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...

Title Fight #3: Parkas, Police & Replacements

We're back with more song titles that did their job - made me give the associated tune a little more attention. Which catches your eye... and does it also catch your ear?

1. I See Hawks In LA - My Parka Saved Me

One of the tricks writers use to engage our interest, I tell my rapt* students, is to create questions in the reader's mind. A really good title or opening line will do this. This song title caught my attention, and pleasingly the story that went along with it lived up to my expectations. Great opening line too!

I got stoned after breaking up with my boyfriend
And he became a Born Again Christian

I See Hawks In LA are from Los Angeles, where clearly they keep their eyes to the skies, and their tongues firmly in their cheeks. 

(*I like to imagine all my students are rapt, even if they're not.)

2. The Panic Brothers - I've Forgotten What It Is That I Was Drinking to Forget

Here's a recommendation from Martin, and funnily enough, it's a band he introduced me to many moons ago. I liked them so much, I bought the CD, as Victor Kiam might have said if he'd been a music blogger rather than a silver haired, razor blade hawking huckster.

3. Gene - The Police Will Never Find You 

Not that I'm going out of my way to be mean to Martin, but he's going to have a tough decision this week when it comes to selecting his favourite tune. Will it be the one he put forward... or this, from one of his favourite bands?

I'm a huge Gene fan, but they never presented themselves as tough guys, so when they released their third album in 1999, it was quite a shock to see them getting seriously menacing, with both this and the final track, You'll Never Walk Again.  

Perhaps the reason I liked these two song titles so much (particularly coming from a bunch of fey milksops like Gene) was that they reminded me of the time I got beaten up by some thugs in high school and made the mistake of shouting up at them, from the playground where I lay, "you'll never know my ultimate strength!" This is what reading too many Spider-Mam comics at an impressionable age will do to you. Oh, how we they laughed.

4. Frank Zappa - My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama

I might as well get the father of Dweezil, Moon Unit, Ahmet and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen out of the way, since when it comes to wacky song titles, he's up there with the best of them. So many to choose from, including What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?,  Son Of Suzy Creamcheese, and, of course, Don't Eat The Yellow Snow. By comparison, My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama seems quite tame, but it's the one I went for.

5. Sandra's Wedding - The Hopeful Boy Replacement Service

As usual, we close with a contemporary tune. This one's from a band that the ever-reliable John Medd turned me onto earlier this year. Sandra's Wedding come from Goole, because somebody has to, and they've amassed quite the back catalogue of wry, witty, observational tunes that bring to mind Paul Heaton at his best. This one, the title track from their latest album, was irresistible, taking me right back to my teens. It's the sort of song Stephen Duffy might have written back in those glorious days of yore. Shades of Stuart Murdoch too.