When a member of our Facebook Group named Melody jokingly dubbed herself as Highway to Mel — an homage to the AC/DC song “Highway to Hell” — Quiz Guy John Chaneski found a musical hook for this puzzle, which requires blending a person’s name into a song to come up with a clever new song title. For example, what Paul McCartney song might be inspired by this clue: “You’d think that people would have had enough of this comedian who accosts people on the street.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Your Name in Song Word Game”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett. And who is that shadowy man at a distance? It’s John Chaneski, our quiz guy in New York City.
Here he comes. Hi, John.
I can’t see his thing. It’s so dark in here. It’s so shadowy.
I should turn on this one. Can we turn on a few lights?
Take off the shades.
It’s good to be with you guys again. I was going to talk about Facebook, because I hope our listeners who use social media are aware of the vibrant conversations that go on in the A Way with Words group on Facebook.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, they should think about joining us there because the back and forth is very amusing and enlightening.
I was recently fascinated by a post by listener Melody Shimanich. It wasn’t the content of the post so much as the fact that Melody listed on her profile an alternate nickname or tag, which is Highway to Mel. And I thought that’s beautiful.
I think everyone should have a musical tag that combines their name with a song. So I came up with some of these for famous people, since they are the people that we all know.
So here we go. Sometimes it’ll be the last word. It’s not always the last word, and it’s not always an exact rhyme, but you’ll get plenty of clues.
Here’s an example. You think that people would have had enough of this comedian who accosts people on the street. And the answer would be Billy Love Songs.
Billy Eichner, Billy on the street.
Oh, yeah.
Billy Love Songs. That’s his musical tag.
Billy loves songs.
Exactly.
Okay, here’s the first one. You’re never more than six degrees from this star who knows all that glitters is gold. What would his tag be?
Oh.
Oh.
If this is prog rock, you can count me out.
Wait, wait. Is this like, oh, Stairway to Kevin?
Stairway to Kevin.
Yes, that’s it. Now you’ve got it.
All right. I was trying to recognize your melody. That was my mistake.
Yeah. My melody is often my problem.
We’ll keep our fingers crossed. How about this one? Now, the first African-American secretary of state could have had it all. And maybe he did, according to Adele.
Colin Powell. Rolling in the deep.
So, therefore. Colin in the deep.
Colin in the deep. That’s right. Colin Powell rolling in the deep.
This actor and director’s iconic Madea character is rising up to the challenge of her rivals. It’s the Eye of the Tyler.
Eye of the Tyler, yes. Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. Eye of the Tyler. Tyler Perry.
Here’s the last one. Finally, it’s been a while since this Emmy-winning comic actor has been young and sweet, only 17, but we think he’s still in a good place.
Oh.
Oh, a dancing queen.
A dancing queen.
A dancing queen, yes. Ted Danson.
A dancing queen. Those are the little musical handles I’ve come up with for some famous people.
They sure are. Thank you, Melody, for inspiring that quiz.
She’ll be delighted to hear it, I’m sure. And we do have a very active Facebook group. Come down, talk about language, share the love of words and books and literature, reading and writing, speaking, and join a community of listeners who likes the same things you do.
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