*** music trivia ***

[RichRed]

There are just certain songs I never get tired of hearing. EVER. As big of a Elton John fan I am, and I am a huge fan, when "Your Song,"or "Bennie & the Jets" come on the radio, I am apt to change the change the channel. Not that those aren't terrific songs, because they are, but because I've heard them a million times each and have grown somewhat tired of them. But I have NEVER, EVER changed the channel when "Don't Fear the Reaper comes on. I've never grown tired of that song, even after a million listens. Are there songs like that for you? Songs you never get tired of hearing?

Just Like Heaven - The Cure

Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot

Southern Cross - C,S&N

(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding

[Ky Fried Redleg]

Just Like Heaven - The Cure

Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot

Southern Cross - C,S&N

(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding

Man, you and I are right in line here. Sundown and Southern Cross are in my top 5 forever. Two of my favorite songs of all time.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

148. Most all music fans remember the first video ever shown on MTV. It was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. But what rocker followed the Buggles to become the second artist to appear in a video on MTV?

[Roy Tucker]

148. Most all music fans remember the first video ever shown on MTV. It was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. But what rocker followed the Buggles to become the second artist to appear in a video on MTV?

Pat Benatar with “You Better Run“.

1980 is still on the fringe of music I know about.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

148. Most all music fans remember the first video ever shown on MTV. It was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. But what rocker followed the Buggles to become the second artist to appear in a video on MTV?

[texasdave]

148. Most all music fans remember the first video ever shown on MTV. It was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. But what rocker followed the Buggles to become the second artist to appear in a video on MTV?

Now, name the last video played on MTV when it closed up shop on December 31, 2025.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

Now, name the last video played on MTV when it closed up shop on December 31, 2025.

Oh, hell... 2025... are you kidding me? Forty years too late for me, my man. MTV closed up shop in the 80's as far as I'm concerned. I threw my MTV out the window in 1985. LOL

I'm gold when it comes to 60's (late) , 70's and 80's . After that... um, not so much.


I'm gonna take a wild guess(I have no earthly idea) but they should have closed it with the one they opened it with---"Video Killed the Radio Star" --- The Buggles. That's what I would have done. But it's probably someone I've never heard of.

[texasdave]

Oh, hell... 2025... are you kidding me? Forty years too late for me, my man. MTV closed up shop in the 80's as far as I'm concerned. I threw my MTV out the window in 1985. LOL

I'm gold when it comes to 60's (late) , 70's and 80's . After that... um, not so much.


I'm gonna take a wild guess(I have no earthly idea) but they should have closed it with the one they opened it with---"Video Killed the Radio Star" --- The Buggles. That's what I would have done. But it's probably someone I've never heard of.

You are absolutely correct. "Video Killed the Radio Star" bookended MTV. I thought they might have ended it with Sting singing "I want my MTV" fading into silence.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

Let's take a trip back My Old School. I mean, Donald Fa gen's old school. Anyone else like this song ? Like "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," this song's origin traces back to Donald Fa gen's days at Bard College in New York. You'll recall that "RDLTN" was inspired by a girl Fa gen had the hots for when he was attending Bard. She was pregnant and married to one of his professors. He ran into her at a Halloween Party on campus and slipped her his number and asked to call him. She was tempted , but never called. Donald lost out on Rikki but we got a classic song in 1974.

"My Old School" was at least partially inspired by a May 1969 drug bust at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY , where both Fa gen and Walter Becker attended. The raid, which occurred early, at about 5 am on a Thursday morning, resulted in roughly 44 or so students, or about 10% of the school's enrollment, being arrested by local authorities for marijuana possession and sale. Sherriff's deputies went up and down the halls of dorms on campus and raided nearby off-campus housing looking for pot smokers. Fa gen and Becker, along with Donald's girlfriend at the time, Dorothy White, were arrested and taken to jail. Fa gan's bail was set at $5,000.

