Tuesday, September 9, 2008

I was defeated, You won the war


























































As TreeFrogDemon notes, there are a lot of songs about battles. Here are 10 snippets from various fights, wars and skirmishes. Your country needs you to identify those responsible and the titles of their battle hymns.

As you can see there are, annoyingly, 10 random picture clues to match the songs, ranging from the slightly cryptic to the bleedin' obvious.


Go on, how could you ever refuse? You feel like you win when you lose!


1. With a mighty tongue he catches flies, And the palm of his hand incredible size, One great big eye has a focus in your direction, Now the battle is on…

2. The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath

3. And now subversion’s in the air, In the shape of flying bricks!

4. But O, did you see all the dead of Manassas, All the bellies and the bones and the bile?

5. It's demanding, to defeat those evil machines, I know she can beat them

6. The shooting and fighting of the past two weeks continued today 25 miles north-west of Saigon. I wasn't really sure what was going on

7. There's Willy Wright and his boys -one helluva noise, that's Billy's boys! With fully-fashioned mugs, that's Little John's thugs,the Barking Slugs - supersmugs!

8. You rookies haven't done enough laps around the track.You had one hot single but then your album sounds whack. Son, you bore me with your war stories

9. What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?

10. Sätt Själv känner jagsen jag mött dig Historien upprepar sig

27 comments:

snadfrod said...

Yay! Quiz time! I'll take Yankee Bayonet by The Decemberists at four and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1 at five, ta.

Now hmmm...

Blimpy said...

Yep Yoshimi at 5!!

That's me!

GarethI said...

9 is The Eton Rifles, I believe.

Abahachi said...

Re 9: the line is definitely from The Eton Rifles, as garethi notes, but I'm damned if I can see the relevance of the picture, so clearly this is more fiendishly subtle than it first appears...

Abahachi said...

Or perhaps the pictures are in a different order. Still beats me.

saneshane said...

1 is Ogre battle but I don't get the picture... unless he's wearing the helmet from 'meat is murder' that gives you the smiths that gives you the queen is dead.. that gives you one of my all time pet hates..dives for cover....
Queen.
(or shall I give up now)
Flaming lips I got too.

saneshane said...

and ten is funny..
I knew more of the German version of Nena that I do Scandinavian Languages though!

saneshane said...

and I know 6...
but i'll wait.

sourpus said...

1) Ogre Battle - Queen
2) Battle of Evermore - Zep
3) Trumpton Riots - Half Man Half Biscuit
4)Yankee Bayonet - The Decembrists
5) Yoshimi - Flaming Lips
6) Nineteen - Paul Hardcastle
7) The Battle of Epping Forest - Genesis
8)Battle - Eminem
9) Eton Rifles - The Jam

Not sure about the last one, but i'll take a guess at the Swedish version of Waterloo by Abba(?)

How did I do, sir?

ToffeeBoy said...

Well, I knew 3, 5, 7 & 9 - but sourpus beat me to them!

ShivSidecar said...

Blimey, that was a quick 'un. In the absence of anything else to do, here's my attempt to match pics to songs:

(Numbering 1-10 from the top)

1 = Nineteen ('Nam)
2 = Eton Rifles (he'd be no match for our untamed wit)
3 = Eminem (poster for 8 Mile?)
4 = Epping Forest
5 = Ogres!
6 = Hattifatteners! [Pink Robots? - Ed.]
7 = Yankees (but at what battle?)
8 = Battle Of Evermore (co-vocalist Sandy D)
9 = Trumpton
10 = The worst year ever to enter Eurovision... (I remember Mouth & MacNeal from my Fab 208 listening days, but which was Mouth and which was MacNeal I know not).

Brilliant pic selection, Proudfoot - do you work in a library?

ShivSidecar said...

One more favourite battle lyric:

"I've got this great idea
Why don't we pitch it to the Franklin fucking Mint?
Fine pewter portraits of General Apathy and Major Boredom singing...
whatever and ever, amen"

Anybody? (The title may sum up your reaction to this question...)

Anonymous said...

Fairly sure that 10 is either Sigur Ros or the Cocteau Twins...

ToffeeBoy said...

@ shiv

The mighty Ben Folds no less - great quote from "The Battle Of Who Could Care Less"

And perhaps steenbeck or another resident from across the pond could explain why Americans say 'I could care less' when they mean the exact opposite?

ToffeeBoy said...

... and from a band who make fotherington-thomas seem like a tuogh, we have the following battle-inspired lyrics:

"The sun sets on the war,
the day breaks and everything is new."

Anyone?

nilpferd said...

"Tuogh"?! A welsh dandy?

My bro says "I could care less" a lot, he adopted it about a year after moving to L.A. Evidence that Americans understand irony, I think, TB. I would hesitate a guess that it could be a Seinfeldian coinage.

nilpferd said...

Oh, no it isn't- read this and learn.. unless you could care less.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ico1.htm

steenbeck said...

I was going to say that Americans only say "I could care less" if they're getting it way wrong. It should be "I couldn't care less." I hadn't really noticed people saying it the other way. I don't think I say it much at all.

treefrogdemon said...

Thanks, nilpferd - an excellent website to add to my 'when I'm bore at work' list. I moved straight along to 'cheap at half the price' and was surprised to find I agreed with Kingsley Amis.

ShivSidecar said...

toffeeboy, you're right - but you knew that anyway.

"Sun sets on the war..." looks like Golden Age prog bollocks to me, but I really have no idea...

saneshane said...

'winning a battle,losing the war' Kings of convenience

ToffeeBoy said...

@ nilpferd - 'tuogh' for once isn't a ToffeeTypo - it's a Nigel Molesworth/Down With Skool reference.

@ shiv - no, it's not 'Golden Age prog bollocks' but I take the accusation that I'm likely to quote from any sort of prog bollocks firmly on the chin - in fact, I'm strangely proud of it!

@ shane - you got it!

ToffeeBoy said...

...and thanks for the link to that site nilpferd - hours of fun ahead...

nilpferd said...

Thanks.. i suppoze any fule kno that.. except me..

Proudfoot said...
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Proudfoot said...
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Proudfoot said...

I didn't really make it clear that the pictures were in random order. Sorry, c'est la guerre etc.
Anyhoo, Shiv understood and no, I don't work in a library, but I do like Google Image a lot.
@Sourpus. You get a Blue Peter Badge, the DSM, VC, George Cross, a Robertson's Golly and an old metal label from a Brut 33 bottle to pin on your lapel.
'Battle' was Gangstarr, but yes, on the 8 Mile OST