"What" Song Could This Be? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Melanie

Melanie Safka started her career in the late sixties as "Melanie", and she had her biggest hits in the early 1970s with "Brand New Key" (aka "The Rollerskate Song") and "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)". "What Have They Done to My Song Ma" appeared on Melanie's third album, "Candles in the Rain" and was only released as a single in a few countries, peaking at number 39 in the United Kingdom. Several of the cover versions appear under the title "Look What They've Done to My Song".

The lyrics of the song proved ironically true in the 1980s when the song was used to sell oatmeal as "Look What They've Done to My Oatmeal"!

Answer: Greensleeves

William Chatterton Dix (1837 - 1898) wrote more than forty hymns and carols including "As with Gladness Men of Old". He was one of many people who've written lyrics to the melody of "Greensleeves"; he wrote his in 1865 under the title "The Manger Throne", three verses of which would become "What Child is This".

The composer of "Greensleeves" is a mystery. Legend has it that King Henry VIII wrote the song for Anne Boleyn, but the style of music apparently didn't appear in England until after Henry's death.

The first written appearance of the song was in the 1580s, forty years after Henry's death.

Answer: The Romantics

"What I Like About You" appeared on the Romantics' self-titled debut album in 1980, but it was released as a single the year before. It didn't immediately catch on, only reaching number 49 on the U.S. Billboard charts. It did better in Australia, where it hit number two.

But after the birth of MTV, the music video for the song received a lot of play, and the song went on to be featured in numerous advertisements for products such as beer, pizza and hotels. It has also been featured in films, such as "Shrek 2" and "Marmaduke".

Answer: The Rolling Stones

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" appeared on the 1969 album, "Let it Bleed" and was the B-side of the "Honky Tonk Women" single. The song's lyrics of optimism turning to disillusionment fit the theme of the 1983 film "The Big Chill", which was about a group of 1960s college friends who were brought together fifteen years later after one of them committed suicide.

Answer: Louis Armstrong

Written by George Douglas (aka Bob Thiele) and George David Weiss, the optimistic lyrics of "What a Wonderful World" have attracted many singers over the years, from Anne Murray and Tony Bennett to Joey Ramone and Rod Stewart. Some sources state that the song was originally offered to Tony Bennett, but George Weiss stated that he wrote it specifically with Louis Armstrong in mind. Armstrong's version hit the charts again in 1988 after it was featured in the Robin Williams' film "Good Morning Vietnam".

Answer: Moving Pictures

Their biggest hit from their debut album, "Days of Innocence", "What About Me" was written by Garry Frost and Frances Swan. Having a degree in psychology, Frost worked a day job with autistic children while recording demos for a music career at night.

He allegedly wrote the song after viewing the scene in the opening lyric about an unnoticed little boy waiting to be served at a shop. The song was recorded by "Australian Idol" runner-up, Shannon Noll, and hit number one in Australia in 2004.

Answer: U2

The second track and the second single from their blockbuster album, "The Joshua Tree" (which did win "Album of the Year" at the 1988 Grammy Awards), "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" routinely shows up on lists of greatest songs of all time.

The spiritual song was influenced by gospel music although Bono had said it was "an anthem of doubt more than faith". The music video for the song showed the band wandering the Las Vegas strip, where so many people go searching for something else.

Answer: Haddaway

Nestor Alexander Haddaway scored a massive hit with "What is Love", his first single. The song was written by Dee Dee Halligan and Junior Torello and was recorded in Germany, where Haddaway lived. He had several more hits through the 1990s, mainly in Europe. To American audiences, his song is forever linked with the "Roxbury" sketch, which debuted on "Saturday Night Live" in 1996, with Jim Carrey head-bobbing to the song along with Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan.

Answer: Pink

"So What" was the most successful single off of Pink's multi-platinum album "Funhouse". The empowerment anthem about her separation from husband, motocross racer Carey Hart, was Pink's first solo number one hit on the Billboard 100. Hart good-naturedly appeared in the video for the song, in which Pink called him "a tool", and a year later, the two reconciled and went on to have a baby daughter, Willow in 2011.

Answer: George Harrison

John Lennon and Paul McCartney were expected to fare well after the breakup of the Beatles, but it was George Harrison who first had a massive hit with his triple-disk album, "All Things Must Pass" and its first single, "My Sweet Lord". "What is Life" was the B-side to that single in the UK but was released as the second single from the album elsewhere. Harrison originally wrote the song for Billy Preston to record but decided to use it himself.

The lyrics of the "catchy pop song", as Harrison called it, have led to debate as to whether it was a love song or a spiritual song.

The song has appeared in several movie soundtracks including "Goodfellas" and "This is 40".