Via oursin and owlfish...

To be honest, I'm hopeless at recognising lyrics out of context and I don't think I'd get most of these myself. At a guess, I think I'd only reliably recognise about three -- and they're on my iPod! But some of them are classics and might be familiar. I have cheated slightly in skipping most of the Welsh songs that came up, but I've left one, just to tease you.

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Edited to add: I have now updated the list to show all the correct guesses, mostly, it has to be said, from the LJ side. :)

But thanks to everyone for playing.

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Instructions

1. Open up your music player. Hit shuffle.
2. Record the first few lines of the first 20 songs that come up that do not give away the name of the song. Skip instrumentals, but don't skip the embarrassing ones.
3. Make hapless LJ denizens guess the song names and artists. Google is cheating. For musical songs, the name of the musical is acceptable in place of the artist.
4. Least hapless LJ denizen wins admiration.



I don't know how truly random Shuffle is because a couple of artists/groups show up more than once.

1) While there's a show left to perform, Smooth down your hair and put your makeup on. (Catatonia "Way beyond blue")

2) In 1649 to St George's Hill, a ragged band they called the Diggers came to show the people's will. (Billy Bragg 'The World Turned Upside Down')

3) Well, I took me a woman late last night, I’s three-fourths drunk, she looked uptight. (Bob Dylan 'I shall be free')

4) When I was a young man, my age seventeen, I ought to have been serving Victoria my Queen. (Steeleye Span 'Australia')

5) Go 'way from my window, leave at your own chosen speed. (Bob Dylan 'It ain't me babe')

6) I think I'm sophisticated because I'm living my life like a good homo sapien. (The Kinks 'Apeman')

7) Guide me O, thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. (Title now identified as 'Cwm Rhondda' and caper_est has named the singer, who is Cerys Matthews.)

8) I declare I don't care no more, I'm burning up and out and growing bored

9) Do you remember? Do you remember? Do you remember how you were gonna stay free.

10) It starts in the morning when you're lying next to me. I'm rolling, I'm rolling, I'm rolling so quickly.

11) Well sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water. (The Zutons 'Valerie')

12) Along the coast road by the headland, the early lights of winter glow. I'll pour a cup to you my darling.

13) Gweld y golau'n dawnsio trwy yr coed, teimlo'n hwyrach na deimlas i erioed.

14) True Thomas sat on Huntley Bank, and he beheld a lady gay. A lady that was brisk and bold, come riding on a pearly grey. (Steeleye Span 'Thomas the Rhymer')

15) Oh please don't you rock my boat, 'cos I don't want my boat to be rocking. (Bob Marley 'Satisfy my soul')

16) Oh the little things that you say and do, make me want to be with you-hoo-hoo. (Steeleye Span version of 'Rave on')

17) Rows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air, and feather canyons everywhere. (Joni Mitchell 'Both sides, now')

18) While riding on a train goin' west, I fell asleep to take my rest. (Bob Dylan 'Bob Dylan's Dream)

19) Well you can bump and grind it is good for your mind, well you can twist and shout, let it all hang out.

20) I had a first cousin called Arthur Mcbride, he and I took a stroll down by the seaside, a-seeking good fortune and what might betide, just as the day was a dawning. (Planxty 'Arthur Mcbride')

[Cross-posted from Dreamwidth by way of a backup http://heleninwales.dreamwidth.org/18300.html. If you want to leave a comment, please use whichever site you find most convenient. Comments so far: .]

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