Song Titles - Cryptically Speaking Quiz

Answer: Come on Eileen

Cryptics often use a mix of straight definitions and wordplay as I have with this one.

Hurry, make progress = 'COME ON'
I have quite an inclination = 'I LEAN'; which sounds like = 'EILEEN')

'COME ON EILEEN!' is a great party song from Dexy's Midnight Runners. It was released in 1982.

Answer: Poker Face

A fairly straightforward one, if you break it down:

An Italian River = 'PO'

Half a banker (usually 'half of' something means you are looking for half the consecutive letters in a word). In this case the second half of the word is what we need: 'KER'.

And then you have a 'messy cafe' ('messy' usually means an anagram of the next word/words), so an anagram of 'Cafe' = 'FACE'.

POKER FACE. There was an extra clue with '...this Lady's song' because 'Poker Face' is sung by 'Lady Gaga'. It was released in 2008.

Answer: Night Fever

A nice, fairly straightforward one:

A man in shining armour = 'knight', which sounds like 'night' = so the first word is 'NIGHT'.

The second clue is a simple synonym. An ague is a 'FEVER'.

'NIGHT FEVER' is a Bees Gees classic from 1978.

Answer: Ticket to Ride

'Mark it like a teacher' is 'Tick It', which sounds like 'TICKET'.

'Muddled' means make an anagram or anagrams of the next word, which in this case is 'Editor'. This forms two words: 'TO RIDE'.

The clue says 'finishes', so this goes after 'TICKET'.

'TICKET TO RIDE' is a timeless piece by The Beatles. It was released in 1965.

Answer: YMCA

If it says "initially", you are generally looking at the initials of the immediate words after 'initially'.

The answer in this case, are the initials of 'You Must Clap Along' which spells out: 'YMCA'.

Inhabitants of a small town are 'Villagers,' so hopefully this helped you get to 'The Village People', the band responsible for 'YMCA,' which was released in 1978.

Answer: Love Shack

Cryptics often have hidden words in a sentence. They will say 'hidden in' or 'kept in' or 'holding' so you know that you are looking within the sentence for an answer.

So in this one, 'hiding a song' means the song is 'hidden' in the sentence.
In this case it was hidden in 'nobody (LOVE S HACK)ers'.

LOVE SHACK. I also gave an additional clue with "they might BE 52". The 'B-52's' were, of course, responsible for this 1989 hit.

Answer: Whip It

This one is a straight wordplay question.

The greyhound-like animal is a 'Whippet', which sounds like 'Whip It', which of course, is a term used in cooking.
'WHIP IT'. 'Devo' was, of course, the band responsible for this 1980 hit.

(And the de-evolution hint was how Devo's name came about.)

Answer: Hungry Like The Wolf

This one uses a 'sounds like' and 'an anagram', which are both very common in cryptics.

Starting with the first bit: Sounds like a landlocked country = 'Hungary', which sounds like 'HUNGRY'.

Next, we have 'added to', so we know there's more to work out before we have the full answer.

The last bit is 'the confusion of' and then three words in quotation marks. Remembering that 'confusion of' or 'muddled' or 'stirred' means we are looking for an anagram, we can be pretty sure we are looking for an anagram(s) of: 'we lithe folk'.
We further know, from the hint, that we are looking for a 3 word answer.
'We lithe folk' is an anagram of 'LIKE THE WOLF'.

Once we add them together, we get 'HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF'.

This, of course, was a big hit from 1982 by the talented 'Duran Duran'.

Answer: Hallelujah

A bit tricky, but still do-able!
In cryptics 'chop off the head and tail' generally means 'throw away the first letter and last letter of the forthcoming word'.

'SLUG' therefore, without the S and G, leaves 'LU'.
The actress Berry = 'HALLE'.
Now, the 'LU' goes BEHIND Halle because it says so in the clue. So we swap them around and now have 'HALLE LU'.
'A Rasatafarian God' is 'JAH'. So we have to add that to our previous answers.
Now we have HALLE LU JAH.

HALLELUJAH! is a Leonard Cohen classic from 1984.

Answer: Good Vibrations

Well done if you got this (and indeed, if you got this far!)

Cryptics often use Roman numerals, so six = 'VI'.

The 'head' of Brigadiers is the same as saying 'initially', so we have a 'B'.

A fixed amount of food = 'RATIONS'.
So now we have 'VIBRATIONS'.

(I think you know where this is going now! But we will carry on anyway...)

A Deity is a 'GOD'. The clue says the other words 'follow' a deity, so we put 'GOD' in front of 'VIBRATIONS'.

And finally, in cryptics, 'love' is '0' (which comes from love being '0' in tennis).
Our deity (GOD) has 'extra love' so we have to add another 'o', to 'God' making the word 'GOOD'.

GOOD VIBRATIONS is another classic, this time courtesy of the Beach Boys in 1966.