Why Have All My Elton Joel Bowie MP3 Files Fused? Quiz

Answer: David Bowie / Elton John

The two songs are "Sorrow" (1973) and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" (1975).

"Sorrow" was a UK number one and US number three hit for Bowie. The song was originally released by the McCoys in 1965 but it was British group The Merseys that made it a hit in the UK in 1966 where it reached number four.
This was the only single released from "Pin-ups" (1973) Bowie's seventh album which featured cover songs from the "London Era" of 1965-68.

"Someone Saved My Life Tonight" tells the story through the song lyrics (written by Bernie Taupin) of a time in 1969 when Elton John was to be married to Linda Woodrow. He knew this was going to be a mistake and one night over drinks with Taupin and Long John Baldry, the latter talked him out of getting married. Baldry is the "Someone" in the title and is referred to in the song as "Sugar Bear".
This song was the only single off the album "Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy"(1975) which was the first album to debut at Number one of the US Billboard chart.

Answer: Sometimes Leyna

"Sometimes a Fantasy" (1980) and "All for Leyna" (1980) are the two Billy Joel songs that were fused.

"Sometimes a Fantasy" was the fourth song from Joel's 1980's Glass Houses album. The song is a request to a significant other to become "closer over the phone". For those people who thrive on numbers the number dialled is 516-673-1112. Being a Long Island number (where Joel actually lives), suggests that Joel is on tour and wants to return home to see his partner.

"All for Leyna" was the fifth single from the same album. The song refers to the author having a one night stand with a girl called Leyna and thereafter becoming obsessed.

The album cover features Joel about to throw a rock through the window in his own house. This and the back cover photo of him looking through the subsequent hole suggests that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, which in turn is a reference to his failed 1977 application to live in the Dakota Apartments (John Lennon lived there at the time) in New York City.

The other answer options all feature girl's names that have appeared in Billy Joel's titles. However the other word in the option is a one word title of an Elton John or David Bowie song.

Answer: Billy John

"Honesty" (1978) is the second song and third single from Billy Joel's 1978 album, "52nd Street". As a single it was a modest hit in the US, UK and Australia but it went gold in France and Japan. The song received mixed critical reviews: generally receiving positive reviews for the music but generally negative reviews for the lyrics which were called "trite" by one critic. This song is generally seen as one of the major influences of the power ballad of the 1980s and 1990s.

"Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" (1976) was a song and single (reached Top Twenty in US and UK) from the "Blue Moves" (1978) album. The song, a mournful song sung in a minor key was written by Elton and Bernie Taupin. This is one of the few songs where John wrote the melody first, and Taupin wrote the lyrics to fit. Normally the process was reversed. The song has been covered by Joe Cocker and Beyonce and when duetting with Boy Band Blue in 2002, John took the song to number one in the UK.

Answer: Suffragette Rebel

"Suffragette City" (1972) was a track on the "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" (1972) album. It was wasn't released as a single until 1976 when it was used as a promotion for the 1976 Bowie compilation album, "Changesonebowie". The song is notable for several reasons: Bowie offered the song to Mott the Hoople on the condition that they would not break up (they declined to use it but took another one of Bowie's songs); the song features a piano riff that sounds very close to a particular Little Richard song; it references the controversial 1971 movie "A Clockwork Orange" and has a stick-in-your-head line: "Wham Bam, Thank You Ma'am"(which meant whenever it was used thereafter it had lost its original meaning which came from a 1948 play "Mister Roberts", where a sailor states "Well there goes the liberty. That was sure a wham-bam-thank-you ma'am!"

"Rebel Rebel" was written in 1973 for a place in a proposed "Ziggy Stardust" musical but instead it appeared on the 1974 album, "Diamond Dogs". This song was effectively Bowie's farewell to the Glam Rock era, a genre he helped create. The song's heavy riff was played by Bowie himself (Mick Ronson, regular guitarist, had left for a solo career). He later admitted in an interview that it was a riff he learned in high school that all the local wannabe guitarists would try to master in the local music store. One night Bowie heard someone playing the riff badly in the hotel he was staying in. He followed the "music" to the room from which it was emanating, ready to teach the offender how to play the riff, but faltered when John McEnroe opened the door.

