Rolling the Rs. Trivia Quiz

Answer: Romeo

Here Mark Knopfler tells us a tale of young love, cleverly using references from other media within the storyline. The obvious one is in the title and the drawing of a parallel with Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers. There is another obvious one within the lyrics with the use of the 1963 hit by the Angels, "My Boyfriend's Back".

The one that may have skipped the notice of many is in the line "there's a place for us, you know the movie song". "There's a place for us" is the opening line of "Somewhere", which features on the soundtrack to "West Side Story" (1961), ironically, a film that also drew inspiration from the bard's "Romeo and Juliet".

This song appears on Dire Straits' "Making Movies" (1980) album and it was inspired by Knopfler's broken romance with Holly Vincent, the front-woman for the band Holly & the Italians.

Answer: Roy

Bernie Taupin is a great fan of the Old West of the United States and this can be evidenced in a number of his songs, in particular, the tracks that inhabit Elton John's 1970 album "Tumbleweed Connection". Roy Rogers, who was a childhood hero of Elton's, was a star of film, radio and television.

However, Taupin does not focus on the star here, instead he produces a gospel for the bored. Listless and wasteful, the only way they can escape their ennui is to watch our sequined cowboy on television. "Roy Rogers" appears on Elton's stellar 1973 album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road".

Answer: Ralph

The Bloodhound Gangs 2005 album "Hefty Fine" has generally been panned by critics as a "stinker". Its one shining light has been this track. If you look at the songwriting credits you may note that there are about 20 people listed, the majority of these are scriptwriters for the television series "The Simpsons". All the lines (except two) are quotes from the character Ralph from the series. Consequently, this is considered "found poetry" and that's why all of these writers get the credits. I did say "except two".

The two lines that are not Ralph quotes are; "Ralphie, get off the stage sweetheart" which was uttered by Ralph's father during the episode "Homer's Enemy" and "Yvan eht nioj" which is "Join the Navy" backwards. This was used in an episode called "New Kids on the Blecch" where Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph form a band and insert this line, as a subliminal message, into a song.

Answer: Randy

Micky Dolenz tells the story that the song emerged after they'd attended a party thrown by the British "royal family" - the Beatles. He was told that he did have a good time. When he'd returned to his hotel he scratched out a series of random observations that would become the basis for the song. When they'd approached their label to release it as a single in England, they were denied because the title was deemed to be "dirty". Dolenz protested that it had to be OK because he'd heard the same phrase on UK television, the popular sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part" (say no more)! The song was eventually released in the US as "Randy Scouse Git" but in the UK its name was "Alternate Title". This didn't deter the public and the single reached number two on the UK Singles charts.

For the record (pun intended) the phrase, "Randy Scouse Git", roughly translates as "horny Liverpudlian jerk (idiot)".

Answer: Rich

Frank Ocean's 2012 debut album "Channel Orange" quite rightly received generally positive critical reviews. One of the highlights of the disc was Ocean's ability to produce subtle, yet descriptive, little stories with his songs. "Super Rich Kids", the fifth single from the album, is no exception. Here Ocean uses dry humor to put forth a tale of the boredom experienced by the children of wealthy parents, left to their own devices while their folks are out there making and maintaining their fortunes.
"The maids come around too much
The parents never come around often enough".
Ocean then piles on the irony as the chorus samples "Real Love", Mary J. Blige's hit song from 1992.

Answer: Rusty

So you're looking to create a sound that's different, something that is "out there". Where exactly does one look for this inspiration. Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) thought it would be a real cool idea if he took some of the "heavy" sounds of Black Sabbath and married them with hillbilly notes.

This sound, he thought, would make the ideal backdrop for "Rusty Cage", which endeavours to describe the pent up frustration that he was experiencing while being cooped up in a bus with the band on their tour through Europe.

The track became the band's third single from their 1991 studio album "Badmotorfinger". Five years later Johnny Cash would produce an extraordinary cover of this track for his album "Unchained".

Answer: Reuben

This song appears on the 1969 album "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" by The First Edition and it would be the second single from it. The song peaked at number 26 on Billboard's Hot 100. It was around about this time that the band changed its name to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. The original version of "Reuben James" was penned by Barry Edris who had written Reuben in as a white man. He showed the song to a friend of his, Alex Harvey, who reworked it and turned our titular character into a black man, basing him on a couple of men who had worked out of a sharecropper's shack across the road from his father's business. These men had played significant roles in raising Alex after his father had contracted tuberculosis and his mother's time was then taken up by running the store.

(Note) This song should not be confused with Woody Guthrie's 1942 song "The Sinking of the Reuben James".

Answer: Ray

Axiom could possibly be considered one of Australia's first "super" groups. They formed in Melbourne in 1964 from the dissolution of the Twilights and The Groop. These were two promising bands who'd left Australia to seek success in London but failed to make any significant impact.

The main drivers of the newly formed Axiom were Brian Cadd who would later make a name for himself as a solo artist in the United States and Glenn Shorrock who would find global success as the front man for The Little River Band.

The other members were Don Mudie, Chris Stockley, later to become a key member of The Dingoes and drummer Don Lebler who struck minor fame when he joined the Mixtures. "A Little Ray of Sunshine" was written by Cadd and released in 1970, peaking at number five on the Australian Go-Set charts. One of the common myths about the song is that Cadd wrote the track after the birth of his daughter. "Not true" said Cadd in his 2010 autobiography, "my daughter was born 15 years after the song was written".

The song remains an important part of Australia's pop music history, is still one of the most sought after tracks on radio and was commemorated in 1998 by being included as part of an "Australian Rock" postage stamp series.

Answer: Rocky

In John Denver's autobiography he recalls that he'd just finished putting down the tracks to his proposed 1972 album "Mother Nature's Son" - yes that is the title of a Beatles' song, John was borrowing it - when he and his family travelled out to Williams Lake. With the Rockies as their backdrop they had come here to witness the Perseids Meteor Shower. Denver advises that the spectacle was mind-blowing and that it was so bright that it made shadows of the starlight.

The combination of this "fire rain", the crisp mountain air, the scent of the Douglas firs and the crunch of pine needles beneath his feet created the imagery that he needed for this song.

In his words, he worked on the song and the song worked on him. When Mike Taylor produced a guitar lick for him the whole song just "came together". Denver soon realized that he had something special on his hands with this song so he went back to the studio, added the song to the album, changed the sequencing and then he changed the title. "Rocky Mountain High" was released in 1972.

Answer: Rudie

This song celebrated the "rude boy" culture that was prevalent in England at the time of the song's release (1979). A "rude boy" was described as a first generation English male born of Jamaican parents who'd emigrated to the UK. Joe Strummer has indicated that the song arose from a "summer spent at West Indian dances and drinking 'special brew' for breakfast".

The track also represents one of the earliest versions of two-tone, punk influenced ska, that would soon become popular with the efforts of bands such as The Specials and Madness.