The Distributed Easy Lyrics Quiz: part two

[chris]

I have picked up a summer cold. Yhis is annoying, but I have had such a fortunate run of good health (not sure, but maybe 18 months since my last one) that I am surely overdue. It doesn't feel like a horribly bad one; a nasty sore throat, but not so bad that Lockets and, supposedly, Ultra Chloraseptic cannot mostly take care of it, and a sniffly, slightly runny nose. Fingers crossed for being better before I return to work on Monday, oddly enough, after popping into work for an afternoon yesterday as cover for someone who has picked up a different stomach bug that's going around. All warm thoughts to those of you who have to cope with far worse on a daily basis, of course.

Within the cut-tag below are the lyrics for the Distributed Easy Lyrics Quiz. Please identify as many as possible and, for the last question, suggest which is your favourite. Please don't nominate your own lyric as your favourite. You are most welcome to enter even if you didn't submit a lyric. You don't need to name the artist because everyone has covered everything; you are expected not to use search engines or other external assistance, on your honour. If you have access to both, I'd prefer to receive answers on Dreamwidth, but answers on LiveJournal are welcome, or by e-mail at a pinch. One entry per person, please, not per account. Answers and scoring will, hopefully, be revealed on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Poll #1064 Distributed Easy Lyrics Quiz: answers, accurate and otherwise

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 10

that lightning storm, that tidal wave, this avalanche, I'm not afraid

Nobody's gonna go to school today/she's gonna make them stay at home

"He's a liar and I'm not sure about you."

Waiting for the moon to come and light me up inside // I am waiting for the telephone to tell me I'm alive

But then she went to Cleveland with some guy named Leland that she met at the bank.

I was born to love her / And I will never be free / You'll always be a part of me

Faith has been broken, tears must be cried, Lets do some living after we die,

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality.

The image has gone, only you and I, it mean's nothing to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Let's play Twister, let's play Risk.

It took time to understand the man

He'll be the man who's already working, spreading a memory all through the sky

Why do birds suddenly appear / Every time you are near

Ever since I can remember you've been hanging round this joint

You better hang on tooth and nail

Said she, "Able am I, son."

You’ve got your career, spent the best part of last year apart.

guardian angels sang this strain

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro, Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me

Time goes by so slowly / And time can do so much

I'm not gonna spend my life being a color

And finally: which lyric is your favourite of the above, other than your own?

Comments

[oenomel]

I could have got a couple more than I did, probably, if I'd let them churn around my brain for a bit before putting my answers in. One of the two, I think, has a slight inaccuracy in the lyric as given ("her" should be "you"), but that wouldn't have stopped me from getting it.

Interesting selection. It probably says something about who people assumed the other entrants would be.

[chris]

Go on... how do you interpret it? If anything has surprised me so far, it's the degree of non-exact match between lyric suppliers and lyric identifiers, though all are welcome for both parts, of course.

[oenomel]

For starters, I suspect that a few of these may be pitched at specific subgroups of your readership; something obscure but with special significance for 10 or 12 of your readers is automatically going to do nicely (and will probably make you smile in the process, which is also good!).

Several seem to be songs that I'd identify as very well-known in *either* the US or the UK, but not both. That could also be a good ruse, but it's heavily reliant on the people who should get it, getting it.

As a way of constructing a satisfying but easy quiz, it hits a pitfall; there's a disincentive to offer up the really easy questions which every good lyric quiz slots in. There are a couple here which I think will get close to 100% correct solving - and I approve - but those suppliers will be punished by the scoring system. Perhaps a future iteration of the quiz might be crafted to invite three submissions aiming for 90%, 60% and 30% solve rates, rather than a single shot at 66%?

[chris]

A very sound suggestion, though the risk is ever-present that the higher the demands on the participants, the fewer will participate - not least from having to set more lyrics, but having to identify loads and loads of lyrics. Having three times as many lyrics would be likely to put off participants.

I've just realised that there's another lyric submitted by e-mail that I completely managed to omit from the poll. I am an idiot and apologise profusely to the e-mail participant.

[oenomel]

Actually, yes. I also forgot my rule of thumb which is that "The more complicated the rules become, the less likely that anyone will want to play".

I wonder what the optimal size is for a lyrics quiz.

[oenomel]

Unrelatedly, there's mail in your demon mailbox. I mention this here solely because I just found a mailer-daemon failure notice from a previous one from several weeks ago. Feel free to delete this comment once read. :-)

[tablesaw]

There's a parlor game among my friends that has similar strategies. That game has players pitching for less than 50% correct, but the aspect of "people who should get it, getting it" is probably an unavoidable constant in strategy.

As for a revised scoring system, I'm not in the right headspace for rules, but sticking with the 2/3 target, I think I'd like to see something where 0% correct scores 0, 33% scores N, 66% scores 2N, and 100% scores N. With those scores, hard lyrics are strongly discouraged, and players are more likely to err on the side of caution, leading to easier suggestions.