Music Trivia Games, 70's, 70s, Seventies, Country, Rock, Folk, Pop

Stanza: Kickin' your can all over the place

Song: We Will Rock You

Artist: Queen

Year: 1977, Chart: 4

Theme: Queen guitarist Brian May wrote this, and said the idea for the song came in a dream. He told Mojo magazine Oct 2008 that he wanted to "create a song that the audience could participate in."

Stanza: And tell the world that everything's OK

Song: Man in Black

Artist: Johnny Cash

Year: 1971, Chart: 58

Theme: Cash wrote this song to explain that he wears black for poor, beaten down, hungry, & for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime

Stanza: Comin' home to a place he'd never been before

Song: Rocky Mountain High

Artist: John Denver

Year: 1972, Chart: 9

Theme: Denver wrote this song during the Perseid Meteor Shower which happens every August. He was camping with friends at the tree line at Williams Lake near Windstar, CO.

And I would give anything I own,

Give up my life, my heart, my home,

I would give everything I own ...

Stanza: Just to have you back again.

Song: Everything I Own

Artist: Bread

Year: 1972, Chart: 5

Theme: David Gates wrote this about his dad after his funeral. Gates said his dad was his greatest influence.

Stanza: Wearin' out things that nobody wears

Song: Sweet Emotion

Artist: Aerosmith

Year: 1975, Chart: 36

Theme: Steven Tyler wrote this about how frustrated he was with the band. They were doing a lot of drugs at the time and tensions often ran high. The song is also a statement about doing your own thing without letting others bring you down.

Stanza: Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light

Song: The Gambler

Artist: Kenny Rogers

Year: 1978, Chart: 16

Theme: A first-person perspective about a conversation with an old poker player on a train. The card shark gives life advice to the narrator in the form of poker metaphors, before dying in his sleep.

Stanza: for my boots to get old

Song: Heard it in a Love Song

Artist: The Marshall Tucker Band

Year: 1977, Chart: 14

Theme: About a man who has lived on the road from town to town and affair to affair. Here, he's been with a woman who's been good to him and who he actually loves, but he can't stay with her because the call of the road is too strong.

Ooo, you make me live

whenever this world is cruel to me ...

Stanza: I got you, to help me forgive

Song: You're My Best Friend

Artist: Queen

Year: 1976, Chart: 16

Theme: Queen bass player John Deacon wrote this about his wife. He enjoyed a rather quiet home life.

I went down Virginia

Seekin' shelter from the storm

Caught up in the fable ...

Stanza: I watched the tower grow

Song: Who'll Stop the Rain?

Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival

Year: 1970, Chart: 2

Theme: Group leader John Fogerty wrote this. Like some of his other songs, like "Fortunate Son," it is a protest of the Vietnam War.

Lookin out at the road rushin under my wheels.

Lookin back at the years gone by ...

Stanza: Like so many summer fields

Song: Running on Empty

Artist: Jackson Browne

Year: 1977, Chart: 11

Theme: Recorded onstage, backstage, in 3 different hotel rooms, and on a Continental Silver Eagle tour bus during a cross-country tour in 1977, "Running on Empty" is a paean to life on the road.

You lured me away from home just to save you from being alone

You stole my heart ...

Stanza: and that's what really hurt

Song: Maggie May

Artist: Rod Stewart

Year: 1971, Chart: 1

Theme: This song is about the woman who deflowered Stewart when he was 16. "Maggie May was more or less a true story, about the first woman I had sex with, at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival.

Hey you, out there on your own

Sitting naked by the phone ...

Stanza: Would you touch me?

Song: Hey You

Artist: Pink Floyd

Year: 1979, Chart: ???

Theme: This is one of the most mysterious songs on The Wall. It seems to be about the longing for human interaction. In every verse is a person in some sort of desperate or pathetic scenario.

Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy

I was once like you were now ...

Stanza: and I know that it's not easy

Song: Father and Song

Artist: Cat Stevens

Year: 1971, Chart: ???

Theme: About a Russian family where the son wants to join the revolution but his father wants him to stay home and work on the farm. Stevens made up the story, but his relationship with his own father was an influence on the song.

Stanza: He learned to walk while I was away

Song: Cat's in the Cradle

Artist: Harry Chapin

Year: 1974, Chart: 1

Theme: This heart-wrenching song tells of a father and son who can't schedule time to be with each other, and it serves as a warning against putting one's career before family.

A dreamer of pictures, I run in the night;

you see us together ...

Stanza: chasin' the moonlight

Song: Cinnamon Girl

Artist: Neil Young

Year: 1970, Chart: 55

Theme: Young has never said who the Cinnamon Girl is but stated: "Wrote this for a city girl on peeling pavement coming at me thru Phil Ochs eyes playing finger cymbals. It was hard to explain to my wife."

I bet your mama was a tent show queen

And all her boyfriends were sweet sixteen

I'm no schoolboy but I know what I like ...

Stanza: You shoulda heard me just around midnight

Song: Brown Sugar

Artist: Rolling Stones

Year: 1971, Chart: 1

Theme: The lyrics are about slaves from Africa who were sold in New Orleans and raped by their white masters. The way the song is structured, it comes off as a fun rocker about a white guy having sex with a black girl.

Stanza: But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there

Song: Wild World

Artist: Cat Stevens

Year: 1971, Chart: 11

Theme: Stevens wrote this about searching for peace and happiness in a crazy world. It's talking about losing touch with home and reality - home especially.

I am yours for evermore

till eternity

silently

listen to the words I say ...

Stanza: I'm not talking just for play.

Song: Heaven Knows

Artist: Donna Summer

Year: 1978, Chart: 4

Theme: The late 1970's were a prolific time for Summer, and here is yet another hit from that era. It's a pretty desperate song about a woman trying to keep her marriage/relationship working against considerable odds.

Left alone with big fat Fanny

She was such a naughty nanny

Hip big woman ...

Stanza: you made a bad boy out of me

Song: Fat Bottomed Girls

Artist: Queen

Year: 1978, Chart: 24

Theme: Queen guitarist Brian May wrote this. It's about a young man who comes to appreciate women of substantial girth.

"I wrote it with Fred(Mercury) in mind, as you do especially if you've got a great singer who likes fat bottomed girls."

Stanza: When you hold on to me

Song: Baby Hold On

Artist: Eddie Money

Year: 1977, Chart: 11

Theme: This was the first single for Eddie Money, who was a New York City cop before pursuing his music career. Money (real name: Edward Mahoney) wrote the song with his guitarist Jimmy Lyon. It's simply about a couple struggling to hold on to their love during difficult times.