I recently purchased Snakes and Arrows, which came earlier this month. Snakes and Arrows is the ninth studio album by Rush. I have no further comment.

The wrong Randy Rhoads was killed in a plane crash.

I guess I could blame part of the delay on the Federalist Disingenuous Society Convention, but mostly I’ve just been lazy. Anyway, here are the answers to the recent quiz. As several commenters more-or-less correctly guessed, the theme of the list was songs where the cover version was at least as big of a hit as the original, if not more so. For uniformity, I used the cover version of the lyrics in each case where the two did not match.

1. “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” originally by Warren Zevon, covered by Linda Ronstadt. These lyrics were specific to the cover version, gender-bent to account for the fact that Warren was a man and Linda was (is) not.
2. “Take it Easy,” originally by Jackson Brown, “covered” by the Eagles, then repackaged by Browne himself.
3. “Blinded by the Light,” originally by Bruce Springsteen, covered by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.
4. “Der Kommisar,” originally by Falco in German (thick Viennese dialect), covered in English by After the Fire (aka ATF). This song is why I opted for the cover lyrics over originals.
5. “The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown),” originally by Fleetwood back, covered by Judas Priest.
6. “I’ve Done Everything for You,” originally by Sammy Hagar, covered by Rick Springfield.
7. “You Really Got Me,” originally by the Kinks, covered by Van Halen. These lyrics were specific to the cover version.
8. “Hey Joe,” of unknown origin, claimed as an original by Deep Purple but with evidence the song is older than that. Covered by many, but probably best known as a Hendrix tune.
9. “Keep Me Hanging On,” originally the Supremes, covered by Kim Wilde (and Rod Stewart, and others).
10. “Cum On Feel the Noize,” originally by Slade, covered by Quiet Riot.

From Mike Post Theme, you’ll never guess Who wrote this:

Everything is all right (bong de bong)
We’ve prayed today (la-da-da-da-dah)
If there really is a God (bong de bog)
We should get laid today.

I don’t think it works that way, alas. The album’s not bad, though.

It’s been a while since we’ve done any of these, so I’ll remind you how it works. Each of the below passages is from a popular song from days past. All ten songs share a significant trait. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify as many of the ten songs as possible, by artist and title, without Googling, and to figure out their common thread. Have at it.

1. Yes he really worked me over good
   He was a credit to his gender
   Put me through some changes Lord
   Sort of like a Waring blender
2. Lighten up while you still can
   Don’t even try to understand
   Just find a place to make your stand
3. And go-cart Mozart was checkin’ out the weather chart
   To see if it was safe outside
   And little Early-Burly came by in his curly-wurly
   And asked me if I needed a ride
4. You’re in his eye
   And you’ll know why
   The more you live
   The faster you will die
5. I Can’t believe that you need my love so bad
   Come sneakin’ around trying to drive me mad
   Busting in on my dreams, making me see things I don’t wanna see
6. Well, I’m going out on the town tonight
   And get just as wild as I can be
   I’m gonna find out what it’s really like to be loose, high and free
7. Please, don’t ever let me be
   I only wanna be by your side
8. Where you gonna run to now where you gonna go
   I’m goin’ way down south
   Way down to Mexico way
9. Why don’t you get out of my life
   And let me make a brand new start
   Let me get over you
   The way youve gotten over me
10. So you see I got a funny face,
    I got no worries.
    And I don’t know why.

The good news is that Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, the only members of The Who who have managed not to do themselves in, have a new album coming out on Tuesday. The bad news is that the album is not called “Who’s Left.” To save time, I might add that there is no truth to the rumor that they will be releasing a charity benefit album called “Who Cares.”

I saw The Producers, starring Jason Alexander and someone else, a few years back in Hollywood. I didn’t really like it because the plot made no sense to me.

Can one of Xrlq’s readers explain it to me? How exactly were the two main characters planning on making money by producing a flop?

The jury’s out as to what (if anything) Live8 will do for Africa, but if the only thing it accomplished was to get Pink Floyd back together for a night, it was worth it. Only now, after watching the video (h/t: Patticakes) do I understand why the last generation got so hot and bothered over the then-possibility of a Beatles reunion. For good measure, here’s a link to the and to an audio of Comfortably Numb.

One of my favorite rock musicians, Pete Townshend, has been arrested on suspicion of possessing child pornography. If he turns out to be guilty, it’s going to be pretty tough enjoying all those Who tunes. Some of his stuff, Tommy for example, may become become unlistenable. Now I know how O.J. fans, Michael Jackson fans, Robert Blake fans, etc.must feel.

Still, we can’t rush to judgment. After all, Townshend is presumed innocent until proven guilty, assuming that the UK hasn’t abolished that, too.