Answer: Madman is Back

The two Elton John Songs are, "Madman Across the Water", the title track from the 1971 album and "The Bitch is Back" (1974).

"Madman Across the Water" was not released as a single. (The singles from the album were "Tiny Dancer" (1971) and "Levon" (1971)). The track describes a lunatic ranting in an asylum on visiting day. The album did not chart in the UK but it was more successful in the US. One theory for the American popularity was that it was thought that Elton John was singing about Richard Nixon. Lyricist Taupin denied this, stating the protagonist was no one particular person.

"The Bitch" in the song is Elton John. The song's origins stem from a day when Elton John was finding fault with everything. Bernie Taupin's wife said, "The bitch is back". Taupin was able to write a song in a few minutes based on that one throwaway line. The song reached number one in Canada and top twenty in most other markets. It was the second single off the 1974 "Caribou" album (named after the Colorado studio where the band recorded the album). The song was controversial because of the offending word. Some stations played a version with the word blanked out which reduced the song to meaningless as the title is repeated over and over in the song. The song has been covered successfully by Lita Ford and the "Glee" cast.

Two of the incorrect answers were hybrids themselves: I Guess That's Why They Go Down On Me & Don't Let the Sun Call it the Blues translate to John's "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" (1983) and "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me (1974). The other answer is a line form Billy Joel's "You May be Right" (1980).

Answer: Absolute Oddity

The two songs are "Space Oddity" (1969) and "Absolute Beginners" (1986), both by David Bowie.

Both "Space Oddity" and Elton John's "Rocket Man" (1972) have parallels and have been compared for years because of obvious similarities, both being written at the peak time of space travel, though their sources of inspiration are different, neither of which included the landing on the moon in July of the same year. John's "Rocket Man" was inspired by a 1951 short story by Ray Bradbury called "Rocket Man" but the story was stolen (admitted songwriter Bernie Taupin) from the Pearls Before Swine's 1970 song of the same name. Bowie's "Space Oddity" was inspired by the movie "2001, A Space Odyssey", with the Bowie title being a play on the movie title (It is speculated when Bowie changed his name to avoid confusion with The Monkees' Davy Jones, he changed it to David Bowie as it was close to this movie's main character's name, Dave Bowman). The song, from Bowie's self titled 1969 debut album made top five in the UK. This was Bowie's first US top 40 hit, but it became a hit in 1972 when Bowie's first album was re-packaged as "Space Oddity" and the song was the third single released.

"Absolute Beginners" was a movie in which Bowie appeared, and this song was written as the theme song. It reached number two in the UK but did not make the top forty in the US. There are various versions of this song recorded for subsequent compilation packages.

The other answer options are all hybrid versions of Billy Joel's "Big Shot" (1978) and Elton John's "Empty Garden" (1982), full title "Empty Garden (Hey, Hey Johnny) from 1982's "Jump Up" album. This song is a tribute to John Lennon who was killed 18 months earlier.

Answer: Ziggy Sane

The two songs are Aladdin Sane" (1973) (Full title "Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)") and "Ziggy Stardust" (1971).

"Ziggy Stardust" was the title track from Bowie's 1972 album, "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" where Bowie undertook the persona of alter-ego alien rock star Ziggy Stardust. The album was revered as one of the most acclaimed albums of the 20th century. The song was not released as a single but was widely played on radio anyway.

"Aladdin Sane" was the follow-up album (1973), the title being a pun on " A Lad Insane" due to the shocked reaction to the previous album by some Americans when it was released. The song's sub-title refers to Bowie believing that the world was on the edge of war, which is evident in the lyrics. When writing the song, Bowie was inspired by Evelyn Waugh's 1930 novel "The Vile Bodies" which describes the young people who lived between the two world wars and their decadent lifestyles.

