Come December, I often find myself writing a lot of quizzes. Not that I’m complaining: I love writing quizzes, and I really love being paid for writing quizzes. There’s a definite skill in crafting a decent question, and therefore considerable satisfaction in getting it right, tempered only by the unceasing fear of getting it completely wrong. (Like all writing, therefore.)
All of us who toil in the quiz mines are naturally aware that we have our favourite subjects, our home territories if you like. I could go on writing increasingly abstruse questions about cricket or pop music far into the night, but I don’t, because the audience simply isn’t as interested in those subjects as I am. If you are a quizmaster, your job is to entertain people. It’s not to show them that you are much cleverer than they are. They wouldn’t like it, and they might be reluctant to let you leave the building alive.
So where do all these extra quiz questions go? Most of mine just clog up my head, until an outlet presents itself. The other day I met Philip Norman, the esteemed biographer of Beatles and Stones, and within seconds we were both trying to think of as many songs as we could whose titles are not mentioned in the lyrics. There’s obviously ‘Space Oddity’, and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and ‘Unchained Melody’ (which was the theme to a film called Unchained), and ‘Blue Monday’, and ‘Annie’s Song’, and ‘Song 2’, and ‘Positively 4th Street’, and ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’, and ‘A Day in the Life’, and ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, which reminds me now of another of my favourite questions. According to Marianne Faithfull, who had given him the book, Mick Jagger wrote ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ immediately after reading which Russian novel? Answer at the end of the column.
But as our list grew (‘Life During Wartime’), I suddenly remembered a question I once heard from Sir Tim Rice, whose grasp of pop trivia is such that he wouldn’t be able to go on Mastermind because it would be he who was writing the questions. He wasn’t sure about it, because he wasn’t 100 per cent certain that there weren’t other songs that qualified, but it’s a great question nonetheless. ‘Up the Junction’ by Squeeze, and ‘Virginia Plain’ by Roxy Music. What applies to these two records and (as far as we are aware) no others? (And if it does apply to any others, please let me know.)
Sir Tim himself is the answer to a question I have used once or twice. (Who is the only winner of the Oscar for Best Song to thank Denis Compton in his acceptance speech?) The problem with writing quiz questions about pop music is that it’s a specialist subject: people either know nothing about it, or they know far too much. Which British group of the 1960s had a founder member called Mike Pinder? And which British group of the 1960s had a founder member called Mike Pender? I have had these two knocking around in my pile of unused questions for several years. If you know both answers, you are almost certainly over 50, and very possibly called Pinder or Pender.
Sometimes, though, these trainspottery questions simply have to be set free, for their own good if no one else’s. The other week, in the Prince of Wales in Highgate, I asked a whole mini-round about instrumental solos. For instance, both ‘Penny Lane’ by the Beatles and ‘Shipbuilding’ by Elvis Costello have trumpet solos. On each of the following pairs of songs, name the instrument on which the solo was played. Number one, ‘California Dreamin’’ by The Mamas and The Papas, and ‘Hocus Pocus’ by Focus. Number two, ‘Everyone’s Got to Learn Sometime’ by The Korgis, and ‘Coz I Luv You’ by Slade. Number three, ‘So Why So Sad’ by the Manic Street Preachers, and ‘Icky Thump’ by the White Stripes. Good luck.
(Some answers: Mick Jagger wrote ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ immediately after reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. ‘Up the Junction’ and ‘Virginia Plain’: in each case, the title is only mentioned once in the song, and right at the end of it. Mike Pinder: the Moody Blues. Mike Pender: the Searchers. They are both 70 years old. Finally, the solos. ‘California Dreaming’ and ‘Hocus Pocus’: flute. ‘Everyone’s Got to Learn Sometime’ and ‘Coz I Luv You’: violin. ‘So Why So Sad’ and ‘Icky Thump’: stylophone. One team out of 13 actually knew that. Merry Christmas.)
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