5 Rock Songs You've Definitely Heard But Probably Couldn't Name

Classic rock — that collection of arena-shaking, guitar-powered songs released between the late 1960s and early 1980s — is a common language at this point, as these are the songs extremely familiar to millions of people, whether they like it or not. And that's even without knowing the names of a lot of those tunes. They've been spun on the radio, queued up on streaming services, and played on everyone's parents, grandparents, and older siblings' turntables, tape decks, and CD players millions of times, and they've burrowed into the collective hive mind. This is the soundtrack of American life in the latter half of the 20th century and beyond, and the songs are highly identifiable by name and the artist who originally performed them, marquee names like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, and Aerosmith.

But then there are those songs that are trickier to identify. Maybe just a portion is famous for use in commercials or other public contexts, or perhaps they were pioneered by forgotten bands of the 1970s or flashes in the pan that didn't make much of an impression otherwise. It might be as simple as the songs never state, or repeatedly re-state, the actual title. For whatever reason, these songs become well-known, but not entirely. Here then are five staples of classic rock with which you're probably familiar, and which you didn't quite catch their names.

Creedence Clearwater Revival narrowly missed the No. 1 spot so many times it set a record. Between 1969 and 1970, the John Fogerty-led rock band scored five No. 2 hits but never actually made it to the top spot. Nevertheless, CCR generated so many songs that would go on to be classics of the Boomer generation that the names of one or two would have to fall through the proverbial cracks. "Fortunate Son" was a seething anti-war protest song until movies ruined it through overplaying, and tracks like "Proud Mary" and "Up Around the Bend" endure, but contemporary listeners would likely have a hard time identifying the No. 2 hit "Green River." It's instantly recognizable as a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, however. Fogerty's drawling vocals are all his own and match the band's signature swamp rock stomp.

The words "green river" are uttered just once in "Green River," buried at the end of the second verse and just before a rollicking guitar solo, rather than prominently delivered in the chorus a few times. "Green River" doesn't even have a proper chorus, so it's easy to miss that information, leaving casual Creedence fans to just know it by another lyric, if anything at all, like "take me back down where cool water flow."

Out of the many counterculture protest songs of the late 1960s, the one that's most enduring begins with a repeated, two-note ringing guitar riff and a male voice that ominously intones, "There's something happening here / What it is ain't exactly clear." With verses that discuss battles, dangerous disagreements, and armed authority figures, "For What It's Worth" is a harrowing, if not frightening, song that sets the scene for what it must have been like to live through the politically and socially fraught 1960s. That's a message driven home by the blunt and provocative chorus: "It's time we stop / hey, what's that sound / everybody look what's going down."

Used on dozens of movie and TV soundtracks, this urgent and vital '60s chestnut isn't titled "There's Something Happening Here" or "Everybody Look What's Going Down," which would be reasonable guesses, because those powerful words stick out from the others. No, the name of this song is "For What It's Worth," and it was written about young people protesting a curfew in Los Angeles' Sunset Strip area in 1966 — not the Vietnam War. For what it's worth, "For What It's Worth" was a Top 10 hit in 1967 as performed by Buffalo Springfield, a band that included rock luminaries Stephen Stills and Neil Young.

An otherwise fairly heavy rock band, Scotland's Nazareth, landed exactly one song in the American Top 40: "Love Hurts," in 1976. That definitive heartbreak song of the 1970s was so massive and continues to be held up as a crucial break-up ballad that it overshadowed Nazareth's other work. Probably because it's technically a one-hit wonder, the average citizen probably doesn't know all that much about Nazareth anyway, and so they're not likely to connect the band to another radio rock radio standard, particularly one that doesn't have a lyrical reference in its title.

Many people who know "Hair of the Dog," the title track from the same album that spawned "Love Hurts," may think that the hard-charging hard rocker was named for its pervasive profanity. But alas, that's the real and altogether arbitrary name of a tune that's colloquially known as "the son of a b**** song" or "Now You're Messing with a Son of a B****."

"Funk No. 49" has gotten a lot of classic rock airtime because, in many ways, it's the quintessential 1970s classic rock tune. There's some impressive electric guitar handiwork that incorporates the blues and contributes to a laid-back groove, perfect for casual dancing or head-nodding. The personnel of the James Gang features some rock 'n' roll royalty — this was the band that guitarist Joe Walsh was in before he joined the mega-popular Eagles.

That bizarre, aggressively generic name, as if assigned by an algorithm, certainly doesn't show up on the lyric sheet for this 1970 gem, nor does it say much about the song itself. Even if one knows the song and the artist who made it, there's a high likelihood of getting the number wrong. One wonders why the James Gang didn't name the song after one of its anthemic, sing-along, very memorable chorus lines. Two candidates emerge: "I know where you're goin'" and "You don't think it's showin'."

Before he started recording music under his own name, Alan Parsons was primarily an engineer and producer, a studio wizard who helped create Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" and Pilot's single "Magic." Parsons assembled a supergroup, named it the Alan Parsons Project, and started cutting full-length albums in 1976. The Alan Parsons Project enjoyed the biggest hit it would ever have in 1982 with "Eye in the Sky." Peaking at No. 3 on the pop chart, the ballad is equal parts soft rock and progressive rock.

"Eye in the Sky" was the second track on the album of the same name, following an instrumental piece that served as an introduction to the LP and a segue into the big pop hit. Powered by thundering percussion, heavy guitars, and a hypnotic, endlessly repeating, robotic synth motif, "Sirius" harkens back to Parsons' work with Pink Floyd. While "Sirius" was never a hit single, it became extremely well-known among sports fans. When Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to multiple NBA titles in the 1990s, the team took the court during a highly theatrical introduction sequence. The song that played over the speakers in the Bulls' home arena and on television to millions watching at home: "Sirius."