The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down to the River to Pray

I’ve just emerged from a week in the Incredible College Simulator(*), first spending a week at DAMOP and then the weekend at my 20th college reunion at Williams, so while I have physics stuff I ought to write about, my brain has temporarily turned to goo. Also, I have a week’s worth of administrative crap to do that I refused to deal with while I was away. So instead of deep commentary about science, here’s some silly pop culture material, from a giant mailing-list thread that also exploded last week. (Hey to occasional commenter Dr. Pain…)

The idea of the game is to stick together two song titles that overlap by one word (last word of the first title, first word of the second) so as to make an amusing combination of some sort. The post title is probably my best effort in this direction (also, the first one I thought of), combining The Band and the O Brother, Where Art Thous soundtrack. Here are some others (artists listed in parentheses when I think they’re obscure enough to need it; not all of these are songs that I own, or even like, but I know the titles):

1. I Don’t Wanna Grow Up on Cripple Creek (Tom Waits/ The Band)
2. American Girl from the North Country
3. My My Hey Hey Hey What Can I Do
4. Beautiful Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Shawn Mullins and Gordon Lightfoot)
5. Bat Out of Hell’s Bells
6. Another Day in Paradise by the Dashboard Light
7. True Love Travels on a Gravel Road to Nowhere
8. The Body of an American Pie
9. Your Little Hoodrat Friend of the Devil
10. Bring on the Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
11. Runnin’ Down a Dream of the Blue Turtles
12. Walk of Life in a Nutshell (Dire Straits/ Barenaked Ladies)
13. Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight Is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel (Spinal Tap/ Barenaked Ladies)
14. Midnight Train to Georgia on My Mind
15. Pay Me My Money Down by the Water
16. Sweet Home Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) (which would actually almost work as a mashup if you put the Brecht chorus with the Skynyrd verses)

And as an indication of how punchy I was getting as I thought about this nonsense during the car ride from Quebec to Niskayuna to Williamstown, two that involve mangling a song title for comedy value: “Bottle of Fur Elise” (Urge Overkill and Beethoven), and “No Woman, No Cry for Me Argentina.” And that last one (including the fact that I find it funny) is probably as good an indicator as you’ll get of my mental state at the moment, so I’ll shut up now. You can almost certainly do better; leave your suggestions in the comments.

(*- I say this for two reasons: First, that it was a solid week spent in an intense environment (well, two of them) surrounded by really smart and interesting people, and second because last night was the first night in a week that I was asleep a) before midnight, and b) without drinking a bunch of beer first.)