Your Humble Blogger has come up with another Encore Alphabet, so get your thinking caps on. Or, rather, your remembering caps, I suppose. Whatever cap you think best.
Y'all remember the rules?
Score: For each word on the list, YHB has in mind one and only one song that contains the word. Gentle Readers (as a team) get one Bragging Unit for each time y’all come up with the song I thought of, but you get two Bragging Units each time you come up with a song I didn’t think of. Up to a maximum of five Bragging Units per word. YHB gets two Bragging Units for having come up with the list. For every word on the list that y’all blank on, I get two more Bragging Units. For any word that y’all can’t come up with any other song than the one I had in mind, I get one Bragging Unit. Any Gentle Reader who posts his or her own list gets two Bragging Units. Jed gets two Bragging Units for having come up with the game. Any Gentle Reader who has never posted before and posts a guess gets one extra Bragging Unit. Any Gentle Reader who is able to identify an instance where YHB has screwed up the lyrics again gets one Bragging Unit.
MFQ Rules: You don’t have to know the name of the song, but you have to be able to sing (or in this case type) a chunk of the lyric containing the word. It’s better if you sing that chunk of lyric out loud, though, whilst typing. Eight words is the canonical minimum chunk for the Encore parlor game. If you get the lyrics wrong from memory (as I did four of my guesses over yonder), there will be Scorn and Derision, but you will still get your Bragging Units. Don’t just make up shit up, please, and if you do, make it worthwhile. Within that construct, I’m going to rule that songs written by Gentle Readers are not eligible, even if you realio trulio wrote a song with that word in the lyric five years ago. I mean, if you did, let me know, because that’s a whole separate set of Bragging Units. All the songs are primarily in the English Language; no score for translations and multilingual puns, except, you know, anyone who does something really clever gets one Bragging Unit and one S&D unit.
The List: I'll try to keep this up-to-date. If a word is in bold, nobody has come up with nothing. If a word is in italics, at least one Gentle Reader has come up with at least one song containing it. If a word is struck through, some Gentle Reader has come up with the song that YHB was thinking of. If a word is both italicized and struck through, then y'all have maxed out the five BUs available.
One more thing: Last time y'all beat me by one point, 33 to 32. So I tried to make it a little more difficult this time. Remember, though, that there are 5 BUs available to GRs for each letter; if y'all get the word I was thinking of and stop, we each get one point, but if you come up with different songs, you get 2 points for each of two songs, and I get zippo. I think you guys can beat fifty easily, even on this harder alphabet, so I'm giving myself a 10BU bonus for having come up with a second list. And this time, I'm going to see if keeping track of the points improves the MFQ.
- Arapaho
Bullhorn- Clerical
- Duplicitous
- Eucalyptus
- Furrows
Gelignite- Hindsight
Innuendos- Jumper
- Kneel
- Lagers
MotorcarNucleiObserving- Pettiness
- Quickest
Reassuringly- Sugar-daddies
Tantric- Undefended
- Vacant
- Warmer
Xavier- Yacht
- Zucchini
Current Score: YHB 47, GR 20.
Oh, and please note that plurals count—no points for lager instead of lagers or yachts for yacht.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Bullhorn: Boomtown Rats, I Don’t Like Mondays “And then the bullhorn crackles and the captain tackles…”
Innuendos: Goody Two Shoes “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do? Subtle innuendos follow: must be something inside”
Kneel: U2, Mysterious Ways “If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel”
Yacht: from Cabaret, Money (Makes the World Go Around) “…take some time to recover on your 14 karat yacht…”
I presume that, if I think of a song that I’m positive contains the word, but I can’t remember the lyric, I’m not allowed to go look it up, yes?
To clarify: I think that having y’all look up lyrics wouldn’t be much of a triumph for you. However, I very much think of Gentle Readers as being a team in this, so there is certainly no Scorn or Derision for posting something like “isn’t there something about a bullhorn in that song from Ragtime where they are watching the ballgame?”
I mean, except if there isn’t, in which case, yes, Scorn and Derision. But if there is, and somebody knows the lyric, then Bragging Units for GRs! And extra fun, too, I’m thinking.
Thanks,
-V.
Yacht (again): Carly Simon, You’re so vain “You walked in to the party like you were walking onto a yacht”. Unless I’m remembering it wrong. And yes, far too much of my brain is filled with lyrics to 80s music.
Jumper: trad., Fiddler’s Green “Dress me up in me oilskins and jumper, no more on the docks I’ll be seen.”
Well, maybe these will jog someone’s memory (or maybe I’m opening myself up for Scorn & Derision, but we shall see):
I’m pretty sure nuclei must be in one of the most recent TMBG kids’ songs about science.
And furrows is making me think Stan Rogers, that song about his grandfather who farmed.
And I don’t remember the lyrics from “Inch by Inch, Row by Row” well enough to recall whether it’s zucchini or zucchinis.
I can’t do the lyrics, but there’s the Rufus Xavier Sasparilla song from Schoolhouse Rock.
I have to imagine that the Pogues have something about “lagers” somewhere… I had the same thought as Nao about “nuclei” also, but don’t know those songs.
Attempting to post via wifi from my pocket computer, since I thought of one while walking.
Observing: Bob Marley, No Woman No Cry, “.. observing the hypocrites mingle with the good people we meet”
They Might Be Giants, Mammal
So the warm blood flows
With the red blood cells
Bearing nuclei
To the large four-chambered heart
Maintaining the very high
Metabolism rate they have
The Garden Song has zucchinis rather than zucchini. So that one doesn’t work.