Here's how Fa gen recounted the incident years later:

”These were the days when there was a ‘war on longhairs,’ as they used to call it, and Bard’s in this kind of rural district. They picked up about 50 kids just at random. There were a few warrants, and one was for me, which was based totally on false testimony. They handcuffed our hands behind our backs and put us in a paddy wagon and took us off to the Dutchess County Jail. They took all of the boys, about 35 of us, most with really long hair, and shaved our heads. I remember some of them were crying. I don’t think any of them had seen their head for three or four years. It didn’t make that much difference to me. But it was scary, you know? To hear the cell-block door slam shut, the whole business with the handcuffs and the paddy wagon. I’d never been arrested or put in jail before.

”I asked them to bail my girlfriend out. She had nothing to do with this and was just visiting me. And they refused to do it. So when graduation time came I protested by not going. My case had already been dismissed—they had withdrawn the charges, actually. So I was sitting on a bench in front of Stone Row with my father and lawyer, just watching the graduation. A lot of the students were also angry because apparently the school had let an undercover policeman be planted in the building and grounds department. Their cooperation with the investigation was despicable.”

About "My Old School," Fa gen said:

”I don’t know how serious we were [about never returning], but at the time both of us were very pissed off at the school, that’s for sure.”


In fact, Fa gen did return to Bard("Annendale") in 1985 , when he received an honorary degree. When asked about why he decided to let bygones be bygones and return to his old school, he said with that trademark s**tty Donald Fa gen smirk, "Well, you know, I'm not the one to hold grudges."


149. Here's your trivia question about this song. "My Old School" recounts the drug bust on campus in the spring of '69 and how a female acquaintance betrayed them to a local prosecutor. The pot raid at Bard in '69 was orchestrated by an overzealous local assistant D.A. He is referenced by Fa gen in the lyrics as "Daddy Gee." Who was "Daddy Gee" ? By the way, I met , and interviewed, "Daddy Gee," ironically, back at my old school(Cumberland College) around 1985. He had a very creepy vibe about him . Made me pretty uncomfortable. So, fwiw, there's my connection to Steely Dan's "My Old School."

Can you identify the man who orchestrated the raid on Bard College in 1969 that inspired Steely Dan's "My Old School" ?




Great live performance from the Midnight Special. "Skunk" Baxter is just a monster on those three or four guitar solos in this performance. What a hippie and what a freaking guitarist!!! The two lovely female backup singers are terrific. They were David Cassidy's backup singers. Even Fa gen, who notoriously disliked performing live, seemed to be having a blast here. Great vibe! Enjoy!

Let me know what you think of this track and this performance...

[wally post]

Ky, great post! I didn’t know about what led to the song “My Old School.” Smoking performance!

[Roy Tucker]

I actually do know this one. Daddy Gee is G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame.

Mrs Tucker #1 was a big Steely Dan fan and their albums were often played on the nice stereo I lost in the divorce.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

Donald Fa gan's "Daddy Gee":





Our school paid for our history club to invite Liddy to speak back in the mid -80's(around the same time Donald Fa gen went back to Bard to receive an honorary degree). The guy made me nervous. Arrogant as all get out, creepy, but very, very smart.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

150. Got a good one for you. Another one from the spring and summer of my freshman year in college.


Imagine being a founding member of a well known English band and writing a huge hit song, only to have your bandmates hate the song so much that they fire you from the band. Well, that's essentially what happened when the band's bass player wrote a song for his first wife back in 1980, thanking her for encouraging him and being there for him as he pursued his music career. He wrote the song in just a couple of hours in his home studio, made a demo, and played it for the band. They hated the song. I mean, they REALLY despised the song. They felt like the song was just mushy musical tripe that took the band in a direction they had no interest in going. They did everything they could to sabotage the song's success, even refusing to perform it live. It's really a lovely little song.

