Lyric Trivia
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95 free Lyric trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free Lyric trivia questions with answers. Lyric trivia usually means finishing a line. This quiz asks the better question: where did the line come from? Why does a Nirvana song take its title from a deodorant, why did the FBI spend two years investigating a garage-rock single, and which superstar hit was written as a goodbye letter to a business partner? The forty questions cover misheard lyrics and their proper name, songs whose meanings were spectacularly misread by politicians, words scribbled on a friend's wall, a nursery school drawing, and the numbers behind them all: verses drafted, weeks at number one, minutes of running time. Every answer was checked against an encyclopaedic or primary source, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it, so nobody has to settle an argument by shouting. Ideal for a music round, a car journey, or anyone who has ever confidently sung the wrong words in public.
30 of 95 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the term for a misheard song lyric?
A mondegreen
A mondegreen: writer Sylvia Wright coined the word in 1954 after hearing a ballad's 'laid him on the green' as 'Lady Mondegreen'.
Q 02Whom did Carly Simon reveal in 2015 as the subject of the second verse of 'You're So Vain'?
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty: Simon says Beatty thinks the whole song is about him.
Q 03In 'Purple Haze', Jimi Hendrix asks to be excused while he kisses what?
The sky
The sky: Hendrix sometimes played along in concert, singing 'kiss this guy' while pointing at a bandmate.
Q 04'Bad Moon Rising' is famously misheard as warning about what?
A bathroom on the right
A bathroom on the right: John Fogerty has played along, sometimes singing that version himself in concert.
Q 05Which 1963 garage-rock single triggered an FBI investigation into its supposedly obscene words?
Louie Louie
Louie Louie's lyrics were innocuous but slurred, so FBI agents never worked out what was sung, and the case ended without prosecution.
Q 06Which band's 'Don't Stop Believin'' mentions south Detroit, a place that doesn't really exist?
Journey
Journey's Steve Perry said he tried north, east and west Detroit, but south sounded best, only to learn later that it's actually Canada.
Q 07Which astronomer's name is sung repeatedly in 'Bohemian Rhapsody'?
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei: Mercury kept adding more 'Galileos', and Brian May recalled the overdubbed tape wearing so thin he could see through it.
Q 08What is structurally unusual about 'Bohemian Rhapsody' for a hit single?
It has no chorus
It has no chorus, and when record companies wanted the six-minute song cut down, Freddie Mercury refused to slice it up.
Q 09Which Arabic word is cried out in the opera section of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'?
Bismillah
Bismillah means 'in the name of God', and DJ Kenny Everett's early plays on Capital Radio helped push the song to No. 1 in the UK.
Q 10In Don McLean's 'American Pie', 'the day the music died' refers to what?
A 1959 plane crash
The 1959 plane crash killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, and McLean's line became the popular name for it.
Q 11How did the eight-minute 'American Pie' fit on a single?
Split across both sides
Split across both sides: listeners had to flip the record mid-song, and it still spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Q 12Which pop star's shortened 2000 cover of 'American Pie' topped the UK chart?
Madonna
Madonna recorded it for her film The Next Best Thing, and though polls later ranked it among the worst covers ever, McLean called it 'a gift from a goddess'.
Q 13Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' takes its title from what?
A brand of deodorant
A brand of deodorant: Kathleen Hanna wrote 'Kurt smells like Teen Spirit' on his wall, and Cobain didn't know Teen Spirit was a deodorant.
Q 21Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the U.S.A.' is narrated by whom?
A Vietnam veteran
A Vietnam veteran who comes home to no help, yet Ronald Reagan praised the 'message of hope' in Springsteen's songs on the 1984 campaign trail.
Q 22Who wrote 'I Will Always Love You', long before Whitney Houston's hit version?
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton wrote it as a farewell to her mentor Porter Wagoner, and turned Elvis down when his manager demanded half the publishing rights.
Q 23Whitney Houston recorded 'I Will Always Love You' for which 1992 film?
The Bodyguard
The Bodyguard picked it at the last minute, after 'What Becomes of the Brokenhearted', the song first planned, was used in another film.
Q 14Which band's loud-quiet dynamics did Kurt Cobain say he was copying on 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'?
The Pixies
The Pixies: Cobain said he was trying to write the ultimate pop song and connected so heavily with them he should have been in a Pixies cover band.
Q 15Paul McCartney wrote 'Hey Jude' to comfort which child during his parents' divorce?
Julian Lennon
Julian Lennon: McCartney wrote the song on his way to visit Julian and his mother Cynthia, and first called it 'Hey Jules'.
Q 16Why did George Martin worry that radio wouldn't play 'Hey Jude'?
It ran over seven minutes
It ran over seven minutes, but when Martin said DJs wouldn't play it, John Lennon shot back, 'They will if it's us.'
Q 17John Lennon credited the dreamlike imagery of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' to which author?
Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll's Alice books inspired the imagery, Lennon said, and he swore he had no idea the title's initials spelled LSD.
Q 18What gave 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' its title?
A nursery school drawing
A nursery school drawing of a classmate named Lucy came home already called that, and Lennon thought the title too good to pass up.
Q 19'Every Breath You Take' is sung from whose point of view?
A possessive lover
A possessive lover: Sting called the song 'very, very sinister', and said people misread it as a gentle love song.
Q 20At whose Jamaican writing desk did Sting begin writing 'Every Breath You Take'?
Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming's desk at Goldeneye, where he wrote the Bond novels; guitarist Andy Summers later said his own guitar part is what made the song.
Q 24Who wrote 'Nothing Compares 2 U', years before Sinead O'Connor made it famous?
Prince
Prince gave it to his side project The Family in 1985, and his own 1984 recording stayed unreleased until his estate put it out in 2018.
Q 25Who wrote and first recorded 'Respect', two years before Aretha Franklin's version?
Otis Redding
Otis Redding had the first hit with it, but after hearing Aretha Franklin's version he said a girl had taken the song from him.
Q 26'Sweet Home Alabama' was written as a reply to songs by which artist?
Neil Young
Neil Young was name-checked for blaming the whole South, and he later wrote that his song 'Alabama' richly deserved the shot Skynyrd gave him.
Q 27Iron Butterfly's 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' is a slurred version of which phrase?
In the Garden of Eden
In the Garden of Eden: drummer Ron Bushy couldn't make out singer Doug Ingle's slurred words and wrote the title down as he heard it.
Q 28Which Dire Straits song did Mark Knopfler write after overhearing a worker in a New York appliance store?
Money for Nothing
Money for Nothing: Knopfler borrowed a bit of paper and wrote the song in the store, using the man's own language.
Q 29Why did Billboard remove 'Old Town Road' from its Hot Country Songs chart in 2019?
It did not fit the genre
Billboard said it did not fit the genre, not embracing enough of today's country music, yet the Billy Ray Cyrus remix then reached No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Q 30How did Lil Nas X know to ask Billy Ray Cyrus for the remix?
From Hannah Montana
From Hannah Montana, per Billy Ray Cyrus, and Lil Nas X was tweeting about getting him on a remix almost as soon as the song came out.