The Song Words Puzzle


Most pop songs draw from a limited vocabulary. After all, most pop songs are like fast food, always the same, never a surprise. Song writers will deliberately replace an odd word or phrase by something smoother, blander, simpler. But that's not always true, and some pretty strange words have crept onto the charts. Can you name a popular song in which the following words occurred?

  1. Bismillah
  2. cockatoo
  3. detergent
  4. electrodes
  5. fanqui
  6. fontanelle
  7. gavotte
  8. Guggenheim
  9. mediocrity
  10. Swarthmore
  11. United Nations
  12. vestal

Show me some hints.

I give up, show me the solution.


Last revised on 24 October 2003.