It probably didn't help that the songwriter received 100% of the royalties of the song, leaving the other bandmates jealous of the song's success and not wanting to contribute to furthering the success of the song's singer/ writer. They refused to tour America as the song was climbing the charts here , where it peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1981. Key members of the band didn't want to "go on the road" to support this specific song, which was more pop-oriented than their usual blues-rock style. The major U.S. tour in 1981 was cancelled and a major opportunity to promote the record was lost.

The decision to not tour with a major hit climbing the charts led to tension with the band's record label, which stopped promoting their albums after that, essentially leading to the demise of the band. This song might very well had been a top 5 hit (or even a #1 hit) had the band agreed to tour America. The song's singer/writer has said he felt cheated that he never got to perform his huge hit song live. Band members made his life a living hell and eventually forced him out of the band early in 1982, following a tour of the Far East.

The only other major hit the band had produced , prior to 1981, was a song that was released late in 1976 and reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of '77. Most ironically, that song captures the travails of traveling the roads in America , with the chorus referring to searching for Holiday Inn signs ("I kept on looking for a sign in the middle of the night"). I love that song , by the way. It's a fantastic groove. Interestingly enough, that song only became a hit by accident. It was originally just a "filler" song for the band's ninth studio album, created when the band's producer demanded a radio- friendly_commercial hit, resulting in a song that was written "from absolutely nowhere." The song featured lead vocals by the band's deep baritone singer and saxophonist.

As I mentioned above, the singer/ writer of the 1981 song has expressed some bitterness about never getting the opportunity to sing his huge hit song before a live audience back when the song was climbing the charts in 1981. Fact is, he never once sang the song live until decades later. In 2005, he and his wife stopped in a karaoke bar in Clearwater , Florida to have some liver & onions and enjoy some English beer . One of the songs that was in the Karaoke songbook at that bar was his song that he'd written about his first wife back 25 years before.. Exactly a quarter century since he first penned the song in his home studio back in 1980, he finally sang the song before a live audience at that little bar in Florida. The song has gone on to become a popular song for weddings, particularly a first dance song after a wedding, primarily because of the line in the song("Ooh babe, you got what it takes so I made you my wife").


Can you name this song that divided a band and resulted in the songwriter being forced out , despite the song becoming the band's second biggest hit and the 20th biggest song of 1981 ? For bonus points, what was the band's biggest hit and the 32nd biggest song of 1977 ? These two hit songs , both fine tunes, could not be more different. Many music fans would probably be shocked that the two songs come from the same band.

[texasdave]

Both of the backup singer in the above Steely Dan video obtained fame for their own works. Well, relative amounts of fame.

The lady in green's song came in 1963 and went to #14 on the billboard charts. During the recording of the song tape was wrapped around the capstan to make it a faster tempo. The result was a higher-pitched vocal sound. So, the singer did not use her real name, instead using her daughter's name.

The lady in red top, I think it was red I was distracted, also had a hit song of her own. It was co-written and came out in 1974, but the backup singer's version that hit the charts came out in 1981. The song held the top spot on Billboard for 5 weeks, but was interrupted for one week by what I consider a Dutch novelty song that really wasn't a song but included snippets of a bunch of different hit songs.

Name the two backup singers and the two songs that charted for them.

[Ky Fried Redleg]

Both of the backup singer in the above Steely Dan video obtained fame for their own works. Well, relative amounts of fame.

The lady in green's song came in 1963 and went to #14 on the billboard charts. During the recording of the song tape was wrapped around the capstan to make it a faster tempo. The result was a higher-pitched vocal sound. So, the singer did not use her real name, instead using her daughter's name.

The lady in red top, I think it was red I was distracted, also had a hit song of her own. It was co-written and came out in 1974, but the backup singer's version that hit the charts came out in 1981. The song held the top spot on Billboard for 5 weeks, but was interrupted for one week by what I consider a Dutch novelty song that really wasn't a song but included snippets of a bunch of different hit songs.

Name the two backup singers and the two songs that charted for them.

LOL