Sunburned nose, skinned-up knees
The kitchen’s filled with zucchinis
“Ah me, treat the gelignite tenderly/I’m having dreams about things not going right/Let’s leave in plenty of time tonight.”
There Goes a Tenner by Kate Bush
Now, I have a friend named Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla, I could say that Rufus found a kangaroo that followed Rufus home and now that kangaroo belongs to Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla.
Whew! I could say that, but I don’t have to, because of pronouns, I can say, “HE found a kangaroo that followed HIM home and now IT is HIS”
Why do I always know the ones where I don’t like the band or the song? Last year it was Butthole Surfers or Bloodhound Gang or something for X-Files, this year it’s the Barenaked Ladies singing, “Like Sting, I’m tantric.”
Two weeks, two days, or something. Till I’m sorry.
The Barenaked Ladies song is called “One Week”. It’s funny — I saw “tantric” and immediately thought of Sting, but that got me reviewing Sting songs in my mind. Oh well.
OK, this is a total gimme, but here you go. I’m pretty sure that in the song “Younger Than Springtime” from The Sound of Music there’s another line that’s “warmer than” something. Sunshine? Somebody must know this show….
Okay, signing up for scorn and derision here, if i’m wrong: doesn’t someone in “Penny Lane” have a motorcar? Maybe the banker?
(And, yes, after coming up with and singing to myself the entirety of TMBG’s “A Self Called Nowhere”, only to discover that it’s an empty parking lot, not a vacant one, i realise i don’t actually know all the lyrics to “Penny Lane”. Some days are just like that.)
Okay, before i go look it up, i am going to just declare that the banker has a motorcar, that the little children laugh at him behind his back, and that he always wears a mack in the pouring rain, so that we are all set bragging-rights-wise if i’m right.
…never is kind of like always. I will stop blog-spamming now.
Hmm. I will not stop spamming, because i’d like a ruling on whether rounds count as songs. Always? Only if recorded by Libana? Never?
I ask because, if i recall correctly, Vivaldi was the quickest of men, and something-music-related-or-other flowed from his vigorous pen.
Isn’t “Younger than Springtime” from South Pacific? And despite the fact that it’s one of the few musicals I listened to a lot as a child, I don’t remember the lyric in question. Aargh!
And now I’ve got that song about how kids are taught racism going through my head. That’s no help.
I am pretty sure that I have either sung the round about Vivaldi or heard it at a roundsing. Is that good enough?
Stephen has just located the Vivaldi in one of our Swarthmore Roundsinging lyric sheets. (We figured that since someone had already posted the lyric, looking it up for confirmation would be ok.)
I am not bullshitting you. However, the only hit for the Vivaldi round is the Swarthmore rounds book, which attributes it as music: Gene McBride, words: David Goldstein. I don’t recognize those names immediately, but it’s possible that they’re Swat-specific.
And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly…
(American Tune)
Now there’s a boat, no it’s a yacht,
Got a helicopter pad, it’s huge, it’s worth … a lot!
(When I Win, by Gaelic Storm)
“We’re a Couple of Swells” from Easter Parade, sung by Judy Garland and Fred Astaire,
“We would yacht down the avenue / But we haven’t any yacht. / So we’ll walk down the avenue, / Yes we’ll walk down the avenu, / Yes we’ll walk down the avenue / Till we’re there.
Chris Cobb
Oops. I see from the preceding post that “yacht” has maxed out, although it is not yet crossed out on the list. Please disregard. I should have guessed that any word common enough for me to know a song containing the lyric would have quickly closed out. Back to work, then.
Indeed, you are right, and “Younger Than Springtime” is from South Pacific.
OK, it’s hint time. By my count there are thirteen words remaining, YHB having stumped y’all on half the alphabet. Here’s a list of the performers associated with the songs I have in mind for those words: Boomtown Rats (yes, a different song), Johnny Cash, Tim Curry, Dire Straits, Ian Dury, Bob Dylan, Eurythmics, REM, Steeleye Span, Talking Heads, Tom Waits, Dar Williams. That is twelve (I hope), as one is responsible for two songs remaining on the list.
I am not including the four words—Jumper, Kneel, Quickest and Yacht—where y’all got a different song but not (yet) the song I’m thinking of. I can provide those, if you like.
Also… was this too hard? Would MFQ be higher if I didn’t put as much effort into obscurity? I don’t think any of the songs are completely obscure (as witness the list of associated performers) but I did try to, you know, win. But if I do another one, perhaps I should try a trifle less hard? Go for amusement rather than difficulty? Was this less fun than the last one, or more?
Thanks,
-V.
Stephen remembered “furrows”
Furrows: Steeleye Span (really trad.), John Barleycorn “They laid him in three furrows deep, laid clods upon his head.”
I think the MFQ is pretty good, the difficulty being that my listening habits don’t overlap very much with yours.
I had fun anyway.
The Yetties, Banks of Newfoundland (trad):
You bully boys of Liverpool,
I’ll have you all beware.
For if you go on a packet ship
No dungaree jumper wear.
But have a big monkey jacket
Always at your command
For there blow some cold Nor’westers on
The Banks of Newfoundland
I think that’s their lyric, anyway.
I’d be willing to bet that clerical belongs in the phrase “clerical collar”, but I don’t have any surrounding lyrics. It reminds me of a Elvis Costello song, but I see he’s not on the list.
Aargh. Where did I hear that song?
I ran across furrows in a Christmas carol last night, but now can’t remember which one… anyone?
Thank y’all for playing! This edition of Online Encore is now ended, according to statute, custom and law. Which means I’ve posted the answers.
Thanks,
-V.