News, Views and Music Issue 140 (Top Five): AAA Lyric Competition

We haven’t run a competition at the AAA now – mainly because the last ones didn’t go too well (only one of you wrote in and that was after having the audacity to ask me for the answers – yes Lizzie I mean you!) But I’ve had an idea for a ‘lyric’ competition and the same rules as before apply –email us with your answers at pattin82@yahoo.co.uk with the title ‘Monkeynuts Lyric Competition’ before June 30^th 2012 gets to choose an album by any of the Alan’s Album Archives bands that we’ve already reviewed, via Amazon, at a cost of no more than £20 (so sorry if you were after a box set or the rarer 10cc CDs now priced at £130-odd! If you keep lugging my site for me so I make more money I might be better placed to help you out with a box set another time!) The winning entry will go to the person who gets the most questions right and I promise you that all the answers are on our site somewhere (in the ‘key lyrics’ section found above each review, on either our ‘reviews’ or ‘news and views newsletters’)) so get searching! There’s only one entry per AAA band (though solo albums are included too) to make it a bit fairer for readers who don’t know every group that well. Remember even if you don’t find them all then chances are just a reply will win you the competition (given the lack of results last time I tried to run one!) If nothing else at least you can test yourself with this quiz and see how many answers you get right. We’ll print the lyrics sometime after the end of June. All you have to do is identify the group that sang these lyrics (and it has to be an Alan’s Album Archives group, even if another band uses similar lyrics!) and for bonus points (in the highly unlikely event of a tie) tell us the name of the song and/or album. We’ll even tell you the year of release to give you a clue! Good luck!

1) “He built a house upon a hill, ask him if he’s happy and then give him a pill, he’s going mad” (1969)

2) “...Like a surburban Toreador” (1980)

3) “I really love you – and I mean you, the star above you crystal blue, well oh baby my hair’s on end about you” (1970)

4) “Students are marching now in every land, they won’t be shifted just like grains of sand, if we don’t get together pretty soon, we’ll do the same thing on the moon” (1970)

5) “If only life were easy it would be such fun, things would be more equal and be plenty for everyone” (1969)

6) “The elephants in the bedroom, throwing all his weight about, but I’m locked in the bathroom, your screams are gonna drown me out” (1989)

7) “What’s the use in looking for an answer? I might find out – it could be a disaster!” (1983)

8) “Darkness shrugs and bids the day goodbye” (1969)

9) “Photographs, faded photographs, holidays, summer holidays, first love, broken promises... throw them away, I’m going back to yesterday” (1981)

10) “Apologies mean nothing when the damage is done, but you can’t switch off my loving like you can’t switch off the sun!” (1966)

11) “Once upon a time there was a garden, on a high hill, green and blossom round against the sea, and there the sun came and the rain pouring down...” (1967)

12) “I dropped into the luxury of the Lords, fighting dragons and crossing swords, with the people against the hordes who came to conquer” (1977)

13) “The man in the crowd with the multicoloured mirrors on his hobnailed boots, lying with his eyes while his hands are busy working overtime, a soap impression of his wife which he ate and donated to the National Trust” (1968)

14) “He was singing on his knees, an angry mob trailed along, they shot my brother dead because he hated what was wrong” (1965)

15) “I gave myself to God – there was a pregnant pause before he said OK” (1995)

16) “I was watching ‘Highway Patrol’ whittling with my knife, but the thought never struck me I’d be black and white for life, I was raised on law and order in a community of strife, became a restless warrior and I never took a wife” (1987)

17) “As I close my eyes, like Crimson curtains slowly rising on an empty stage; then I’m back in the stalls, sitting all alone, waiting for the show to begin” (2009)

18) “Here I sit with time running out on me, knowing full well its dreams that are beyond me, I can’t deny that life passes by sometimes” (1970)

19) “I want to watch you, windblown facing, waves of wheat for your embracing, folks sing a song of the grange, nestle in a kiss below there, the constellations ebb and flow there, witness our home on the range” (2004)

20) “So we go on moving, trying to make this image real, straighten every nerve and knowing what we really feel, straining every nerve and making everybody see what they’ve read in ‘Rolling Stone’ has really begun to be and avoiding a case of bad reality” (1971)