20 Questions

Life is filled with questions. Why shouldn’t music be.

My friend and frequent post theme proposer, Chin, recently contacted me with a burning question: could I compile a Top 10 or even Top 20 playlist of the best song titles that are actually questions, while also forwarding a half-dozen or so thought-starters as examples. Why not? and What have I got to lose? were two questions I asked myself, and began to research the inquisitive subject further.

A fine topic, no question about it, but the problem I quickly discovered, calling this question exercise into immediate question, was that there are a lot of songs that would fulfill this leading question, and that limiting a suitable list to only 20 would be highly, um, questionable.

Thus, I happily reverted to an unwritten rule here at So Much Great Music: when in doubt about something, overdo it. Which, naturally, led me to creating this list of the Top…well, for now let’s leave the resulting total number of tunes collected as an open-ended question.

You do at least deserve a tease, though. What is the meaning of life? is likely the most significant question ever posed in the history of humanity. We’re not going to conclusively answer it here, but I’ll just say that the wise sage and enlightened philosopher named George Harrison probably came the closest to doing so (and if you reach the end of our compilation you’ll see how).

Alright, let’s get started. Although, as I mentioned, there are so many good Question Titles to pick from I hated to leave any out. But really, some of these don’t exactly belong on a Top-anything list, so let’s begin with 10 of them here as some Honorable Mentions just to get things rolling.

Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman? – Bryan Adams
Do You? – Spoon
Are You Experienced? – Jimi Hendrix Experience
Is This Love? – Whitesnake
Do You Realize? – Flaming Lips
Is This It? – The Strokes
Could It Be Magic? – Barry Manilow
Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? – Rod Stewart
Who’s Crying Now? – Journey
How’s It Going To Be? – Third Eye Blind

There, that wasn’t so bad. Or was it? Manilow, sheesh. At least I didn’t resort to ‘Who Let The Dogs Out?’. Let’s just move on. Here’s 10 more, still outside of a formal countdown, but worthy of at least being introduced.

Who Can it Be Now? – Men At Work
Isn’t it Time? – The Baby’s
Who Will Save Your Soul? – Jewel
Why Do Fools Fall in Love? – Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers
Don’t You Want Me? – Human League
Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)? – The Delfonics
Where Are All My Friends? – Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
Who’s That Girl? – Madonna
What’s My Age Again? – Blink-182
Where Is My Mind? – Pixies

Fine, with those 20 appetizers out of the way, I’m ready to put down a marker: here’s where the list starts. We’re not going to formally number them, but figure that the forthcoming set(s) of 20 are prioritized from top to bottom.

What Have You Done For Me Lately? – Janet Jackson
Do You Love Me? – Guster
Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby? – Joe Jackson
Whatcha Gonna Do? – Pablo Cruise
Are You Ready? – Pacific Gas & Electric
What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)? – Jr. Walker & the All Stars
Don’t You Just Know It? – Huey Piano Smith
Would I Lie to You? – Eurythmics
How Can I Be Sure? – The Young Rascals
Who is He (and What is He to You)? – Bill Withers
Can I Get A Witness? – Marvin Gaye
Isn’t Life Strange? – Moody Blues
How Soon Is Now? – The Smiths
Who Wrote The Book of Love? – The Monotones
Do You Believe in Love? – Huey Lewis & The News
What’s Up? – 4 Non Blondes
Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? – Culture Club
Who’s Zoomin’ Who? – Aretha Franklin
Why Can’t This Be Love? – Van Halen
Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind? – Lovin’ Spoonful

It is noted that one of these top tunes has been done by multiple artists; surely some of you observed that a previous list-topping title immortalized in the pages of So Much Great Music, ‘Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?’ is shown here by Joe Jackson, when it was originally recorded by Louis Jordan, and subsequently covered by scores of others (including that sharp-looking Jackson). We’ve merely chosen, in this instance and in a number of others to follow, what’s deemed the better, most representative version, okay? Any questions? (never mind, they’re all questions, remember?). Here’s the next block of 20.

