Sun, Cloud or Rain? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sun

The Animals recorded "House of the Rising Sun" in 1964, but the song's history goes back much further. The author of the song is unknown, and the earliest known recordings date from the 1930s. The location of the mysterious house in New Orleans has been debated for decades, with various buildings having been suggested as possible sources of inspiration.

Bob Dylan recorded the song for his debut album in 1962, using an arrangement associated with folk singer Dave Van Ronk. When The Animals released their version two years later, Dylan's fans reportedly accused him of copying the British band. Ironically, Van Ronk had experienced a similar problem when Dylan recorded the song.

Answer: Sun

The American sitcom "3rd Rock from the Sun" aired on NBC from 1996 to 2001, running for six seasons and 139 episodes. It followed a group of extraterrestrials who arrive on Earth disguised as an ordinary human family. John Lithgow played Dick Solomon, the leader of the expedition, who took a job as a physics professor at a small university in Ohio.

Much of the comedy came from the aliens' attempts to understand human behaviour, relationships and social conventions. Lithgow won three Emmy Awards for his performance. The series also helped launch the career of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who played the youngest-looking member of the alien crew.

Answer: Sun

Founded by Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1952, Sun Records became one of the most influential record labels in the history of rock and roll. In 1954, Elvis Presley recorded his first commercial single, "That's All Right", at Phillips' recording studio, with "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the B-side. The record became a local hit, helping to launch Presley's career.

Sun Records also provided early opportunities for Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison. In 1955, Phillips sold Presley's recording contract to RCA Victor for $35,000 - a substantial sum at the time. The money helped him develop the careers of other artists, while Elvis went on to become an international superstar.

Answer: Sun

Both "Here Comes the Sun" and "Sun King" were released on the Beatles' 1969 album "Abbey Road", but they were written by different band members. George Harrison wrote "Here Comes the Sun" in Eric Clapton's garden to avoid a business meeting at Apple Corps.

Meanwhile, John Lennon based "Sun King" partly on Fleetwood Mac's instrumental "Albatross". The song includes a mixture of Spanish, Italian and made-up words, chosen more for their sound than their meaning. Interestingly, Lennon did not play on "Here Comes the Sun" as he was recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident in Scotland.

Answer: Cloud

Cloud Strife is the main character of "Final Fantasy VII", a role-playing video game developed by the Japanese company Square and first released for the PlayStation in 1997. The game is set in a fictional world in which the powerful Shinra Corporation extracts the planet's life energy in order to generate electricity. Cloud is a mercenary and former Shinra infantryman who joins AVALANCHE, an environmental resistance group that fights against the corporation.

Answer: Cloud

"Charlie St. Cloud" is a 2010 American film starring Zac Efron. It is based on Ben Sherwood's 2004 novel "The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud". Burr Steers, who had worked with Efron on "17 Again" the previous year, directed the film. The film tells the story of a young man who survives a car accident that kills his younger brother.

Afterwards, he believes that he can communicate with the dead. He takes a job as a caretaker at the cemetery where his brother is buried and continues to meet him there every evening.

Answer: Cloud

Cloud Gate, a public sculpture by British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor, was unveiled in Chicago's Millennium Park in 2004 and was officially completed in 2006. Consisting of 168 stainless steel plates welded together and polished to create a seamless surface, the sculpture stands at around 10 metres high and weighs approximately 100 tonnes.

It is popularly known as "The Bean" because of its shape, although Kapoor initially disliked the nickname. The final cost was approximately $23 million, which was more than three times the original estimate.

Answer: Cloud

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", more commonly known as "Daffodils", is a poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. First published in 1807, it was inspired by a walk that Wordsworth took with his sister Dorothy near Ullswater in the Lake District on 15 April 1802. Dorothy recorded their encounter with the daffodils in her journal, noting how they seemed to dance in the wind. Wordsworth wrote the poem two years later, revising it in 1815 to expand it from three to four stanzas. Although Dorothy's account provided much of the inspiration, she is not mentioned in the poem.

Answer: Rain

"Heavy Rain" is an interactive drama and psychological thriller published by Sony for the PlayStation 3 in 2010. The game follows four characters whose stories are connected to a serial murderer known as the Origami Killer, who leaves paper figures at his crime scenes. Unlike conventional action games, "Heavy Rain" relies heavily on dialogue choices, timed button presses and decisions that affect the plot. One unusual feature is that major characters can die permanently without ending the game.

Answer: Rain

"Purple Rain" was released by Prince in 1984 as an album, a single and a feature film. The album, credited to Prince and the Revolution, spent 24 consecutive weeks at number one on the US Billboard 200 and won two Grammy Awards. The film, in which Prince plays a musician known as The Kid, was loosely based on his own experiences in the Minneapolis music scene.

It was Prince's feature film debut and earned an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. The title song runs for nearly nine minutes on the album and was recorded live at a benefit concert in Minneapolis in August 1983, with later studio overdubs.

Answer: Rain

"Rain Man" is a 1988 American drama directed by Barry Levinson, starring Tom Cruise as Charlie Babbitt and Dustin Hoffman as his autistic brother Raymond. After their father's death, Charlie discovers that Raymond has inherited most of the family fortune and takes him on a cross-country trip.

The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Hoffman. Raymond's character was partly inspired by Kim Peek, an American savant with an extraordinary memory who could recall information from thousands of books.

Answer: Rain

"Singin' in the Rain" is a 1952 American musical film starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O'Connor. It is set in Hollywood during the transition from silent films to talking pictures in the late 1920s. The film features songs written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, many of which date from the 1920s and 1930s.

The title song had previously appeared in the 1929 film "The Hollywood Revue of 1929". Reynolds, who was only 19 during filming, had little previous dance experience and underwent intensive training for her role. Ironically, Betty Noyes dubbed Reynolds' singing voice for the song "Would You?", while Jean Hagen provided her own natural speaking voice in a scene where Reynolds' character supposedly dubs Hagen's character.