway to Heaven or Hotel California.

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