Today's challenge is for the musically hearty only. That said, I'm reasonably confident at least one old friend will throw his hat in the ring if he happens to read this post. This friend is ... 1.) the undisputed world's greatest non-musician music geek i.e., his insatiable lust has translated into a digital library with over 20,000 tunes and ... 2.) the person who first planted today's deranged notion in my head in May of 2022. First, just a few, ahem, notes.
* I've limited the challenge to ten tunes even though I collected twenty-five over the eighteen months since my friend suggested a post like this. Consider yourself fortunate I limit the length of my blog posts. If you had any idea how many of my driving hours were occupied as I compiled a master list in my head, you might want to recommend medication.
* For those who like keeping track, the scoring rubric for the challenge is at the bottom of the post. The song list itself is ordered by level of difficulty, easiest to most difficult. Only one recording artist is represented twice.
* As always, using Google (etc.) is cheating. We're on the honor system here.
Identify the artist who had the biggest hit with each of the following song titles. I've purposefully concatenated this ludicrous list to help you appreciate how pop songwriters have planted nonsensical ear worms into our heads for decades. Are you ready?
Tutti Frutti - Da Do Ron Ron - Mony Mony - Da Doo Doo Doo Da Dah Dah Dah - Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Papa Ooo Mow Mow - Be Bop A Lula - Sha La La - Bony Moronie - Bim Bam Boom.
Scoring Rubric: 1-3 correct = Congratulations, unlike me, you haven't wasted much precious brain space by allowing useless flotsam like this to reside in your memory. 4-7 correct = Caution, your conversations with others may be occasionally at risk. 8-10 correct = Danger, your social circle could soon end up being limited to just my geeky non-musician friend and me. Final caveat: If you noticed the song title preceding that list of lyrical gobbley-gook, or even worse, you know who recorded that one hit wonder, you're in serious trouble, socially.
My brain must be totally fried and full of gobbley-gook because I can easily tell who was the original artist for each of these songs.
ReplyDeleteBut in order to make this more fun for your other readers who may not have their heads crammed full of nonsense such as this, I am going to hold off answering this so others can chime in.
But in the meantime, I offer up a ten more gems for you and your readers to ponder, some are easy and others will require using some additional grey matter:
Sh-Boom
Flip, Flap, Fly
Diddy Way Diddy
Ooby Dooby
Yakety Yak
Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop
Rama Lama Ding Dong
Wooly Bully
Goo Goo Muck
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
And this is one that everyone should know:
Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da
Chris; Thank you for not playing the spoiler. Since you were the one who got my addled brain started on this garbage 18 months ago (darn you, anyway!), I appreciate your restraint. Now about your other ten. You probably won't be surprised to know I had them all on my list of 25 EXCEPT for "Flip, Flap, Fly" which can't be counted because all three of those are real words. BTW, "Wooly Bully" is also on the edge because "wooly" is an actual word as well but I'll let you slide on that one. Final items, geek-man: I notice you did identify the artist who did "Are You Ready" AND you also missed a second (more sneaky) chance identifying the artist who did the title song of this incredibly frivolous post. OK, now's your chance to really show off - no Googling!!
DeleteChris (part 2); Meant to say you did NOT identify artist who did "Are You Ready". No Googling!
DeleteYou got me on "Ooo Poo Pah Do". I am not familiar with that tune.
DeleteAnd by the way, the song by the Police is actually "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" and Sting wrote it as a comment on how people love simple-sounding songs claiming the banality of song lyrics such as "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and how people especially politicians use words to manipulate people and that you should be careful in what you say. His son supposedly is the one who came up with words. :)
DeleteChris; OK, did you purposefully overlook my reference - in the post itself or my replies to you (parts 1& 2 above) - about the artist who did "Are You Ready" because you are ashamed? Or, could it be that you are so chastened about never having heard Cake's classic - that would be Ooo Poo Pah Do - that you are afraid of letting me down two times? Either way, thanks for the spelling correction and other piece of completely useless trivia about the Police song. You are my (perverse) non-musician hero, without a doubt.
DeleteSo I’ll give these a shot: Little Richard. The Ronettes (sounds like something they’d sing in one of those over-produced Phil Spector opuses), or possibly The Crystals. Tommy James. One of my favorite groups, The Police. Manfred Mann. The Rivingtons (older cousins played this ALL the time!). Gene Vincent. Guessing here-The Shirelles. Larry Williams. Nope, not a clue 😄. A lot of fun! Let us geeks RULE!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous; Because of your geeky savvy, I have only this to say: Get a hobby. If I know you - and I suspect I do - be sure to not let anyone know we're acquainted because - like me - you are clearly in danger land. Your final tally (IF you didn't use Google) = 8 1/2 out of ten. It was indeed the Crystals (not the Ronettes), and you also missed #10, by far the most obscure tune on the list. But I'm being perversely generous giving you 1/2 credit for the Shirelles on "Sha-La-La" because they did it before Manfred Mann had a bigger hit with that same tune several years later. A bit of advice: Don't tell your family about your score; they'll begin to worry about you.
DeleteAnonymous belongs in the useless information geek club along with you and I.
DeleteToo late! My family already know of my “geekiness”, especially when it comes to music 😂. Proud to be a member of the Useless Information Geek Club!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, part 2; If Chris says you have earned admittance to our club, I am truly sorry for you AND your family. Secret handshake and code ring are available upon request. May God have mercy on your soul. Ring Dang Do and Do Wacka Do and out.
DeleteGood morning, Pat. I'm not even going to try to compete with the responses you've already received on this fun subject. But it did get my mind wandering and I wanted to add one song that I have to thank my parents musical influence on me for, as they started me listening to the Big Bands. So, in honor of them and that era I want to add another funny sounding song title to your list ... Mairzy Doats by The Merry Macs (1944). I know I've deviated greatly from the meaning of this blog post, but the song popped in my head while reading the post so ... Please forgive me
ReplyDeleteBe well,
Bob
Bob (hat trick for the day); Wise choice staying out of the running for this post's frivolous adventure; some stiff competition here. In any case, I too recall "Mairzy Doats" from my parent's era. And though it doesn't quite fit the intent of this post, it's still silly enough to be in the same ballpark. Thanks for the reminder. Merry Macs, huh? Now, there's something useless to store in my addled brain.
Delete