MMMisfire Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mack

Early on Bobby Darin was a noted nightclub singer but was struggling to take that vibrant form and put it onto a disc that would become a successful seller. He took an alternate route in 1958 when he resorted to bubblegum pop in the form of "Splish Splash".

This garnered the initial attention for him and the following year he wrote and recorded "Dream Lover" which rocketed up the charts around the world and turned him into a bona fide teen idol. However, this was not good enough for Darin as he wanted to be seen as a serious songwriter. To this end he wrote and recorded the 1959 album "That's All", which boasted a number of his "stronger" songs.

Included here was his jazz-pop version of "Mack the Knife", a song that had been written by Kurt Weill and Bartolt Brecht for their 1928 play "The Threepenny Opera".

This song had been a staple of Bobby's popular nightclub act but he was reticent to release it as a single. The issue was that the lyrics told the story of a gruesome murder that happened during an argument over a game of cards and Darin felt that it would ruin his image.

The record label, however, knew better and insisted on its release. The song would top the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959 and it opened up the adult market for Darin.

Answer: Miles

At the time of the launch of "Eight Miles High" (1966) the psychedelic or acid rock sound was just starting to emerge. This track, with its Indian influences and free form jazz leanings, was considered to be one of the first "true examples" of the genre and soon became the sound that future attempts would be measured against.

The members of the Byrds, who'd recorded the number, have generally been cagey about the song's meaning. If they'd agreed with the common suggestion that it was about drug use, as the "high" in the title seems to imply, the song would most likely have been banned from air-play. Two months after the song's release their worst fears were realized as a weekly newsletter, Bill Gavin's Record Report, circulated to radio stations alleged that the single was promoting recreational drug use.

The single, which had reached number fourteen on Billboard's Hot 100, soon found itself off the air and off the charts.

Answer: Martin

Yellowcard, those emo-pop punkers who burst onto the world complete with a violin in their arsenal, recorded this track as part of their hit 2006 release "Lights and Sounds". This was an album bursting with mountains of hooks, massive choruses and a factory of energy.

The title of this song, "Martin Sheen or JFK", was reportedly inspired by a scene in the 1985 film "The Goonies". Corey Feldman's character, Mouth, finds a half-dollar coin at the bottom of a wishing well and proclaims the face on it to be Martin Sheen instead of JFK.

This is driven by the fact that Martin Sheen played the former President in the 1983 television miniseries "Kennedy". However, what either of Sheen or Kennedy have to do with this song is lost on me. The track tells the tale of a man who loses his true love ("and you're the air that I breathe") and then seeks solace in the bottle. Neither JFK nor Martin Sheen get a mention in the lyrics.

Answer: Mark

Sheila Escovedo, who performed under the stage moniker of Sheila E., could have been easily dismissed as another "pretty disciple" of the "purple wonder", Prince. She would quickly dispel any of those thoughts. Whilst she didn't have a great vocal range as a singer she was an extraordinarily talented drummer and percussionist. "The Belle of St. Mark" is a Latin tinged number that became Sheila's second single from her debut album "The Glamorous Life" (1984).

The song, which has been indelibly influenced by Prince, performed only moderately for the artist on Billboard's Hot 100.

Answer: Monty

This R.E.M. track is not about Field Marshall Montgomery, that one nicknamed the "Spartan General" who won a decisive battle against Rommel in El Alamain during World War II, nor is it about that surreal British comedy team Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The focus of this track is on the man who was the star of the movies "The Misfits" (1961) and "From Here to Eternity" (1953) - Montgomery Clift. Other songs have been written about Clift and they've focused on issues in his life, that car accident and his later dependence on pills and alcohol.

In this number Michael Stipe cleverly mixes parts of Clift's life with the make believe of the movies. He conducts a conversation with the actor by using dialogue and images from the film to build the framework.

The song appears on the band's stunning 1992 album "Automatic For the People".

Answer: Moses

This song is the 2014 track by Echo & the Bunnymen that appears on their album "Meteorite" and should not be confused with the fourth single by the singer Washington from her 2010 album "I Believe You Liar". During the 1980s Echo & the Bunnymen were the absolute darlings of the critics and produced a number of albums that bordered on being great. That's when they broke up.

They managed to get back together again in the mid 1990s and churned out a swag of albums that would probably best be described as "decent". "Meteorite" is a pleasant return to some of their glory days and "Holy Moses" is one of the tracks that gives this album some teeth.

It was inspired by the notion that God has woken up one fine morning and discovered that the Garden of Eden has been neglected and is now overrun by weeds. What does God do in a situation such as this... he calls on Moses to have him clean it up.

Answer: Mephisto

The band Primus is responsible for creating the theme song to the Comedy Central animated television series "South Park" (1997). In 1998 they wrote and recorded "Mephisto and Kevin" as part of the episode "Chef Aid" where the "South Park" boys organize a benefit concert to raise funds to get Chef released from prison.

The song would also appear on the subsequent soundtrack album that feature a diverse range of artist such as Rick James, Joe Strummer, Elton John, Rancid and Ween.

Answer: Maxwell

The melody here is the candy coating that endeavors to cover a very dark set of lyrics by Paul McCartney, who lets loose a disturbed medical student on a killing spree. The song is supposed to be a metaphor for the stumbles that we encounter in our everyday lives. Just as we think that everything is moving along swimmingly you can bet your bottom dollar that just around the corner is another little silver hammer waiting to hit those happy thoughts on the head. Paul has written many songs that are a lot better than this one which, by the way, appears on the Beatles' 1969 album "Abbey Road", but he spent an inordinate amount of time on this track just to "get it right" that it turned into another one of those nagging little issues that strained the relations between the band members.

Answer: Matthew

Cat Stevens has written a string of memorable songs and sold an enormous number of records. These include classic recordings such as "Morning Has Broken" (1972), "Peace Train" (1971) "Moonshadow" (1971) and "Father and Son" (1970) and yet none of these has managed to chart higher than "Matthew and Son", a song lifted from his debut, self-titled album from 1966, which peaked at number two on the UK Singles Charts.

The title is supposed to have been inspired by a sign that was sitting in the window of Stevens' tailor and deals with a group of workers (wage-slaves) who are enduring a mundane job, earning very little money and are too apathetic to do anything about it.

Answer: Mohammed

The sad part of the musical legacy that Warren Zevon left behind is that he will be best remembered for a song that was tantamount to being a novelty number; 1978's howling hit "Werewolves of London". Sad because there was a lot more depth to Zevon's songwriting than that piece of "fluff". Irony, darkness and a fair bit of mean spirited bile can be found littered through the lines of many of Warren's songs, which was unusual because the crowd that he called his friends; Jackson Browne and members of both the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, were polar opposites in respect to their lyrics. Zevon's 1976 self-titled album, which many consider to be his debut disc (the best forgotten "Wanted Dead or Alive" from 1969) manages to spill blood on his father's love for gambling ("Mama Couldn't Be Persuaded"), brought forward the paranoia he endured as a result of his alcoholism (the very beautiful "Desperados Under the Eaves") and showcased his own destructive lifestyle ("I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"). When you throw in the heartbreaking "Carmelita" and the rollicking "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" (both of which became huge hits for Linda Ronstadt) into this mix it is little wonder that "Mohammed's Radio" often gets overlooked.

The song is a tender piano driven number that sees the singer pining for simpler times in a world that's gone crazy. The track is lifted by the beautiful voice of Stevie Nicks who provides the backing vocals.