Bee Boppers Trivia Quiz

Answer: He didn't, went to war and wound up dead

This was a relationship that was never going to last. Billy's girlfriend kept nagging him not to be a hero, he never listened. He went off to war, put his hand up for a dangerous mission and that was the end of him. His girlfriend then gets a letter in the mail that said he was a hero...

This song was originally a hit in 1974 for UK band Paper Lace who would then go on and have a major hit with the track "The Night Chicago Died". The song was written by Peter Callender and Mitch Murray who had previously had success with the songs "Hitchin' a Ride", a hit for Vanity Fair in 1969, and "The Ballad of Bonnie & Clyde", which was huge for Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames in 1967.

Answer: Boris the Spider

The Who's first album "My Generation" (1965 was a great success. However, their label, Polydor, saw the fact that all the original songs on the album had been written by Pete Townshend. Legend goes that to rectify this they offered a £500 advance to the band if each member contributed a song for the album. "Boris the Spider" was bass player John Entwistle's effort. This is reportedly the first song that John wrote and he, supposedly, penned it in six minutes after a drinking session with Rolling Stones' bass player Bill Wyman that involved making up weird names for animals.

Whilst the song is a piece of dark comedy its passages are very discordant. The chorus is sung in a "basso profundo" and the middle eight in "falsetto". Ironically this became an immediate crowd favourite and a staple of The Who's live gigs.

Answer: Black Bart

In 2013 the band Volbeat released an album called "Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies" that was loaded with stories of Wild West outlaws and gunslingers. "Black Bart" (real name Charles Earl Boles) was an Englishman in the West who made a habit of robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches. Absolutely terrified of horses he would commit all his crimes on foot and leave behind a piece of poetry at the scene of each crime. According to the band's lead singer, Michael Poulsen, Bart was a truly interesting character who definitely fit the bill of the album's title (the "Outlaw Gentlemen" bit... not the "Shady Ladies") that he was a must for the LP.

Answer: Dylan

Legend has it that in 1964 Syd Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd, attended a Bob Dylan concert and was so taken by the artist that he walked out and wrote this song. It is a warm tribute to Dylan but in the same breath it chooses to take a dig at his early style. Barrett didn't record the song until 1970 and even then it would not (immediately) find its way onto any official album.

It wasn't until Dave Gilmour, also of Pink Floyd, managed to unearth it on a tape while rummaging through his personal collection that it finally found its way onto an album; "The Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me?", a 2001 release that spanned Barrett's entire career.

Answer: Brian

This track by MGMT which pays homage to the musical genius of Brian Eno, a one time member of Roxy Music who is better known for his experimentations in ambient and electronic music, appeared on the band's 2010 album "Congratulations". The band's chief songwriter, Andrew VanWyngarden, indicated that the song was, initially, a bit of"fooling around"and was not taken seriously.

The band had obtained a set of "Oblique Strategies" cards, a concept developed in the early 1970s by Eno and Peter Schmidt to help writers break out of blocks in inspiration, and Van Wyngarden employed within his writing process.

At the end of the day they proved to be a lot of fun but, as Wyngarden says, "I don't think we used them properly".

Answer: Buck

Have you ever done something that you felt was not the best effort you could put forward and yet everybody else thinks it's awesome? That's how frontman for Feeder, Grant Nicholas, felt about the song "Buck Rogers". He tells that he had just been through a messy break-up with his girl, his head wasn't in the right space and he simply threw a whole heap of words and phrases onto a piece of paper and then tried to turn it into a song that sounded like it was made by the Pixies. What was meant to be a little bit raw turned into something throw-away and poppy. What was meant to be something that was pushed into a little corner or, be a B-side at best, managed to reach number five on the UK Singles Charts in 2001 and become a live show favourite.

(PS) How Buck Rogers fits into this song eludes me. Apart from the title he never appears in the lyrics at all.

Answer: The video was filmed on a "Happy Days" set

The video for this track was directed by Spike Jonze and it shows the band as the feature act at Arnold's Drive-In Diner, using the original set. Al Molinaro, who played the owner of the diner, makes a cameo appearance but Henry Winkler is nowhere to be seen. The clip would go on to win a number of awards at the MTV Video Music Awards.

This was the song that would become the band's breakthrough mainstream hit, however, originally, writer Richard Cuomo didn't want the song on the album because he felt it didn't typify the band's sound. Their producer, Ric Ocasek (of The Cars fame), was determined that it be there and badgered the band to include it. As band member Matt Sharp recalled "we'd come into the studio in the morning and find little pieces of paper with doodles on them: WE WANT BUDDY HOLLY".

Answer: Bo Diddley

Chess Records were not happy with this track when presented by Bo Diddley. They hated the title "Uncle John" and they felt that the lyrics would be offensive to their projected audience. Diddley then re-wrote the lyrics and changed the name to his own. Released in 1955 it became Diddley's first hit single and is recognised as the first song to introduce African beats into a Rock and Roll song. The song became a landmark. The riff was utilised a number of times in song, most notably by Buddy Holly ("Not Fade Away"), The Strangeloves ("I Want Candy"), Neil Sedaka ("Bad Blood") and "Faith" by George Michael. Its importance was recognised by both the Grammys, where it earned a Hall of Fame Award, the Library of Congress, where it was added to the National Recording Registry and Rolling Stone Magazine who noted it on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

Buddy Holly would record a version of the song in 1956 but it wouldn't see the light of an album until after his death. It appeared on the 1963 LP "Reminiscing" and it would become one of Holly's highest charting singles. It has also become an extremely popular live cover song. A couple of ripping versions can be found on Bob Seger's 1976 set "Live Bullet" and the 1980 recording by Warren Zevon "Stand in the Fire".

Answer: Bobby

Steven Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen had been close friends for a number of years. When Van Zandt decided to leave the band, during the recording of the 1984 album "Born in the U.S.A.", to pursue his own projects Springsteen penned the track as a tender farewell to his good friend. I have to admit to being one of the many who always thought that "Bobby Jean" was a girl but Springsteen dispelled that. The myth however, was further strengthened by Nick Hornby in his wonderful 1995 novel "High Fidelity" where his protagonist, Rob Fleming, wails "There's this Springsteen song, 'Bobby Jean,' off Born In The U.S.A. About a girl who's left town years before and he's angry because he didn't know about it, and he wanted to say goodbye, tell her that he missed her, and wish her good luck. Well, I'd like my life to be like a Springsteen song. Just once."

In one of those wonderful twists that Hollywood is prone to produce from time to time, the book was turned into a film that starred John Cusack as Fleming. Springsteen makes his acting debut here and appears to Fleming in a dream sequence in which he uses the last line of the song "Bobby Jean", "Good luck, goodbye" to close out the dream.

Answer: Badder than old King Kong

"And it's bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog"

The other options were all taken from another Croce hit "You Don't Mess Around With Jim"

In concerts Jim Croce used to introduce this song to audience by saying that it was inspired by two people; a sergeant at Fort Jackson and a private at Fort Dix. He'd met these men during his time in the US National Guard. There really was a Leroy Brown who Jim got on well (he was the sergeant) and the private was "a funny kind of guy" who went AWOL but got captured when he came back to collect his paycheck.

Released in 1973 the song was Jim's very first number one hit on Billboard's Hot 100. His other would be "Time in a Bottle".