If You Could Read my Mind, Love Quiz

Answer: A paperback writer

"Paperback Writer" was a non-album single from The Beatles from 1966. Written mostly by Paul McCartney, it was a response to a challenge from his Auntie Lil to write something besides love songs - "a horse or the summit conference or something interesting".

It was around this time that The Beatles really did start to write about other subjects - "Revolver" came out later that year, with non-love songs such as "Taxman", "Doctor Robert" and "Eleanor Rigby".

Answer: Dancing in the Dark

This is the first single from 1984's "Born in the USA" though it was to be followed by six other Top Ten singles in the US. While the first song released from the album, it was the last to be written. Apparently it just took Springsteen one night to put together, so while he might have trouble tryin' to write a book, he seems to be able to write a song OK!

Answer: Hamburger stand

"Well she got her daddy's car
And she cruised through the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now
And with the radio blasting
Goes cruising just as fast as she can now
And she'll have fun fun fun
'Til her daddy takes the T-bird away"

This 1964 single from the Beach Boys, written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, is probably my favourite Beach Boys tune - it's just so silly and fun. It's apparently based on a true story; they heard about it when the girl in question was complaining about losing the keys to the T-bird.

Caleigh Peters does a cover for the soundtrack of the 2005 "Herbie: Fully Loaded" movie.

Answer: Bob Seger

"Turn the Page" was an album cut from his "Back in '72" album in 1972. It really started getting radio play when it appeared on 1976's "Live Bullet".

It's one of the great road songs, and not just for musicians. My husband hitchhiked all over North America in the late '60s, and the part about steeling yourself when you walk into a restaurant and hear the cliches about long hair resonated with him. And of course, the powerful video for Metallica's 1998 cover shows the same - it's not just musicians who get "strung out from the road".

Answer: the meaning of romance

"In chapter three remember
the meaning of romance
In chapter four you break up
But you give her just one more chance
Oh, I wonder, wonder who, mmbadoo-ooh, who
Who wrote the book of love"

The quintessential doo-wop song, from 1957. The way the story goes, it was inspired by the "You'll wonder where the yellow went" Pepsodent commercial.

Answer: Canada

The song from the Thornhill, Ontario, band Moxy Früvous has gone through several versions, with some changes in the authors mentioned. The Robertson Davies line was originally "Who needs a shave?" (Davies was distinctively bearded) but after his death the line changed to "Who needs a grave?".

Moxy Früvous were a satirical band active throughout the '90s, and had a close relationship with CBC Radio. One of the members, Jian Ghomeshi, had a successful career with the CBC until a sexual assault scandal cratered it in the mid 2010s.

Answer: Gordon Lightfoot

This song first appeared on 1970's "Sit Down Young Stranger" album - the name of the album was changed to "If You Could Read my Mind" when the song became a huge hit. It was a number one in Canada, and reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100, and number one on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It got into the Australian Top Forty, but a cover version in 1998 from Stars on 54 went all the way to number three in Australia, and also did very well in Canada.

This was the first of Lightfoot's songs to break into the US market, but was not to be the last.

Answer: The Dangling Conversation

From 1966's "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme". This song was released as a single, and pretty much flopped - only got to 25 on US charts, didn't chart at all in the UK. Listening to it now, it's hard to see how anyone would have thought this gentle, intellectual, sad song had legs for top forty AM radio.

It might not be a peppy little pop hit, but it is a beautiful song for adults about a passionless relationship dying in silences and missed communication.

Answer: The band Horslips, from Ireland

"The Book of Invasions", their sixth album, was probably the most successful album of the Celtic rockers, Horslips. Like one of their earlier albums, "The Tain", it was a modern-ish folk rock reworking of Irish myth and legend; elements of traditional Irish music with electric guitars added. Their next couple of albums, "Aliens" and "The Man who Built America", addressed the emigrant Irish experience, and were a lot less folky and traditional.

Horslips never really got a lot of commercial success, but anyone interested in Celtic rock needs to give them a listen:

"We're the mystery of the lake
When the water's still
We're the laughter in the twilight
You can hear behind the hill
We'll stay around to watch you laugh
Destroy yourselves for fun.
But you won't see us
We've grown sideways to the sun"

from "Sideways to the Sun" from "The Book of Invasions".

Answer: A Day in the Life

"Day in the Life" was the closing track to 1967's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album. The "I read the news" parts of the song, written by John Lennon, were loosely based on items he had read in "The Daily Mail", about the death of Tara Browne, and about potholes in the roads of Blackburn, Lancashire.

Reams have been written about the meaning and impact of the song, which makes it fitting, I think, to close out a quiz about reading.