She Said Songs

In which I list some pop song lyrics for you to guess, because it’s Friday and I’m tired.

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The other night, on Twitter, Patrick Nielsen Hayden posted a snippet of song lyrics with the hashtag “#greatestalbumsofalltime.” I was bored and looking to kill time, so I followed up with a couple of my own, both of which happened to start with “She said…”

And I said to myself, “Ooh! There’s an idea for a themed guess-the-lyrics blog post.” Thus, this.

The following list is a set of phrases that immediately follow “She said…” (or “she says”) in a pop song (or, in two cases, have “she said” in the middle of the line). I’ve left that phrase out, because I’m lazy, and it makes the game a little harder. Your mission, should you be bored and looking to kill time with a silly pop culture game on a blog, is to guess the song based on the lyric. Post your answer in a comment, and if you like, include a line of your own for others to guess.

  1. Baby, forever. But I don’t like to be alone, so don’t stay away too long.
  2. You’re pretty good with words, but words won’t save your life.
  3. Nothing, man, it’s stolen.
  4. I ain’t gonna do anything sexual with you, I’m kinda saving myself for the scene.
  5. Dear boy, gonna make you a man.
  6. I thought you’d never say hello, you look like the silent type.
  7. Sonny, move out to the country.
  8. So long, Norman.
  9. Oh, baby, I feel so down, way to turn me off when I feel left out.
  10. She’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis.
  11. Son, have I got a little story for you.
  12. I’ll turn you on sonny to something strong, if you play that song with the funky break.
  13. You’ve taken me for granted because I please you.
  14. I gotta go, but my friend can stick around.
  15. Money is like us in time, it lies but can’t stand up.
  16. Pardon me, are you ballin’?
  17. Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell. You might be lord of half the world, you’ll not own me as well
  18. I’m so obsessed that I’m becoming a bore.
  19. Tell me, are you a Christian, child?
  20. She’d always been a dancer. She worked in fifteen clubs a day.

These cover a pretty wide range of stuff, and I think they’re all identifiable from these lines. Several of these are godawful earworms, once you recognize them. Two are by the same band, one exists in two well-known versions.

Good luck!

19 comments

  1. I’m not allowed to play this game because we talked about it over dinner and also share a music library, but I want credit for #9.

    (On a quick glance, I recognize . . . 1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 17 (why such a long quote from that one?), 18, 19. Of those, I’m going to say that 18 is the most obscure?)

  2. 5: “Lola” by The Kinks.
    7: “Movin’ Out” by Billy Joel.
    12: “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.

  3. The long quote from 17 is because there’s that first sentence between “she said” and the second sentence, which is the line I really like. And I was trying to be consistent about only using lines that immediately follow “she said”– I skipped another good one because it had “She said to me…”

    “Most obscure” is tough. #15 is probably the least well known of the songs, #16 is a line during a break from the main thread of lyrics, #8 is a cult classic. #18 is up there, but it did get a decent amount of radio play in its day.

  5. 6. Bob Dylan – Tangled Up in Blue
    9. The Strokes – Last Nite
    11. Pearl Jam – Alive
    20 is by the Beatles and is on Abbey Road, but I forget the name of the song.

  8. 8. Warren Zevon, “The French Inhaler”
    13. Paul Simon, “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”
    20. The Beatles, “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window”

    Will @1124: Manfred Mann’s version is a cover of that song; the original is by Bruce Springsteen.

  9. 13: Paul Simon – Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes.

    I was half-expecting to see the Eagles’ Life in the Fast Lane on here.

  10. Still on 14: here is a clip of The Band from the Last Waltz performing the song. We lost Levon this year — really too bad. Mavis Staples and family join in. Say Mavis perform last weekend opening for Bonnie Raitt at the Beacon in NYC. Great fun.

  14. Eric @ 12:00: I’d always heard that the other way ’round. That is, that Springsteen was covering Mann. Or else that Springsteen had written with Mann, or something.

  16. 17 is Richard (and maybe Linda) Thompson, “Beeswing”.
    I recognized “Walking in Memphis”, though already claimed.

    Was “The problem is all inside your head she said to me / the answer is easy if you take it logically” the one you skipped?

  17. 3 is “Punk Rock Girl” by the Dead Milkmen.
    4 is obviously The Hold Steady. Just as obviously I can never remember which of their songs is which.

  18. I haven’t seen any wrong guesses yet, so you guys are doing good. So far only 1, 2 and half of 4 are unidentified (right band, need the title). Springsteen’s version of “Blinded by the Light” pre-dates Mann’s– Mann dropped at least half of the verses, because it had too many words.

    The one I left off because of the “to me” was an Afghan Whigs song, the name of which I can never remember– Neglekted, I think. I also refrained from using “I think I remember the film, and as I recall, I think we both kind of liked it” as being a dreadful earworm.

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