Snapshots #354: A Top Twenty Olympic Sport Songs

Welcome to our special Olympics 2024 edition of Snapshots. I hope you got to see all the events...

20. The perpetrators in a murder mystery.

Everybody likes to know Whodunit.

The Who - Relay

19. Do you want ketchup on your ribs?

Redbone - Cycles

18. Would you buy a Z, never worn, even if it was reupholstered?

"A Z, never worn" was an anagram...

Warren Zevon - Hit Someone! (The Hockey Song)

17. This quiz would be impossible without them.

The Photos - Skateboard

16. Ice, Double, Sour.

Cream - Anyone For Tennis?

15. Bulloch, betrothed.

Sandra Bulloch, at her wedding.

Sandra's Wedding - Humberside Gymnastics

14. Don't get stuck behind these guys.

Caravan - Golf Girl

13. And definitely try not to get mixed up with a flirty swot.

"A flirty swot" was an anagram...

Taylor Swift - The Archer

12. Corn-selling sidekick, made in sections to allow for easy assembly.

Sprout was the Green Giant's annoying sidekick. Prefab houses are as described.

Prefab Sprout - I Never Play Basketball Now

11. What Billy Ocean wanted to be.

Billy Ocean wanted to be your love, lover, Loverboy.

Loverboy - Jump

10. Stairway drummer's best friend sings little bits of a Police song.

John "Bonzo" Bonham was the drummer on Stairway To Heaven. Man's Best Friend is a dog. The Police sang De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.

Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band - The Equestrian Statue

9. Sounds like a football team made up of playful birds put out to pasture.

That sounds like the Meadowlark Eleven.

Medalark 11 - Diving

8. Buried antler covers.

Antlers are often covered in velvet. And these are underground.

The Velvet Underground - Coney Island Steeplechase

7. Scottish detective guilty of regicide with an Osprey.

Hamish Macbeth & his pet hawk.

Hamish Hawk - The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973

6. Biko rubs elf... he's clearly mixed up. Fortunately, Gene and Bruce can help. 

"Biko rubs elf" was an anagram. Gene Kelly meets Bruce Willis.

Robbie Fulks & Kelly Willis - Parallel Bars

5. The doctor gave me some flu lubricants - they contained everything I needed.

Flu lubricants.

Lulu - The Boat That I Row

4. Unwelcome visitors.

The Intruders - (Love Is Like A) Baseball Game

3. Mary, Queen of Scots goes fishing. 

Mary, Queen of Scots was a Stuart. She'll need a Rod to go fishing.

Rod Stewart - Sailing

2. Blur kept him under pressure, but he managed.

Blur put Pressure On Julian. But he was able to Cope. 

Julian Cope - Trampolene

That's not how I'd spell trampoline.

1. You'll find these guys nested in a baseball. 

"Nested in a baseball" was an anagram...

Belle & Sebastian - The Stars Of Track & Field

More Olympics tunes tomorrow, in a special Snapshots Spillover.

The quiz returns next Saturday...

My Top Ten Caravan Songs

Apologies for the dearth of Top Tens over the last couple of weeks. May is the busiest month in teaching - the GCSE English exam is just over a week away as I type this and so things have been pretty hectic for me (not that my students seem unduly concerned by its imminence).

Anyway, it's a Bank Holiday Weekend here in the UK, and across the country folk are dusting down their caravans and heading off to seek the sun. Here's ten songs they might play on the way.

Special mentions to Caravan*  and the mighty, mighty Camper Van Beethoven.

(*A curious psych-folk band with a very dubious taste in album titles: Cunning Stunts, For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night and If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You. Ah, the 70s. Different times.)



10. Blur - Caravan

I'm glad Blur finally got their act together and brought out a new album this year. I've only listened to it a few times, but I already know it's better than their last, Graham Coxon-less, effort, 2003's Think Tank. Caravan comes from that record, and like most of the rest of the album, it sorely misses Coxo's guitar.

9. Black Sabbath - Planet Caravan

Normally, if you went on holiday and ended up parking your caravan next to Ozzy & co., you'd very quickly move somewhere quieter. However, you might stick around if all they played was this trippy psychedelic number. Not at all what you expect from the BS Boys...

8. Courtney Barnett - Kim's Caravan

A haunting, mesmeric ode to our dying world from the Australian wunderkind's debut album, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. (Great title.)

7. The Adventure Babies - Camper Van

A lost indie gem from the last band to sign to Factory records before they went bust in the early 90s. The EP this came from is available to download free from the band's website.

6. Ella Fitzgerald & The Duke Ellington Orchestra - Caravan

Wow.

5. Van Morrison - Caravan

Van The Man and his Caravan. CaraVan The Man. Etc.

Timeless.

4. The Doors - Spanish Caravan

See, the Doors weren't all portentous doom, Oedipal urges and Viet Nam. They liked to travel round Europe in a caravan with a flamenco guitar too.

3. Jim White - If Jesus Drove A Motor Home

If Jesus drove a motor home,
And he come to your town,
Would you try to talk to him?
Would you follow him around?
Honking horns at the drive thru.
Double-parking at the mall.
Midnight at the Waffle House...
Jesus eating eggs with ya'll.

Well, would you?

2. Inspiral Carpets - Caravan

Can't go wrong with a bit of Clint Boon's majestic organ.

1. The Housemartins - Caravan of Love

Christmas 1986, and fourteen year old Rol stands on the edge of the dancefloor at the school disco wondering if anyone will ever slow dance with him to the Housemartins' a capella cover of the Isley Jasper Isley song Caravan of Love.

No one ever did.





So... which one will you get stuck behind on the motorway?