h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I posted one of these over on my other blog, but I liked it so much that I wanted to do it again, so sorry if you've seen it already, but I bet most of you haven't, with the possible exception of Wyatt, who successfully guessed half the answers.

Here's the deal: I put my music library on shuffle, and write down the first lines of the first 25 songs that come up. Based on those first lines, you guess the name of the song and the artist. We all have fun and I get to show off my music collection. And then you can all do this in your own journals and show off your music!

1. Look what's happening on the streets/Got a revolution, got a revolution!
2. You sit all night, you never buy/That's a lie, that's a lie...
3. Slow down, you move too fast/try to make the moment last...
4. We starve, look at one another/short of breath, walking proudly in our winter coats...
5. Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men?
6. All our times have come/Feared but now they're gone...
7. Donald's come up the hill, hard and hungry...
8. She asks me why/I'm just a hairy guy...
9. As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day...
10. There's something happening here/What it is ain't exactly clear...
11. I was skirtin' around at a place called the Jug, with a girl named Linda Lou...
12. And it's go, boys, go, they'll time your every breath...
13. Once again with the tide she slips her lines, turns her head and comes awake...
14. Ground control to Major Tom...
15. Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming, we're finally on our own...
16. Spanish songs in Andalucia, the shooting sites in the days of '39...
17. As soon as you're born, they make you feel small...
18. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, 525,600 moments, oh dear...
19. The Eastern world, it is exploding/violence flaring, and bullets loading...
20. Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio...
21. When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars...
22. When the truth is found to be lies/and all of the joy within you dies...
23. So, so you think you could tell/Heaven from Hell...
24. Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again...
25. You walked out when I asked you to stay/As usual, you'll get your way...

Just keeping to the ones I'm sure of :

3. 59th St Bridge Song - Simon+Garfunkel
6. Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
10. For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
14. Space Oddity - David Bowie
23. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
24. The Sound of Silence - Simon+Garfunkel

Other than the one's already guessed -

20. We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel?
21. Age of Aquarius from 'Hair'

Hi EMR

Off the top of my head:
1. Jefferson Airplane
2. Nick Choo or Chow or something - got a Christian friend who plays his stuff?
3. Simon & Garfunkel
4. Hair.
5. Les Mis'
6. Something Biblical, sounds like Isaiah (I'll have to cross ref against the Skeptics Annotated Bible).
7. Old Jacobite Marching song - last heard this at a Kincaid Rising moot at Culloden Moor.
8. Hair, again (gone tomorrow)
9. Bread and Roses - James Oppenheim, do you parents know you listen to revolutionary marching songs?
10. Buffalo Springfield
11. ?
12. Ron Angel - The ICI Song - you are a revolutionary.
13. Stan Rogers
14. David Bowie
15. Neil Young
16. Not sure, but it is about the Spanish Civil War
17. John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band
18. Some musical my mother plays but I cannot remember at the moment...
19. Barry Maguire - you been raiding your mum's LP collection?
20. Madonna
21. Fifth Dimension - the happy hippies, you have been raiding your mum's LP collection?
22. Jefferson Airplane - Grace Slick to be precise
23. Pink Floyd
24. Simon & Garfunkel...again
25. My eldest tells me this is by 'Guster', sounds pretty dreary to me.

So you are a sub-20, prog rock and revolutionary songs fanatic with a wistful hippy longing. Sounds like a druid to me

Blessings,
Matholwch .

16. Spanish bombs - the Clash
17. Working Class Hero - John Lennon

I think 15 is a Neil Young song, but I can't remember which

3. Feeling Groovy

14. Space Oddity

21. Aquarius

24. The Sound of Silence




sorry my brain fused on the others

I think no. 20 could be Vogue by Madonna.

A lot of my life seems to involve trying to discover lyrics that I didn't understand or misheard. Is the a post about mondegreens? Suppose I could start one - e.g `Excuse me while I kiss this guy (the sky)', which Jimi Hendrix started to enact for the people who had misunderstood the original lyrics).

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are really good at being incomprehensible. Who isn't?

I got

3
14
17
19
20
21
24

sadly, people also got them b4 me, so damn

Very good, UG Archivist (is that Pin?), Matt, Rich, lil and tjm. As you see, Goldylock and Math, 20 was "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel.

Math, good on many of the artists, but how about the song titles? Bread and Roses is correct, and yes my parents know I listen to revolutionary marching songs. My mother introduced me to most of them - Bread and Roses was originally a song of the women's lib movement. Right on the ICI Song, too, though I have it as "The Chemical Workers' Song" by Great Big Sea. And the last is Guster, probably the most current band in that list - it's a terrific song and one of the songs my band covered, back when it existed, so it's got a lot of sentimental value.

Here's what's left to guess song names of:

1. Look what's happening on the streets/Got a revolution, got a revolution!
2. You sit all night, you never buy/That's a lie, that's a lie...
4. We starve, look at one another/short of breath, walking proudly in our winter coats...
5. Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men?
7. Donald's come up the hill, hard and hungry...
8. She asks me why/I'm just a hairy guy...
11. I was skirtin' around at a place called the Jug, with a girl named Linda Lou...
12. And it's go, boys, go, they'll time your every breath...
13. Once again with the tide she slips her lines, turns her head and comes awake...
15. Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming, we're finally on our own...
18. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, 525,000 moments, oh dear...
19. The Eastern world, it is exploding/violence flaring, and bullets loading...
22. When the truth is found to be lies/and all of the joy within you dies...
25. You walked out when I asked you to stay/As usual, you'll get your way...

Yeah, it's Pin.

We can name shows featuring the song rather than the recording artist, then?

In that case, and at the cost of my (small) store of remaining cred, I've got another.

18. Seasons of Love - from Rent.

Eve of Destruction is no. 19 by Barry Macguire

Got it!

*looks around for Jodan*

15 is Ohio, by Neil Young. I'll be able to sleep tonight now

Correct, all three!

What they all said.

Shame on you for having Billy Joel on your machine, though. Apparently he wrote that as a riposte to punk, and specifically to The Jam's 'This Is The Modern World'.

I've a couple of recent music-related posts on my blog, if you want to trek on over...

I'm sorry, did you just diss Billy Joel? And specifically We Didn't Start The Fire? Get out.

I only wish I'd thought of it when I posted this: http://bonoboworld.blogspot.com/2007/02/song-remains-inane.html

(And I really should have added *something* by Radiohead, too).

Describing Marilyn Monroe as "not particularly noteworthy" is somewhat akin to calling the assassination of Martin Luther King "a small incident."

"People's Princess my arse" - much more agreeable.

So you're saying you hate 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Imagine' and 'We Didn't Start the Fire', a few of the greatest songs ever written? You, sir, make me want to vomit. Good day to you.

I am a huge Queen fan, or rather fan of Queen before anybody gets the wrong ideas, but even I can see how you'd hate Bo Rhap. I mean it is lovely piece of pomp fun with lots of merit to it. But say it wans't your thing, imagine how much you'd be forced to listen to it for the previous 30 years, and at 5:54 a pop, it's not easy to escape.

We Didn't Start The Fire on the otherhand, I'm waiting for a new band to do an updated one, pick up from where Mr. Joel left off.