Fighting Fire With Fire Trivia Quiz

Answer: Smoked

This track, which appears on Bob Dylan's 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde", comes complete with his typically cryptic imagery and word play. The verse that contains the above lyric opens up with a lady named Mona warning Dylan not to venture near the railway line because "all the railroad men/Just drink up your blood like wine". This appears to have been adopted from a song called "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground" (1928) recorded by lawyer turned folk singer Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Lunsford's line is
"'Cause a railroad man they'll kill you when he can
And drink up your blood like wine".

Answer: Jack Flash

In an appearance on the UK television show "Songbook" Don McLean indicated that, what started life as a song on American politics, turned into a number that showcased the loss of the innocence that was prevalent in 1950s music and got progressively darker during the 1960s.

He has not directly revealed what the images in the song represent which has allowed a lot of conjecture to evolve. For example, the "jester" is seen as Bob Dylan, the "quartet" as the Beatles and the "girl who sang the blues" is seen as Janis Joplin. "Jack Flash" is generally accepted as being Mick Jagger and, in this verse, McLean talks of music moving into its darkest moments of 1960s, culminating with the disastrous Rolling Stones' concert at Altamont Speedway.

Answer: Fried-out

For the uninitiated, a "fried out Kombi" is a run-down van that barely goes. Kombi vans, made by Volkswagen, were very popular amongst hippies and surfers during the 1970s in Australia. The term "zombie" relates to a potent batch of marijuana, known as zombie grass, that had been available in the country during the same period. Colin Hay, who penned the lyrics for this track, advised that he gained impetus for the lyrics from phrases published by Barry Humphries (best known as Dame Edna Everidge) for the character "Barry McKenzie". "Downunder" appears on the Men at Work's 1982 album "Business as Usual" with both single and album topping various charts around the globe.

Answer: Inferno

The Trammps were an R&B band from Philadelphia who got inspiration for this song from the 1974 disaster film "The Towering Inferno". They used the term "inferno" as a metaphor for the heat that could be generated on the dance floor. They first released the single in 1976 but it never got into the Top Fifty of the US Billboard Hot 100 charts.

It peaked then at number fifty three but its inclusion onto the soundtrack for "Saturday Night Fever" (1977) saw it popularity take off and, when re-released, it rose to number eleven.

Answer: Shoot

"Hey Joe" was originally written in the early 1960s by Billy Roberts as a conversation between two friends. We uncover that Joe has found his wife cheating on him and plans to kill her. In a subsequent conversation he's done the deed and is now planning to shoot through to Mexico to escape the law. Hendrix added this number to the setlist of a band he'd been working for, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames.

His version was heard, at a Greenwich Village café, by Chas Chandler, who was member of The Animals. Chandler convinced Hendrix to accompany him to England where he introduced him to Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, forming the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

They recorded the track and it became a hit in the United Kingdom, climbing to number six on the UK Singles chart.

However, America was not quite ready for Hendrix. Released there in May of 1967, "Hey Joe" failed to chart on Billboard's Hot 100.

Answer: Heat

The Power Station were a short-lived super-group that was made up of Robert Palmer (vocals), John Taylor (bass) and Andy Taylor (guitar) from Duran Duran and Chic's drummer Tony Thompson. The writing credits for this song, which would become the band's biggest hit, are attributed to Palmer and the two Taylors.

In a 2012 interview with the entertainment website The A.V. Club, John Taylor indicated that he and Andy were toying with the track and decided to fly to the Bahamas, where Palmer was living, and let out the words "Some like it hot" to him.

He instantly responded with "and some sweat when the heat is on". From that point on everything else with the song fell into place.

Answer: Burning

"Hungry Like the Wolf" was the song that finally broke Duran Duran into the American market. Conjecture did abound that it was the strength of the video for the single rather than the craftsmanship on the song that was the real reason for the breakthrough. It would be fairer to say that a combination of factors melded together to provide the vital synergy here. One, the video was directed by the legendary Russell Mulcahy. It was set in jungles, it was lush, it was dynamic and it was hot on the heels of the success of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981). MTV was in its infancy and the clip was perfect for the medium. The song itself received strong reviews. Rob Mitchum of Pitchfork Magazine stated that "singles don't come much stronger" and Stewart Mason (Allmusic) described it as a "spectacular pop single".

Whilst the song writing is credited to the band, the lyrics were compiled by their lead singer Simon Le Bon who took inspiration from the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood".

Answer: Explode

With so much happening whilst on tour Bob Seger rarely found time or impetus to write songs. The two exceptions, he stated, were "Night Moves" and "Turn the Page". Even in these instances he advised that he'd written down the outline and completed the tracks when the tour was over. "Turn the Page" (1973) looks at the flipside of being a rock and roll star. Seger pours out stories of the grind, the constant movement, the stares, the touching, the loneliness... the aggravation. The track first appeared on Seger's "Back in '72" album (1973) but there is a better version on his "Live Bullet" recording which came out three years later.

Answer: Fever

In 2006 the posthumous and 93rd Johnny Cash album "American V: A Hundred Highways" was released. It was the fifth in a series of recordings where Cash paid tribute to a wealth of songwriters with his renditions of their songs. This would be the first time in over 35 years that a Johnny Cash album would reach the top of Billboards Hot 200 album charts. "Further on Up the Road" was originally recorded by Bruce Springsteen for his "The Rising" album four years previously.

The is another song with the same name that was first released by Bobby Bland in 1957, however, it won't contain the same lyric. It was recorded as a "Texas shuffle", a style that would become synonymous with Bland, and became his breakthrough hit after several years of limited success.

Answer: Spark

Legend has it that Bruce Springsteen went into the studio to record his 1984 album "Born in the USA" with a cache of over seventy songs. When recording was complete he presented it to his producer (and manager) Jon Landau. Landau informed him that, just like the six studio albums before it, he had created yet another strong record.

Whilst it contained some powerful songs, none of them were bona-fide smash hits. He ordered Springsteen to go home and write "a hit". Springsteen was lost... "how the heck do you write a "hit" single"? That night he poured out his frustrations about writing songs for "others" and found himself with the biggest hit of his career to that point. (Note: That does not include his songs recorded by other artists. Manfred Mann's Earth Band, for instance, successfully took "Blinded by the Light" to number one on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1976).