What’s Love Got to Do with it? – Tina Turner
Are You Man Enough? – The Four Tops
Ain’t That Peculiar? – Marvin Gaye
Do You Wanna Dance? – The Ramones
How Will I Know? – Whitney Houston
Isn’t It A Pity? – George Harrison
Where Do The Children Play? – Cat Stevens
What About Love? – Heart
Do You Know the Way to San Jose? – Dionne Warwick
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? – Jimmy Ruffin
What’s New Pussycat? – Tom Jones
Are You Gonna Be My Girl? – Jet
Who’s Loving You? – Jackson 5
Can I Change My Mind? – Tyrone Davis
How Many More Times? – Led Zeppelin
Do You Wanna Touch Me? – Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? – The Beatles
What is Hip? – Tower of Power
How Long (Has This Been Going On)? – Ace
Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby? – Rolling Stones

One interesting oddity I discovered in assembling this list is that songwriters should not be confused with grammarians. Hence, a surprising relative few of the songs which literally pose a question actually bother to contain a question mark in their proper title. Notwithstanding, the anal style guide administrator here at SMGM has seen fit to correct such oversights in each case to properly, um, punctuate their inclusion within this important registry. Now, with that critical matter attended to, kindly compose yourself for the next 20.

Can’t You Hear Me Knocking? – Rolling Stones
What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? – R.E.M.
Do You Want To Know A Secret? – The Beatles
Are You Gonna Go My Way? – Lenny Kravitz
Have You Ever Seen the Rain? – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Have I Told You Lately? – Van Morrison
Could it Be I’m Falling in Love? – The Spinners
How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? – The Bee Gees
Do You Love Me? – The Contours
Hey, Hey, What Can I Do? – Led Zeppelin
Will It Go Round in Circles? – Billy Preston
Do You Believe in Magic? – Lovin’ Spoonful
Why Can’t We Be Friends? – War
Have You Seen Her? – The Chi-Lites
Do You Know What I Mean? – Lee Michaels
Where Is The Love? – Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway
Tommy, Can You Hear Me? – The Who
When Will I See You Again? – The Three Degrees
Have You Ever Loved A Woman? – Derek & the Dominos
Is She Really Going Out with Him? – Joe Jackson

This seems like a good time to try to explain how these songs were ranked – I mean, we’re already 80 tunes deep into the list, when the heck else would you rather ponder how such a ridiculously subjective topic was being dutifully segmented. In short, within the thematic question mark qualifiers, it’s just based on how good a given song is. Well, mostly. Say, about 85-90% worth. The remainder attempts to take into account the doubly subjective nature of just how good of a question the title is. I hope you’ll agree, like Justice Stewart’s long-ago identification of pornography, you’ll know it when you see it (plus, asking for anything more definitive would surely be a moot question).

Well looky here, we’re finally down to our concluding cluster of 20. Let’s see, that was 10, 10, 20, 20, 20, and now the terminal 20 more…yep, that’s right, we’ve got ourselves a Top 100 in all. But this last set are really the stars, the ones we’re going to highlight. What would be an apt title for this group? Any guesses? How about the familiar 20 Questions. And here, for maximum dramatic effect, we’ll adapt the countdown style, working our way from #20 down to the #1 song of all time with a question as its title. Getting there was only a question of time.

Could You Be Loved? – Bob Marley & The Wailers
Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is? – Chicago
What’s Your Name? – Lynyrd Skynyrd
Isn’t She Lovely? – Stevie Wonder
Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad? – Derek & the Dominos
What’d I Say? – Ray Charles
Who Do You Love? – George Thorogood & The Destroyers
Are You Lonesome Tonight? – Elvis Presley
When Will I Be Loved? – Linda Ronstadt
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? – Carole King
Where Did Our Love Go? – The Supremes
What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding? – Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Wouldn’t It Be Nice? – Beach Boys
Should I Stay or Should I Go? – The Clash
How Deep is Your Love? – The Bee Gees
Who Are You? – The Who
Do You Feel Like We Do? – Peter Frampton
Who’ll Stop The Rain? – Creedence Clearwater Revival
What’s Goin’ On? – Marvin Gaye
What Is Life? – George Harrison

Yes, the aforementioned professor Harrison tops the list, with a killer opening riff, gorgeous chord changes, massive Phil Spector production, and the feasible answer to mankind’s (as well as music’s) eternal question. What is life? It’s love. But of course. In fact, “love” appears as part of the title query in 9 of our Top 20 (as well as 25 of the top 100 overall). George’s erstwhile mentor, John Lennon, must have had it right in the refrain of his own much-questioning number, ‘Mind Games’: “Love is the answer.”

Finally, as our featured choice for a song title containing a question, we can seemingly only choose the following one where ‘Question’ is actually the title of the song.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any additional questions.

Here’s the full Spotify list, “20 Questions,” in proper order. Thanks for the idea, Chin, your half-dozen tunes expanded by quite a bit. As to how a list of 20 questions could actually contain 100…questions abound.