Name That Tune

It's Over!
You all got a solid 90% of them. Answers below...





Here are twenty short clips, from twenty different songs, from twenty different artists. The common theme is: these are all songs I've rated 5 stars in iTunes.

Name them : artist and song title.

Clip #1 Blondie - Dreaming [russel]
Clip #2 U2- Wire [russel]
Clip #3 Smashing Pumpkins - I Am One [dbati/tbati]
Clip #4 Spoon - Anything You Want [dbati/tbati]
Clip #5 Dino Jr. - Freak Scene [dbati/tbati]
Clip #6 Led Zeppelin - Heartbreaker [Eric Martin]
Clip #7 Shins - Turn A Square [dbati/tbati]
Clip #8 Replacements - Favorite Thing [russel]
Clip #9 Rolling Stones - Happy [neddie jingo]
Clip #10 REM - Little America [dbati/tbati]
Clip #11 Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes [russel]
Clip #12 Elliot Smith - Waltz #2
Clip #13 Yo La Tengo - Tom Courtenay [dbati/tbati]
Clip #14 Paul Simon - Kodachrome [russel]
Clip #15 Pavement - AT&T
Clip #16 The Cure - Close To Me [neddie jingo]
Clip #17 Jimi Hendrix - Red House [neddie jingo]
Clip #18 Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia [russel]
Clip #19 Pretenders - Mystery Achievement [neddie jingo]
Clip #20 David Bowie - Fashion [dbati/tbati]

Hints (I'll post new hints every day as the mood strikes me.)

  • More than half of them come from these 100 albums.
  • #1 : 1979, and it's free. Dagwood's wife?
  • #2 : Not as unforgettable as I thought ? You, too ?
  • #6 : 
    D:-------|-----------0--1-2---
A:-------|---0--3~------------
E:--3b---|------------------3b
  • #8 : Minneapolis. Drunk. Let It Be?
  • #11 : He wants to drill a tiny hole into your head, with his looped violins, and the whistling.
  • #12 : it's in 3/4 time. RIP. XO. #2
  • #14 : hint. Nikon Camera?
  • #15 : Whenevah, whenevah, whenevah, whenevah . Not Verizon. Pre-Jicks.
  • #18 : Sister, he's singing the title of the song! Thurston?

Leave your answers in comments. I'll mark them off as people get them.

--

I'll put up a new one Wednesday 9/24!

40 thoughts on “Name That Tune”

  4. neddie jingo

    #16, The Cure, “Close to Me”

    Indelible memory of dressing for work, two brand-fresh babies in the next room, this playing on the old WHFS before it turned to Teh Suck…

  5. neddie jingo

    #17 — Hendrix, “Red House” (A guess. A who-ho-hoooole lot of songs start with that riff, but the tone of the recording sounds exactly like the live version on the retrospective based on the Hendrix Movie from, I dunno, 1974 or so. Did you know, that riff, and every other motherfucking blues cliche, can be traced to Jimmie Rodgers’ Blue Yodels?)

    This snip makes me want to try heroin. Just to see…

  13. neddie jingo

    ‘S all I got. I have a real tip-of-my-tongue feeling about #5 but can’t pull it out, and #6 is definitely Jimmy Page-wank, but I’m damned if I’m gonna try to plow through “The Song Remains the Same” to track that shit down.

  19. dbati/tbati

    Sorry, didn’t read closely enough:
    #3 Smashin punkins: I Am One
    #4 Spoon: Anything You Want
    #5 Dino Jr.: Freakscene
    #7 Shins: Turn A Square
    #13: yo La Tengo: Tom Courtnay
    #20: david Bowie; Fashion

    We know a lot of the other artists, but can’t come up with titles…makes it harder.

    This is fun, cleek.

  25. cleek

    I’m getting old, dude.

    bah.

    that Blondie one was trickier than i thought. i put it first because i thought it’d be a nice easy introduction :) oh well.

    all but one of the rest are somewhat more obscure than bands like Zeppelin and the Stones. but not so obscure that nobody will know them…. (MarkLow, you around ?)

  32. russell

    Hey, I will continue my course of graduate study in pop music at cleek university with the observation that #11 is Andrew Bird, “False Palindromes”.

    They were featuring Andrew Bird on the CD player at our local coffee roaster last Saturday. I hadn’t heard him before.

    This is very fun.

    I make this solemn vow: I will not rest until the mystery of #12 is revealed.

    Thanks –

  33. cleek

    Andrew Bird is terrific.

    absolutely amazing live show…. if you ever get the chance.

    12’s easy! :) (if you’re me)

    but, there are now enough hints on the last two that you can do it entirely via Google.

  34. russell

    12’s easy! :) (if you’re me)

    You toy with me, sir!

    I work with some guys now and then who are hard, hard, hard core pop nerds. One time I worked with one of these guys and he threw me a cassette recording of some tune called “Daytime Nighttime” that he had ripped from a German version of “Shindig” from like 1968.

    The guy tells me “This is a tune by Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, it was before they got famous as Gentle Giant”.

    It was, indeed, a WTF moment.

    It was also a great tune.

    I’m going to go do my best to crack the #12 nut now!

    Later –

  35. russell

    Hey, check it out. “Daytime Nighttime” kicks in about 2:30. We did it without the French Horn.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XnmEK64Xo

    The same guy used to call stuff like Floyd’s “See Emily Play”, the Zombies “Imagine the Swan”, and pretty much anything by Arthur Lee and Love. We also did “Clambake” by Elvis.

    The only rule on the gig was that we had to do tunes that were great pop tunes that nobody in the freaking room had ever heard of. Needless to say, booking the band was like plucking gigs off a tree.

    Not.

    Still trying to figure out the XO thing…..

  36. cleek

    “Daytime Nighttime”

    awesome.

    never heard this one before. i’m diggin the French Horn tho. don’t see much of that one these days – certainly not in a dance/party band. :)

    the dual lead singers thing is pretty slick, too.

  37. russell

    the dual lead singers thing is pretty slick, too.

    Yeah, it’s like the Dave Clark Five crossed with Run DMC. Seriously.

    I’m calling “uncle” on #12. I can’t hear the 3/4 and I’m drawing a total blank on the XO thing.

    Maybe it will come to me in a dream…..

    Best –

  39. russell

    hey, I just (as in just this minute) figured out #12, the Elliot Smith tune. Given enough hints and Google, the world is my oyster, apparently.

    I wasn’t familiar with Smith, but I want to go check him out. I work with a kind of alt country (loosely defined) band, I was looking for a recording of Big Star’s “Thirteen” cause I want the band to do it, and I found Smith’s cover. And now this.

    And he’s gone. Damn. And what a miserable way to go.

    “I’m never gonna know you now/but I’m gonna love you anyhow”.

    Or your music, at least. Thanks Elliot, sorry I didn’t know about you when you were around.

    Thanks cleek, this was excellent.

  40. cleek

    yeah Smith was great. his “XO” is one of my all-time favs. and Waltz #2 will sometimes get stuck in my head for weeks, no foolin.

    i’d love to be in a band that did a Big Star song…

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