The Singer Not The Song (Part 3) Quiz

Answer: Aretha Franklin

"Hey Nineteen
That's 'Retha Franklin
She don't remember
the Queen of Soul
It's hard times befallen
The sole survivors
She thinks I'm crazy
But I'm just growing old."

The song is from the group's 1980 album "Gaucho". Steely Dan was known, even amongst other bands, as a group with excellent musicianship. It shows on their records, and they used many different studio expert musicians throughout their career. The top shelf percussionist Steve Gadd appears on this album. The first programmable drum machine sold to the public was called the LM-1 and it came out the same time as the "Gaucho" album. Maybe that's why some people thought Steely Dan used it on their album, that and the fact that Steely Dan has a cutting edge kind of reputation. But they had none of it. The drums - or drum-playing rather - on the album is all man-made.

Answer: Sam Cooke

"Well our hearts beat like thunder
I don't know why they don't explode
You got your hands in my back pockets
And Sam Cooke's singin' on the radio."

This is a great track from Mellencamp's 1980 album "Nothin' Matters And What If It Did." It was his fourth studio album and it was during the years he was going by the name John Cougar. His name would evolve to John Cougar Mellencamp from there and then simply John Mellencamp.

Answer: Kurt Cobain

"Space may be the final frontier
But it's made in a Hollywood basement
Cobain can you hear the spheres
Singing songs off station to station
And Alderaan's not far away
It's Californication."

This is yet another song in the ever-widening pantheon of songs that are about how fake and plastic the world is becoming:
"Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Celebrity skin is this your chin
Or is that war your waging"

If you've ever wondered if there was any friction between the cable TV show "Californication" on Showtime and this song, the answer is yes. The Red Hot Chili Peppers sued Showtime on November 19, 2007 seeking a permanent injunction barring them from further using the title. They also sought damages and restitution. It's head-scratching to try and figure out Showtime's lack of due diligence: they even allowed a character on the show to be named Dani California which is also a song by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Answer: Marvin Gaye

The song is from Elton's 1989 album "Sleeping With The Past." The Otis mentioned in that same lyric is of course Otis Redding. Elton John wrote this song with his longtime songwriting lyricist partner Bernie Taupin who told "Music Connection" magazine, "What I would do is I'd take a song like a Drifters song and I'd try to write a Drifters-type lyric....

When you hear it ["Club at the End of the Street"], it has the feel of a song like 'Under The Boardwalk.' It's a real Drifters-style song. So what I would do is I'd make notes for Elton at the bottom of the lyric sheet, like 'Think Drifters, think this or think that.'"

Answer: Bob Dylan

The song is about how the band members met and the different people they met along the journey which affords many opportunities to name drop many different singers. John Sebastian of The Lovin' Spoonful, Roger McGuinn of The Byrds and Barry McGuire, who had a hit with the song "Eve of Destruction" are all the singers mentioned in these lyrics:
"In a coffee house Sebastian sat
And after every number they'd pass the hat
McGuinn and McGuire just a-gettin' higher
In L.A., you know where that's at."

Answer: Elmore James

Etta James was really more of an R&B and gospel singer, and Tommy James was a pop rock singer of the 60s that you remember as the leader of Tommy James and the Shondells, and Rick James was a funk and soul singer.

Elmore James' name comes up midway through the song when John Lennon sings:
"Walk, walk cat walk
Go Johnny go
Same ole 12-bar blues
(Elmore James got nothin' on this fella)"

George Harrison though, was the songwriter for this one. Lennon played the slide guitar on this song that was the B-side to the number one chart topper "The Long and Winding Road."

Answer: George Harrison

I mentioned where Bob Dylan was in the lyrics; Yoko Ono was mentioned in the lyric "People came from miles around, everyone was there, Yoko brought her walrus, there was magic in the air."

The song details an experience Rick Nelson had on October 15, 1971 when he played at a "Rock & Roll Spectacular" show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Also on the bill were stars from the 5's like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Bobby Rydell. Rick dutifully played his hits, but when he played his new material the crowd booed. Unnerved, he cut his set short. But hey, he wrote a song about it and it became his biggest hit ever! Talk about making a silk purse out of a sow's ear!

Answer: Al Green

"When they saw you kneeling
Crying words that you mean
Opening their eyeballs, eyeballs
Pretending that you're Al Green, Al Green."

The song topped the charts in England, and in the U.S. peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. The lyrics deal with Adam Ant's (real name Stuart Leslie Goddard) frustration with the prying ways of the music press. Reporters seemed disbelieved or at least shocked to hear that Adam Ant was a teetotaler--he didn't smoke, drink or do drugs.

Answer: Johnny Rotten

This song is from Neil's 1978 album "Rust Never Sleeps." Neil Young explains what appealed to him about the phrase "rust never sleeps: "It relates to my career; the longer I keep on going the more I have to fight this corrosion."

"The king is gone but he's not forgotten
This is the story of Johnny Rotten
It's better to burn out 'cause rust never sleeps."

"The King" in the lyric above refers to Elvis Presley and Johnny Rotten was the lead singer of The Sex Pistols, both of whom Neil Young saw as singers whose legacies have lasted.

"Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye."

Answer: Bruce Springsteen, Madonna

"Since Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V"

"1985" by Bowling for Soup is from their 2004 album, "A Hangover You Don't Deserve." A few other recording artists are named in this song about a woman reliving her glory years when she was a teenager in 1985: Whitesnake, Ozzy Osbourne, Wham! and Van Halen. The song almost didn't make it on this album; after the album was already completed, the manager of one of the producers called in an excited state exclaiming that a great song just came across his desk and he said it was exactly the band's style.