Today’s Answers

A return to five questions today.

One

Clocks by Coldplay features a type of fruit and a creature in the lyrics of the first verse. What fruit and what creature?

Answers: Apple; Tiger.

The lights go out and I can’t be saved

Tides that I tried to swim against

Have brought me down upon my knees

Oh, I beg, I beg and plead

Singin’ come out of things un said

Shoot an apple off my head

And a trouble that can’t be named

A tiger’s waiting to be tamed, singin’

— Clocks, Coldplay

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Two

In song lyrics from 2007 what business does the singer admit visiting despite declaring themselves not to be any of the following: ‘clean, pristine, queen or machine’? Secondly, what is the song?

Answers: Taco Bell; Glamorous.

I be on the movie screens

Magazines and bougie scenes

I’m not clean, I’m not pristine

I’m no queen, I’m no machine

I still go to Taco Bell

Drive through, raw as hell

I don’t care, I’m still real

No matter how many records I sell

— Glamorous, Fergie

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Three

Complete this lyric from John Newton’s hymn:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved . . .”?

Additionally, what trade (now abhorred) had Newton been involved with?

Answer: (. . .) a wretch like me; Slave trade.

John Newton was an English evangelical Anglican cleric and slavery abolitionist. He had previously been a captain of slave ships and an investor in the slave trade. Newton served as a sailor in the Royal Navy (after forced recruitment) and was a servant for a time in West Africa. Newton is the author of the hymns Amazing Grace and Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.

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Four

What Paul Simon song includes a reference to ‘Joltin Joe’? On what two albums, both released in 1968, was this song included?

Answer: Mrs Robinson; Bookends and The Graduate

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, wo wo wo

What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson

‘Joltin Joe’ has left and gone away, hey hey hey

Hey hey hey

— Mrs Robinson, Paul Simon

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Five

A 1975 song includes the following characters (not in any specific order): one who is a clown character of the 16th-century commedia dell’arte; an Italian polymath; the barber of Seville; and the Devil? What song, and who wrote it?

Answers: Bohemian Rhapsody; Freddie Mercury.

Scaramouche, Galileo, Figaro, and Beelzebub all lyrically appear in Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. It has been suggested that these characters represent the members of the band as follows: Scaramouche, the clown character of the 16th-century commedia dell’arte, is Mercury himself, and Galileo refers to Brian May’s passionate interest in astronomy. Roger Taylor and John Deacon are represented respectively by Figaro (the barber of Seville) and Beelzebub (the devil). It has also been suggested that all four represent Mercury himself and his inner struggles.

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Mamma Mia

The post title is a lyric from Queens’s Bohemian Rhapsody by Freddie Mercury.

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