Sing Our Own Song Trivia Quiz

Answer: Prince Buster

Not only did Madness take their name from the Prince Buster song but they also included a cover of it on their debut album "One Step Beyond". Furthermore they released a tribute to Prince Buster, called "The Prince", as their debut single. It peaked at number 16 in the UK charts, the first of 20 consecutive top 20 hits that the band achieved in the 1970s and 1980s.

Answer: Steely Dan

The song "Deacon Blues" featured on the 1977 Steely Dan album "Aja". The song was included at number 214 in the "Rolling Stone" list of the top 500 songs of all time published in 2021.

Though the band Deacon Blue didn't get a song into that list, they did take their cover of the Bacharach and David song "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" to number two in the UK charts in 1990.

Answer: Talking Heads

Radiohead were known as On a Friday until they signed a recording contract with EMI records. EMI wanted a different name and the band chose the deep cut "Radio Head" from the Talking Heads' album "True Stories" (1986), an album of songs taken from the movie of the same name. Talking Heads have been referenced by Radiohead's Thom Yorke as a big influence on the band in their early days.

Radiohead are arguably best known for their breakthrough hit "Creep" that charted in the top ten in numerous countries including the UK in 1993.

Answer: Bob Dylan

"The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" was a track on the 1967 Bob Dylan album, "John Wesley Harding". The song is a tale of Priest, who borrows money from his friend Frankie Lee, and spends 16 days and nights in a house "with 24 windows and a women's face in every one." Neglecting everything except his own pleasure, Priest dies of thirst on day 17.

The English band Judas Priest produced music of a very different style to Dylan. The heavy metal rockers toiled for over a decade before commercial success came with the album "British Steel" in 1980.

Answer: Dr Feelgood

"Roxette" was the lead single from Dr Feelgood's debut album "Down by the Jetty" released in 1975. Though it failed to bother the charts anywhere in the world, the guitar work of Wilko Johnson that propelled the song along was hugely influential in the rise of punk in the following years.

Roxette, the Swedish duo who borrowed their name from the song, were considerably more successful, achieving four Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers in the US. The last of those four, 1991's "Joyride" hit the top of the charts in many countries around the world, including their native Sweden, where it was their first number one single.

Answer: Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters first recorded "Rollin' Stone" in 1950, his take on the delta blues standard "Catfish Blues". Its relative success allowed Waters to become a full-time musician. It was included in the "Rolling Stone" magazine list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004.

The Rolling Stones were big fans. When Jagger and Richards bumped into each other on the platform of Dartford railway station, it was the Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry records in Jagger's possession that rekindled the friendship that they had had when at school together and sowed the seeds for the formation of the band.

Answer: The Smiths

They dropped the "e" and lost the apostrophe but the name came from The Smiths' 1985 single "Shakespeare's Sister", which in turn took its name from a passage in the essay, "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf. The single reached number 26 in the UK singles charts.

Shakespears Sister, the band, were formed by Siobhan Fahey, formerly of Bananarama. They achieved a couple of notable successes that The Smiths never managed with the 1992 single "Stay", reaching number one in the UK charts and hitting the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.

Answer: Leonard Cohen

"Sisters of Mercy" was a track on "Songs of Leonard Cohen", the 1967 debut album by the poet turned singer-songwriter. Andrew Eldritch, the lead singer of the band that took its name, apparently came across the song when it was included in the soundtrack to the 1971 movie, "McCabe and Mrs Miller".

The Sisters of Mercy had a brief period of success in the late 1980s with the album "Floodland" and the single "This Corrosion" both hitting the top ten in the UK in 1987.

Answer: Bernard Cribbins

Bernard Cribbins was better known to modern audiences as an actor with credits in popular TV shows such as "Doctor Who". However, he was also a successful singer of novelty songs in the early 1960s. "Right Said Fred", the comedic story of a couple of unsuccessful furniture removal men, was a top ten hit in the UK charts in 1962.

Right Said Fred, the band, had a few novelty hits of their own 30 years later. The best known of which was the worldwide phenomenon that was "I'm Too Sexy", which hit the top of numerous charts though not in the band's native UK, where it equalled the record for most weeks at number two for a single that never reached number one.

Answer: Talk Talk

Yes, the band named themselves after their own song. To be fair to Mark Hollis, he had written it when part of a different band, The Reaction, when the song was known as "Talk Talk Talk Talk". The shortened titled single, when released by his new band, hit the top of the charts in South Africa and also charted in the UK top 40 and the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1982.