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The Album-Song Name Game

Fri., November 16, 2007

'My Aim Is True' cover.Prepping some mix CDs for the drive my sister and I will take in Colorado and Wyoming next week for Thanksgiving, I conversed by email with a coworker about mixtape1 gimmicks, such as having songs on a travel mix focus on driving, typically via an allusion in the song’s title. The robots at Tiny Mix Tapes have been churning out mixtapes like these for years.

My coworker countered with a still gimmicky but more clever idea for a work-in-progress mix that’s perfect for the music lover, and specifically, the album lover. There are three criteria each song on this mixtape must meet:

  1. The lyrics of the song must contain the exact name of the album it originally appeared on.
  2. The song’s name may not share the album’s name.
  3. The song “obv. must be good.”

Got it? You’ll note that rule two disqualifies many songs. For example, “Everybody Knows this is Nowhere” by Neil Young with Crazy Horse won’t work. Although it contains the exact lyric “everybody knows this is nowhere,” the album on which the song originally appears is titled Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

An example of an acceptable song would be Elvis Costello’s “Alison” because it contains the lyric “my aim is true,” which is the name of the album “Alison” appears on. Another would be Modest Mouse’s “Bury Me With It,” which contains the lyric “good news for people who love bad news” and appears on the album of that same lengthy name.

Genius, especially because, unless there’s a site listing such songs that I haven’t found, it’s nearly impossible to cheat with Google. Or at the least, it would be time consuming; most song-lyric sites bristle with pop-up ads and devote separate pages to each song on an album. No, for this game you must have knowledge of often obscure album tracks. The only three I could think of at work today are from albums I listened to a lot in high school and college:

Now go check your record collection and suss out more songs that fit the bill.

1 I know they’re all digital or CDs now and I don’t care. “Mixtape” sounds better. [back]

Tags: Music | Comments have been closed.

On November 18, 2007 at 3:14 p.m., beth wrote:

Wow- that's a tough one. My first submission (and this is after getting through a substantial chunk of my iTunes selections...)

Young Pilgrim, the Shins (off Chutes too Narrow)

On November 18, 2007 at 6:07 p.m., AH wrote:

Wayne by Chantal Kreviazuk (Under These Rocks and Stones)
Ants Marching by Dave Matthews (Under the Table and Dreaming)
Every Little Bit by Patty Griffin (Living With Ghosts)
Good Thing by Patty Larkin (Angels Running)
Tiger by Paula Cole (This Fire)

On November 18, 2007 at 11:33 p.m., beth wrote:

Asking For It, Hole (Live Through This)

On November 19, 2007 at 12:02 a.m., beth wrote:

Randy Described Eternity, Built to Spill (Perfect From Now On)

On November 19, 2007 at 12:17 a.m., beth wrote:

Beautiful Dreamer, Mates of State (Bring it Back)

On November 19, 2007 at 1:31 a.m., beth wrote:

I wonder when I'll stop obsessing about this. Anyways:

Can't Ignore the Train, 10,000 Maniacs (the Wishing Chair)
Road to Joy, Bright Eyes (I'm Wide Awake It's Morning)
I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You, Tom Waits (Closing Time) (this might be pushing it...)
Man, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Fever to Tell)

Now I'm going to bed.

On November 19, 2007 at 10:16 a.m., Jason wrote:

I had all weekend to brainstorm and only came up with one more, another from an album I (sort of embarrassedly admit) listened to a lot in college: "High Hopes" by Pink Floyd, from Division Bell. Mainly I remembered it because I recalled that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams named the album.

On November 28, 2007 at 11:34 a.m., Jason wrote:

The coworker who devised this devilish game just smacked herself in the forehead. She’d forgotten until now that she’d unleashed the Album-Song Name Game on readers of her now-defunct LiveJournal back in the summer of 2004. At that time, they’d submitted a bunch of mostly indie picks:

“2+2=5” by Radiohead, from the album Hail To The Thief
“Bipolar” by Blonde Redhead, from the album Fake Can Be Just as Good
“Schizophrenia” by Sonic Youth, from the album Sister
“Mr. Grieves” by Pixies, from the album Doolittle
“Chocolate” by Snow Patrol, from the album Final Straw
“Everyone Chooses Sides” by The Wrens, from the album The Meadowlands
“Gender Bombs” by The Stills, from the album Logic Will Break Your Heart
“Hangwire” by Pixies, from the album Bossanova
“NYC” by Interpol, from the album Turn On The Bright Lights
“Passing Afternoon” by Iron & Wine, from the album Our Endless Numbered Days
“Roll up And Shine” by Stereophonics, from the album Performance & Cocktails
“The Way You Move” by OutKast, from the album Speakerboxxx
“Upward Over The Mountain” by Iron & Wine, from the album The Creek Drank the Cradle