Can these stars remember their own lyrics? Radio 1 puts them to the test

Words are tremendously important when you're a singer. And yet there are few performers with such exceptional memories that they don't have fever dreams about opening their mouths, only to find that nothing comes out.

Dave Grohl's done it, Avril Lavigne has her lyrics on a stand so she won't lose her place in the middle of Sk8er Boi. Even a legendary artist like Patti Smith has fallen victim, forgetting the lyrics to a song by her hero Bob Dylan at the Nobel Literature Prize ceremony to honour him and having to start from the beginning again.

And then there's Jess Glynne and this exceptional on-stage scatterbrain moment:

This gave Nick Grimshaw and his team an idea for a game, to see which of their songs a singer could recall at the drop of a hat. Grimmy plays a clip, the singer finishes the lyric from memory alone. Should be simple enough, right? Well, not quite...

P!nk has no problem finishing the key parts to her own songs, but when reminded of her early start in the girl group Choice, it's clear she has made a considerable effort to put her past behind her, not only shutting the door firmly on the way out, but locking it too.

Still, surely she can remember the lyrics to a soul classic she's covered? And its rap verse too? Turns out she cannot.

Everyone has to start somewhere, and James Arthur's dues-paying started in the bands Moonlight Drive, Cue the Drama, Save Arcade and Emerald Skye. Pop historians of the future can watch this clip to trace the development of his musical style - through pop punk to experimental alt-rock - while James himself tries frantically to remember exactly what he was doing at the time, and what happens next. Spoiler alert: he isn't great at the game.

WARNING: Third party video may contain adverts.

Selena Gomez's performance in the challenge suggests that sometimes the things you work hard to learn in childhood linger longer in the memory than your more recent achievements. In this case, Selena remembers her Barney the Dinosaur cameo more than a Demi Lovato collaboration. "Wow, what does that say about me?", it leads Selena to ask.

"Oh my God, I wanna curse," says Demi Lovato, as her song drops away and she has to muster up the words from a Camp Rock classic from the darkest recesses of her mind. And it's not the only Lovato deep cut that Grimmy presents her with. Should anyone want to hear what she sounded like when she was 13, or what she sounds like singing in Spanish, stick around...

Niall Horan came to the Breakfast Show table better prepared than the others, having already heard Selena's best efforts, and so you'd think he'd be able to rattle off even the most obscure One Direction album tracks at the drop of a hat. But what's this about dressing as a tablecloth? One thing's for sure, his memory is better than Danny DeVito's, it turns out.

But it's not just lyrics that can slip from the mind at key moments.

WARNING: Third party video may contain adverts.

There is very little chance that any dance producer would have to remember how to recreate the most exciting moments from any of their songs, especially not onstage in front of a drop-hungry crowd. But should there be a disastrous power cut, it's good to know that Diplo could at least fashion some kind of megaphone out of some spare paper and rock the house using just the power of his mighty voice.

And if you have ever thought your life would be incomplete unless you could hear Calvin Harris singing about jam and trying to recreate the drop from We Found Love using just his mouth - Pitch Perfect-style - you've come to the right place.

Like us on Facebook, on Instagram at bbcradio1, or follow us on Twitter @BBCR1