From the other answers, there are two Elton John songs hybridised onto a Bowie hybrid. "Levon" (1971) and Daniel" 1973) were both popular singles:

Answer: "Goodbye Saigon" by Elton Joel

The two songs are "Goodnight Saigon" (1982) by Billy Joel and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (1972) by Elton John.

"Goodnight Saigon" was a unique song for Billy Joel as, at this time he had not written a political song nor served in the military. However a veteran's group asked him if he would write a song to honour the fallen in the Vietnam War. Billy obliged. The resulting song has some unusual features: Use of the collective "we" rather than " I" to reflect the camaraderie of the Marines as they prepared for war; the use of multiple voices to sing the line in the chorus; "We will all go down together" to emphasise bonding; it features pop culture items of the day to ensure the song is a personal story rather than a political comment and helicopter sound effects at the beginning and end of the song add to the symbolism of the Vietnam War.

"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is a single from the album of the same name released in 1973. John's seventh album is the best known of all Elton John albums selling over 30 million copies and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003. The song was the second single from the album and outsold the previous single, "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" (1973). Because of its "Wizard of Oz" imagery, the song was rumoured to be about Judy Garland but songwriter Taupin stated in an interview it was about the excesses of stardom (John) while some (Taupin) preferred to live a low key lifestyle, "You can't plant me in your penthouse, I'm going back to my plough".

The other options were a 1973 Slade song, a 1988 Supertramp song and a 1987 Robin Williams' movie.

Answer: David Bowie and Queen / Billy Joel

The two songs are "Under Pressure" by Queen with David Bowie (1981) and "Pressure" (1982) by Billy Joel.

"Under Pressure" resulted from Bowie and Queen being in the same recording studio at the same time. Queen had already started on the song when they invited Bowie to join them. Things were not as congenial as expected: there were robust discussions between Freddie Mercury and Bowie. In the end, this song was credited as Queen's second number one hit. (The first was 1976's "Bohemian Rhapsody" but there were a lot of notable hits in-between).

"Pressure" was a top twenty single from Joel's "Nylon Curtain" (1982) album. The song is about a person suffering from the pressures of modern life. It is unusual for two reasons: the song is sung in the second person, and, it is a rock song without hardly any guitar. The feeling of paranoia is driven by the relentless drive of the synthesiser.

Answer: "Girl Girl Girl" by Billy David Elton

The three songs involved are "Uptown Girl" (1993) by Billy Joel, Bowie's "China Girl" (1977), and Elton John's "Island Girl" (1975).

"Uptown Girl" ia about Christine Brinkley, a supermodel Joel married for nine years, but two years after he wrote the song. He was going out with Elle McPherson at the time of writing. He explained in a 2006 Australian TV interview that the song was originally called "Uptown Girls" and it was about Joel's incredibility that a working class guy like himself could be made into a rock star and therefore suddenly attract beautiful women. The finished song, though, was just about Brinkley. The song is a tribute to Frankie Valli as the song has a 60s motif to the music. It was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic but it was Joel's first UK number one.

"China Girl" (1977) was written by David Bowie and Iggy Pop and appeared first on Pop's 1977 album, "The Idiot". Bowie added the riff that is a parody of Chinese music and then it became a huge hit for Bowie as was part of the "Let's Dance" (1983) album and single. The song is about Chinese culture being corrupted by western materialism and superficiality. Paul Trynka, Bowie's biographer claims the song is inspired by Iggy Pop's obsession with Kuelan Nguyen, a Vietnamese model. In the Bowie version, the model for the video was New Zealand waitress Geeling Ng who dated Bowie after the clip was shot, and became famous in her own right, thereafter.

Island Girl" is a song about a Jamaican prostitute in New York City and a Jamaican man who wants to take her back to her homeland. Despite the big city setting, the music had a Caribbean feel with a highly strung guitar, heavy bass line, marimbas and gospel-like keyboards. The song went to number one in the US and Australia and top twenty in the UK. This was the only hit from the 1975 album "Rock of the Westies", which itself debuted at number one in the US, emulating the feat of the previous album, "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" (1975).