Whilst the song's title was inspired by the 1970 Clint Eastwood film of the same name the track is an attack by Shaun Ryder on society's close affinity with hero worship. The irony is that fifteen years after the release of the song Ryder became a celebrity in his own right by finishing runner-up in the 2010 series of the British TV Show "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" The single was released in 1995 by the band Black Grape, an outfit formed by Ryder and former Happy Mondays member Bez. It was the third single to be released from their debut album "It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah".
2. An Original Man (A Song For ____)
Answer: Keith
This is the closing track on the Yardbirds' 2003 album "Birdland". The album is the first to be released by the band since 1967's "Little Games". It contains seven new tracks and eight re-worked numbers from the band's 1960s catalogue. "An Original Man" is dedicated to the band's original lead singer Keith Relf, who was electrocuted in 1976 while playing an electric guitar that was not properly earthed.
He was 33 at the time.
3. ____'s Caravan
Answer: Kim
This track appears on Courtney Barnett's invigorating 2015 debut album "Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit". Barnett has an innate ability to carefully craft her lyrics and then deliver them in a manner that seems improvised or as a stream of consciousness.
She also has the power to capture the mundane and turn it into frenzy. In "Kim's Caravan" she takes a moment of the doldrums, where the entire world is against her and all she wants to do is give in to the rising depression, and turns it into a growing tide of gnarly kickback.
This is not a happy tune and, if it's a bit of escapism you need, then I suggest you listen to Mark Sheridan's "I Do Love to Be Beside the Seaside".
4. What's the Frequency ____?
Answer: Kenneth
This track was the lead single from R.E.M.'s 1994 studio album "Monster", demonstrating a raw and rockier sound to the band's preceding albums, "Out of Time" (1991) and "Automatic for the People" (1992). The song was inspired by an attack on Dan Rather, CBS news anchor, by a crazed man, later identified as William Tager, in New York City. Tager, who was yelling at Rather "Kenneth, what's the frequency", claimed that the news stations were beaming signals into his head and that he was merely on a mission to identify the frequency they were using.
5. ____ Quit the Band
Answer: Kyle
Tenacious D came to prominence in the 1997 HBO series that bore the band's name. The pair, Jack Black and Kyle Gass, got the gig when executives heard their demo "Tenacious Demo", which included their earliest songs "Tribute", "History", "Krishna" and "Kyle Quit the Band" (previously known as "The Song of Exultant Joy").
The song, which deals with the band breaking up and then getting back together, is 89 seconds of delightful absurdity that simply rocks your socks off.
6. ____ Kaniff (skit)
Answer: Ken
"Ken Kaniff" is a skit that appears on Eminem's breakthrough 1999 album "The Slim Shady LP". The character was the creation of underground Detroit rapper Aristotle, who created him as an adult bisexual male who still attends high school. Aristotle gets a writing credit and provides the voice for Ken in the song in which he makes a prank call to Eminem and makes suggestions of various gay escapades they could indulge in. Eminem and Aristotle then had a falling out over the way the voice of Ken should be used.
As a consequence Eminem has continued to use the character, most notably on the albums "The Marshall Mathers LP" (2000), "Relapse" (2009) and "The Marshall Mathers LP 2" (2013), but does the voice work himself.
7. ____ Town
Answer: Kingston
This was a big hit in 1970 for Kentrick Patrick, a calypso rocksteady artist, who performed under the name of Lord Creator. To this point Patrick had been an influential figure and a major driver of Jamaican music but he virtually disappeared from the scene after the release of this song. British band UB40 released a cover of the song as the second single from their 1989 album "Labour of Love II" and sent it to number four in the UK Singles charts and the top of the French charts.
Not only did it help make their album a success but it also had the effect of reviving Patrick's career.
8. Rye or the ____
Answer: Kaiser
Also known as "Theme From Rocky XIII" this is a parody of the Survivor song "Eye of the Tiger", written by Weird Al Yankovic. It follows the continuing adventures of Rocky Balboa (though he isn't mentioned in the lyrics) who has grown "fat and weak" and now works in a deli.
In the past Rocky would work up a sweat by beating up slabs of meat in a freezer he now earns his crust by selling the meat instead of pulverizing it. Now, when he starts to get nostalgic, he goes out the back and beats up some liverwurst.
This track appears on Yankovic's second album "In 3-D" and whilst the song's title (Rocky XIII) was something that may have brought amused smiles in 1984 it is now something that borders on being prophetic. The franchise, which launched in 1976, is now into its fifth decade and has spawned seven movies, if you include the release of "Creed" in 2015. If the success of that film is anything to go by this series will continue to grow.
9. ____ of Wishful Thinking
Answer: King
Whilst the song is a little unusual it was a massive hit for UK band Go West in 1990. Unusual in that it produces such a bouncy and positive vibe that can't help to bring smiles to faces and movement to tired feet yet the joy that is in the melody hides a set of lyrics that are full of heartache. Written by Peter Cox and Richard Drummie it tells the story of a man who has lost his girl and, despite the fact that he is all cut up about it, he keeps kidding himself that he will be fine - wishful thinking indeed.
The track was not originally released on an album but was recorded as part of the soundtrack for the 1990 romantic comedy "Pretty Woman". It was eventually included on the band's 1992 album "Indian Summer".
10. ____ Carter
Answer: Kevin
Kevin Carter was a South African photographer who would win the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for a haunting photograph that would highlight the anguish of the famine that had wracked South Sudan. The picture featured a young girl crawling toward a feeding centre with a vulture perched in the background. Carter would take his own life two months after winning the award leaving the note "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist".
In a scenario that is almost eerie, the track was written by Richey Edwards of the Welsh band The Manic Street Preachers who disappeared on 1 February, 1995. This is one of five tracks that Edwards wrote that the band included on their 1996 album "Everything Must Go" in the hope that it might "flush" him out. Their belief at the time was that he was in hiding. Edwards was declared deceased (in absentia) in November 2008.
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor 1nn1 before going online.
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