How many of these ’60s hit songs can you recognize from just 5 words?
Six songs. Five words each. Four choices apiece.
Questions and answers live in separate sections, so you won’t accidentally spoil anything. No titles. No humming.
Keep a tally. The verdict’s at the end.
Question 1
Clue: Me think of girl constantly
A) Wipe Out
B) Wild Thing
C) Louie Louie
D) Hang on Sloopy
Answer
C: “Louie Louie,” the Kingsmen.
“Unintelligible at any speed.” That was the FBI’s verdict, after 31 months, Sarasota Magazine notes. The FCC joined the hunt for dirty words. Nobody thought to interview the singer, Jack Ely.
The song itself was old. Richard Berry wrote it in 1955. The Kingsmen cut it in Portland in one take, for about $50.
Question 2
Try this one with the volume up.
Clue: The same cigarettes as me
Choices:
A) (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
B) Paint It Black
C) Get Off of My Cloud
D) Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Answer
A: “Satisfaction.” The Rolling Stones.
Keith Richards slept with a guitar and a tape recorder beside the bed. One morning, he found that he’d used a whole side of the tape.
He ran the riff through a Gibson fuzz box. Newsweek, not impressed, called the band a “leering quintet”. The record hit No. 1 on July 10, 1965, the Stones’ first in America.
Question 3
Clue: the colorful clothes she wears
A) Wouldn’t It Be Nice
B) California Girls
C) God Only Knows
D) Good Vibrations
Answer
D: “Good Vibrations,” the Beach Boys.
Wilson got the idea from his mother. “My mother used to tell me about vibrations,” he told Rolling Stone, Songfacts notes.
Then he spent six months on it. Seventeen sessions, several studios. Most estimates put the bill at about $50,000, making it the most expensive pop song of its day. Mike Love wrote the words and called them “basically a flowery poem.” Carl Wilson sang lead.
No. 1, December 10, 1966.
Question 4
Careful. This one has a catch.
Clue: Ain’t gonna do you wrong
Choices:
A) Chain of Fools
B) Respect
C) Think
D) I Say a Little Prayer
Answer
B: “Respect.” Aretha Franklin.
The catch: it wasn’t her song to begin with. Redding wrote it with Earl “Speedo” Sims, and recorded it in 1965.
By the time she recorded her version on February 14, 1967, Franklin had been singing it onstage for years. She flipped the point of view of the lyrics, and her sisters, Erma and Carolyn, sang backup. It reached No. 1 on June 3, 1967. Two Grammys followed in 1968.
Question 5
Clue: The minute you let her
A) Let It Be
B) Penny Lane
C) Hey Jude
D) Get Back
Answer
C: “Hey Jude,” The Beatles.
Julian Lennon was five. His parents were divorcing, and Paul McCartney was driving out to see him. On the way, he started writing “Hey Jules.”
He changed the name because “Jude” sounded better. John Lennon, for his part, always thought the song was meant for him. At 7 minutes and 11 seconds, it was the first single on the Beatles’ Apple label, and it held No. 1 for nine consecutive weeks.
Question 6
Clue: Watching the ships roll in
Choices:
A) (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay
B) Try a Little Tenderness
C) Mr. Pitiful
D) I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
Answer
A: “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” Otis Redding.
December 7, 1967. Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper wrapped up the last overdubs. Three days later, Redding died when his plane crashed into Lake Monona, in Wisconsin.
Cropper had to finish the record alone. He said later that mixing it was “one of the hardest things I ever had to do”. Redding had hoped to add another verse, so Cropper left the whistling in. The song reached No. 1 in March 1968, the first posthumous chart-topper in the U.S.
How did you do?
5 or 6: You were there. Possibly in a paisley shirt.
3 or 4: You know the hits. A couple slipped by.
0 to 2: Put on a Beatles record. Start with Question 5.
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