Classic Hit Quiz: Song + Year (2)

[A] Imagine | Cut at Ascot and the Record Plant. A secular hymn that topped the UK in 1980; Yoko Ono later received official co‑writer credit.

[D] A Day In The Life | Spliced Lennon’s headlines to McCartney’s morning sprint, then detonated an orchestral glissando. Alarm clock included. Sgt. Pepper’s strangest sunrise still dazzles.

[A] Stairway To Heaven | No UK single release, yet it taught every guitar shop a ‘no Stairway’ sign. A whisper‑to‑cyclone arrangement built for goosebumps.

[D] Like A Prayer | Gospel choir, distorted guitars, and a Pepsi commercial turned PR grenade. Pop learned incense pairs nicely with controversy.

[D] One | Born from a near‑breakup Berlin session. It rescued Achtung Baby and doubled as a charity single, all while Edge’s chime out‑preached sermons.

[B] Wuthering Heights | Written at 18 after finishing the Brontë novel. First UK female to top charts with a self‑penned song. That sky‑high final key change.

[A] Creep | Greenwood’s pre‑chorus ‘clang’ tried to ruin the take and accidentally made it. The band grew to hate playing it; fans never did.

[A] Love Will Tear Us Apart | Released weeks after Ian Curtis’s death. Synth arpeggios with heartbreak lyrics make despair disturbingly hummable.

[D] Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever | A double A‑side that somehow peaked at UK No.2. Two Liverpool memories: Paul’s brass‑bright suburbia, John’s dreamy strawberry haze.

[D] Bridge Over Troubled Water | Garfunkel’s cathedral tenor over Knechtel’s piano. The coda almost got cut; instead it taught stadiums to hold their breath.

[D] Paranoid Android | Four movements stitched from jams, titled after a depressed robot. ‘Rain down’ made prog dramatic again without capes.

[C] Everybody Hurts | Written deliberately simple so anyone could sing it when it hurts. Bill Berry steered it; the freeway‑jam video made empathy go widescreen.

[B] Sweet Child O' Mine | Slash’s warm‑up riff accidentally became rock’s stickiest hook. The warehouse video sold a million leather jackets in people’s heads.

[B] Dancing Queen | Working title ‘Boogaloo.’ Piano glissandos, glittering harmonies, and the rare pop song that turns any Friday into sequins and plausible twirls.

[B] Smells Like Teen Spirit | A deodorant joke became a generational detonation. Butch Vig’s polish met Cobain’s fuzz; the cheerleader‑riot video threw hair‑metal out of homeroom.

[C] All Along The Watchtower | Dylan wrote it; Hendrix made it explode. So definitive that Dylan later played it Hendrix‑style. Layered guitars like weather systems.

[B] Waterloo Sunset | Ray Davies’ Thames postcard. Lovers watch the river while London’s melancholy hums underneath; those ‘sha‑la‑las’ count as vitamin D.

[D] Angels | Written after snowfall in Dublin. Radio hesitated; Britain made it their karaoke weepie and terrace sing‑along. Williams has requested hazard pay ever since.

[C] Live Forever | Noel’s bright reply to grunge gloom. Recorded fast, sung like a victory lap. The solo still smells like wet pavement and 1994 optimism.

[C] Unfinished Sympathy | Pre‑trip‑hop trip‑hop. One Steadicam take on Melrose; Shara Nelson glides over strings like the bus that never quite stops.