Tag: Songless Unlimited

You can still Ask Roger Anything. From Sue:

Hi Roger,

Here is a question for your ‘Ask Roger Anything’ hopper:

Knowing that you have such an appreciation for music and a JEOPARDY! background, what is a song you can instantly identify from literally the first split-second of notes?

I’ve been playing a music-guessing game recently called Songless Unlimited (where you only get a tenth of a second to start), and it’s fascinating how our brains can retrieve audio cues so quickly, whereas scrolling through endless cellphone text threads just gives us headaches.

Hope you get some well-deserved relief from long text chains, and looking forward to your answers!

This is a difficult question to sort. My gut says there are a lot. Several of them are the Beatles. Two in particular have such iconic starts – Hard Day’s Night and I Feel Fine– but there are likely others, such as Strawberry Fields Forever.

When I was in college, I heard a LOT of Seals and Crofts, so Summer Breeze immediately came to mind. My father owned the Everly Brothers single, so Bird Dog. I’m fairly obsessed with Something In 4/4 Time by Daryl Hall. I have owned the title track to the Daydream album by the Lovin’ Spoonful since I joined the Capitol Record Club as a kid. Seeing Lyle Lovett on the TODAY Show hooked me; one of my favorite songs is  That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas).

The hitmakers

But this became too random. So I looked at the list of the Top 60 singles artists from the book Top Pop Singles that came out in 2009. Not 100% I’d recognize these in a fraction of a second, but surely in a note or two. Most, but not all, of these are my favorites, or in the top two or three:

(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone -QoS. The first song I thought of.

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – Crosby, Stills, and Nash

 You Keep Me Hangin’ On – The Supremes 

Brown Sugar – The Rolling Stones. Not my favorite.

God Only Knows – The Beach Boys.

I Saw Her Again – The Mamas & the Papas

Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone  – The Temptations. I love that Dennis Edwards was so upset about the lengthy start. But it generated the right attitude for the opening line.

Goodnight My Angel – Billy Joel (maybe before the birds? Definitely after)

The Tears Of A Clown – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Gladys Knight & The Pips. My preferred version.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine –Marvin Gaye

I Want You Back – The Jackson 5

As -Stevie Wonder. One of my favorite songs EVER. 

What do you think/know you’d recognize very quickly?