Music test time!

(Oh, I might as well say it . . .)

Age test time!

That's right, humble readers. In another installment of the recurring series *****Signposts that Brad Denton has Officially Gotten Old***** I submit to you this musical pop quiz on song lyrics. My sister e-mailed me to let me know that her roommate's music appreciation class at Middle Tennessee State University took a "just for fun" pop quiz yesterday -- a pop quiz on pop music. Cool, eh? Not so -- the professor, who is four years younger than I am, created this test from some of his more favorite obscure songs from popular performers. Obscure? Maybe, but I knew 'em. Then he went even farther; he crossed the line. He labeled this music as "oldies."

That's "oldies."

Oldies.

You'll see what I mean in a minute. Let's see if you did as well as I did -- I answered all ten immediately, with very little hesitation. (No cheating! I did not use the internet, or Google my way to a better score, so you can't either!) Meredith freaked her roommate out by taking the quiz and making a four, which would have been the highest grade in the class (I made her listen to my albums when we were younger.) I have supplied the answers below, but in order to give you the same chance I had, I have interposed a nostalgia-filled aside to separate them from the questions. Here we go . . . good luck!

Name the song and performer for each of the following lyrics.

1. "Well they closed down the auto plant in Mahwah late that month
Ralph went out lookin' for a job but he couldn't find none
He came home too drunk from mixin' Tanqueray and wine . . ."

2. "The streets are lined with camera crews
Everywhere he goes is news
Today is different
Today is not the same
Today I make the action. . ."

3. "No good deed goes unpunished
And I don't mind bein' their whippin' boy
I've had that pleasure for years and years . . ."

4. "Baby nothin's guaranteed
Take back your acid rain
Baby let your T.V. bleed . . ."

5. "When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions . . ."

6. "You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbour in the tempest . . ."

7. "Reach out for me and hold me tight
Hold that memory
Let my machine talk to me,
Let my machine talk to me . . ."

8. "She was just another notch on my guitar
She's gonna lose the man that really loves her
In the silence I could hear their broken hearts . . ."

9. "Now they sit and rattle their bones and think of their bloodstoned days.
You chose your words from mouths of babes
Got lost in the wood.
The hip flask slinging madman,
Steaming cafe flirts,
In Chinatown howling at night. . ."

10. "It's nothin dangerous
I feel no pain
I've got to ch-ch-change
You know you got it when you're going insane . . ."

Answers follow!

[Begin nostalgia-filled aside]

Now, I'm not quite thirty, but I always had the musical tastes of a mulleted fifty-year-old. My first love (in many ways still my strongest) was stadium rock. I adore 60's and 70's "power" rock: Zepplin, early Stones, The Who, The Doors, Skynyrd, Boston, Rush, The Allmon Brothers (for my softer side), really anything mindlessly (or thoughtfully) guitar driven. To this day I still treasure actual albums -- LP's, 45's, records . . . whatever you want to call them, as long as they include a screaming Fender and a creepy falsetto. Save my life, I'm going down for the last time!

The first album I ever owned (purchased with my own money) was ZZ Top's Afterburner. It was well worth that $5.77.

After ZZ Top had done all the damage they could do, I entered a phase we all suffered through, namely the "Chicks Will Dig Me If I Adore Beach Music" phase. And, yes, I called them "chicks." And, yes, I used "dig" as a verb when I was in high school. And, yes, I had no idea why I couldn't get a girlfriend. For a short time, I owned every Jimmy Buffett album. I defended his talent right and left ("No. NO. Seriously. Ignore everything he's done since '79. He really had talent -- he really did. How do I accept him? Oh, I just pretend he died just before the release of Somewhere Over China, and they've used a Buffett cyborg ever since.")

Around 1992, I entered my current phase, my mature music phase. Picasso had his famous "Blue Period," and I have my "Purchase-Every-John-Cougar-Mellencamp-Album Period." He's sort of like Buffett, but he's not a cyborg. At least, I don't think he is. Even if he is, I really like his music. Go cyborgs!

[End aside. ]

Before we get to the answers, I would like to revisit my initial anger.

OLDIES????!!!!! YOU CALL THESE OLDIES???!!!!!

Ahem.

Answers:
1. "Johnny 99" by The Boss. I am considering sponsoring a federal bill that will make the purchase of Nebraska mandatory for every aspiring solo artist. Me and her, we had some fun sir, and ten innocent people died . . . sounds like my dating life.

2. Peter Gabriel, "Family Snapshot" -- great song, more murder. It was here that I first began to worry about the sanity of Meredith's professor. Ole Pete never does write too many happy, well-balanced songs, does he?

3. Of course! "Crumblin' Down" by J. C. Mellencamp, back when he still had the middle name. Deduct five points -- no, no, that's not enough! -- don't even give yourself *credit* for this one if you wrote "Crumbling."

4. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Jammin' Me": A song I will always remember fondly, if only for the line "Take back JOE PISCOPO!!!!" I think we're all in agreement on that one.

5. ***Guilty admission alert!!!***: I would never have known this one if it hadn't been the tagline on Matt Elliott's website AND if he hadn't taken me to three Elvis Costello concerts in the past couple of years . . . this one's "Everyday I Write the Book." I was not an E. C. fan until recently. For some reason, he never played the Dyersburg-Tatumville-RoEllen circuit in rural northwest Tennessee. We did see a lot of .38 Special, though. I suppose you must know your audience . . . and be able to hold on loosely.

6. U2, "All I Want is You": If you've seen the seminal Stiller/Garafalo/Ryder/Hawke film Reality Bites, then you already know this one as the love theme from the greatest movie ever made by humankind. Citizen Kane, Schmitizen Kane! Rosebud, my butt! Yes, I'm medicated!

7. One of my favorite songs of all time -- "World Leader Pretend" by R.E.M. Has there been a better college radio band in the history of college radio? Did you, like me, just realize that the history of college radio only encompasses about sixteen years total? Do you, like me, suddenly feel a need to dance? PRETZELS, BABY!

8. Oooooh. I adored this album, song, and artist. This is "Strong Persuader" from the Robert Cray Band; this album also included the song "Smokin' Gun," one of the best hard blues tracks of all time:

I'm standing here bewildered
I can't remember just what I've done
I can hear the sirens winding
My eyes blinded by the sun
I know that I should be running
My heart's beating just like the drum
Now they've knocked me down and taken it
That still-hot smoking gun

9. I know this courtesy of Brad Kibler, the obligatory "Friend from the Early Nineties who wanted to Stalk Natalie Merchant." Didn't everyone have one of these? Really? C'mon, admit it. You were that person, weren't you? Weren't you? There's no shame here. Anywho, the song is "Hey Jack Kerouac" by 10,000 Maniacs.

10. Have you ever been both elated and shamed at the same time? Did you ever possess a piece of information so oddly, crudely unhelpful that you were ashamed you knew it? Yet were you somehow at the same time PROUD of this knowledge? Yep -- here's where I am. This one's "Cat Scratch Fever" by the Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent.

Shall I add a rubric, or scoring scheme?

0-1: Don't feel bad, youngster. Once you start driving in seven or eight years, you'll forget all about failing this.

2-5: Partially old. You're either on the cusp of falling apart, or you're a repository of strange knowledge that should be suppressed. Get out of your house sometime!

6-8: Aged. Enjoy gumming the prunes, Gramps, 'cause these songs are supposedly "oldies."

9-10: Glacial. Your movement is measured not in distance, but in time. I'm sorry to inform you, but you have surpassed the elderly. Buck up, though, because today is tapioca pudding day at the home!