Click continue… whenever you feel ready.

Wordle Song Lyrics:

1: ‘Umbrella‘ by Rihanna

2: ‘Hot N Cold‘ by Katy Perry

3: ‘Chasing Cars‘ by Snow Patrol

4: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody‘ by Queen

5: ‘Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)‘ by The Offspring

6: ‘Bat out of Hell‘ by Meatloaf

7: ‘She’s leaving home‘ by The Beatles

8: ‘The Model‘ by Kraftwerk

9: ‘Mac Arthur Park‘ by Richard Harris

10: ‘Black or White‘ by Michael Jackson

I’m having second thoughts about the accuracy of #5, surely the words “pretty” or “fly” should be more prominent?!

Hope ye enjoyed them, in any case.

It’s a very handy website which generates word clouds from any block of text, identifying individual words and then showing them at a size relative to their frequency (in the fashion of the Topics box on the right of this page).

Since things are a bit quiet these days on the quizzing scene, I’ve come up with a use for wordle.net.  After the continue… you’ll find Wordles of 10 famous songs (or their lyrics, to be accurate).  See if you can identify them from the words alone.

Here’s ‘Firestarter‘ by The Prodigy, by way of an easy example:

Song Lyric Wordles:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Few easy ones at the start (I hope!) and a couple of challenging ones at the end.

Update: answers here.

Click more… to check them out.

Answers:

1. In what year did ABBA first enter the Eurovision? A> 1973. Their first song ‘Ring Ring‘ finished third at the Swedish national selection contest.
2. Which country has won the title on the most occasions? A> Ireland, with seven wins.
3. Where did the first Eurovision take place? A> Lugano, Switzerland.
4. Teach-In won the 1975 contest for The Netherlands, with which song? A> Ding-a-Dong.
5. In what year did four countries share the title? A> 1969.
6. Celine Dion won the 1988 contest, for which country? A> Switzerland.
7. In what year did the UK last win the Eurovision? A> 1997.
8. Who was Ireland’s representative at Congratulations, the Eurovision’s 50 year retrospective event? A> Johnny Logan.
9. As of 2008, which country has competed in the contest the most times without a win? A> Portugal.
10. Which nation has withdrawn from the 2009 contest after the EBU requested they change the lyrics of their chosen song? A> Georgia.

Stay tuned to the blog as on Thursday I’ll be doing a Eurovision-themed pics and vids round. Sorry folks, the week turned out to be busy.

The first Eurovision took place in 1956 and, in the 53 years since, it’s become something of a cult. Nothing else combines culture, popularity and negative street cred as the ESC does. In its time, it’s managed to spawn a Grammy ‘Record of the year‘, a revolution and, perhaps most famously of all, ABBA.

Unsurprisingly, it’s also something of a quizzing gold mine, with venues, hosts, interval acts and gaffs all being viable themes for quiz rounds before one even gets to the acts and their songs.

Anyway, here’s my attempt at digging into that Eurovision trivia seam for a few quizzing nuggets.

I’ll post some regular questions today and some flashy, multimedia questions later in the week.

Questions:

1. In what year did ABBA first enter the Eurovision?
2. Which country has won the title on the most occasions?
3. Where did the first Eurovision take place?
4. Teach-In won the 1975 contest for The Netherlands, with which song?
5. In what year did four countries share the title?
6. Celine Dion won the 1988 contest, for which country?
7. In what year did the UK last win the Eurovision?
8. Who was Ireland’s representative at Congratulations, the Eurovision’s 50 year retrospective event?
9. As of 2008, which country has competed in the contest the most times without a win?
10. Which nation has withdrawn from the 2009 contest after the EBU requested they change the lyrics of their chosen song?

Update: answers here.