Songs In The Key Of Real Life Trivia Quiz

Answer: John F. Kennedy

"Twas a dark day in Dallas, November '63
A day that will live on in infamy
President Kennedy was a-ridin' high
Good day to be livin' and a good day to die
Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb
He said, "Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?"
"Of course we do, we know who you are"
Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car..."

Although President John F. Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas in 1963, it was not until 2020 that Dylan released his 17-minute long poetic account of the murder and its consequences. It was his first release in eight years, but was thought to have been recorded some time previously.

Dylan joined the conspiracy theory that more than a lone gunman was involved. But it was more than just about the death of Kennedy, it traced a line through the history of American music. Dylan was obsessed with the assassination of Kennedy, an event that Joan Baez believed had turned him away from political songs.

While some comparisons were drawn to Don McClean's "American Pie", others were left to guess just what Dylan's motivation was. The "Guardian" newspaper noted: "...but 'American Pie' had a catchy tune and a singalong chorus. Here, there's nothing that even vaguely resembles a standard structure and Dylan swiftly abandons any pretence of there being a vocal melody: it's essentially a recitation set to music."

Answer: 9/11

"The Rising" was the title track of a 2002 album by The Boss, and was also released as a single. The single topped the US Adult Alternative Songs chart and won two Grammys.

In the days after the September 11 attacks in New York City, Washington DC and Pennsylvania, Springsteen was asked to take part in a telethon to raise money for relatives of those who had died. He wrote two new songs, but ended up singing "My City of Ruins", which he had written a year earlier about Asbury Park, New Jersey.

The two new songs, "Into the Fire" and "You're Missing" featured in the LP. That album brought the E Street Band back together and 'Classic Rock' described it as "Springsteen's freshest and most vibrant-sounding record since 'Born in the USA'".

Answer: 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

"On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground
And people all over the earth turned around
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound
And the choirs kept singing of freedom

Now the Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone
And we can't do much more than to sing you a song
Sing it so loudly, you better sing along
And the choirs keep singing of freedom."

On September 21 1963, members of the Ku Klux Klan detonated a bomb in a Baptist church in Birmingham , Alabama. Four young girls died and 22 people were injured. Fariņa, a brother-in-law of Joan Baez, borrowed a Scottish melody, "I Once Loved A Lass". The four girls who were killed, Addie Mae Collins (14), Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14), were named verse by verse by Fariņa.

Answer: Attica

In "The Hostage" Paxton sang:
"They say we had our throats cut, by a band of desperate men
Say they saved as many of us as they could
Well the governor he should now it, but I think I'll say it again
That the governor cut my throat and he cut it good..."

In September 1971, around half of the 2,000 inmates at Attica Prison in New York State rioted and took 42 staff hostage. During the negotiations that followed, most of their demands were accepted, but not one for an amnesty. Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered state police to regain control by force. By the time control was restored, 43 people were dead: 10 prison staff and 33 prisoners.

The Attica riot was the inspiration of many other songs, as well as television dramatisations.

Answer: The miners' strike of the 1980s

As a band that hailed from Wales, the Preachers had seen the coal mining industry there decimated over the years.

There had been many strikes by miners over the years, but that in 1984 and 1985 in the north of England was one of the most bitter and most politicised. Some claimed it was cynically conducted by union leaders to bring down the government of Margaret Thatcher. Others claimed it was prolonged by Thatcher to break the power of the National Union of Mineworkers. It led to daily violent clashes between strikers and police officers. Six people died and over 130 were injured between March 1984 and March of the following year.

Answer: Paris

[Post-Chorus]
I've got bad intentions
I intend to knock you down

These stones I throw

Oh, these French kisses

Are the only way I've found..."

The song appeared on the eponymous album in 1989.

In the spring and summer of 1968, Paris became the setting for a prolonged protests and riots against the establishment. It began on May 5 with a battle that was to involve 6,000 students against 1,500 police officers. Soon, 10 million workers had gone on strike and France had virtually been brought to her knees. The trouble lasted for about a month.

Answer: Robert The Bruce

"Those days are passed now

And in the past they must remain

But we can still rise now

And be the nation again..."

The song was written in 1965 by Roy Williamson and harks back to the victory of King Robert the Bruce over England's Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

Known as 'Flųr na h-Alba', in Scottish Gaelic, and 'Flouer o Scotland' in Scots, the song went on to be sung at many sporting events in Scotland as the unofficial anthem of national sporting teams in rugby union, association football and at the Commonwealth Games.

In a 2006 poll conducted by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) to establish what people thought should be the national anthem of Scotland, 'Flower of Scotland' topped the list with 41% of the 10,000 votes.

Answer: Gallipoli

"And how well I remember that terrible day
How our blood stained the sand and the water
And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter..."

Soldiers from Australia and New Zealand bore the brunt of terrible losses in the ill-conceived attempt by Great Britain to invade Turkey, an ally of Germany. British and French troops were also involved. In all, about half a million casualties on both sides were recorded during the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 and 1916. About 100,000 died.

The song was first released in 1975 by John Currie and went on to be covered by a host of international singers, including Joan Baez, Liam Clancy, the Sands Family, and Mike Harding. In 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), included it as one of the 'Top 30 Australian songs of all time'.

Answer: Bananas

"It was just after dark when the truck started down
The hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania.
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas

He was a young driver,
Just out on his second job.
And he was carrying the next day's tasty fruits
For everyone in that coal-scarred city
Where children play without despair
In backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day
Just about thirty thousand pounds of bananas..."

Harry Chapin used some poetic licence, but the basic facts of the incident were portrayed in the song. The crash happened on March 18, 1965, when a 35ft tractor truck (what we Brits call an articulated lorry) carrying bananas crashed while making the steep decent into the city of Scranton.

The driver, 33-year-old Eugene P. Sesky, was making the two-mile drop into the town when, it is thought, a mechanical defect affected his ability to slow down. The hill was governed by an instruction for truck drivers to use low gears to improve braking ability. While Chapin did not mention it in the lyrics, it is believed that Sesky made a valiant effort to minimise the consequences and but for his actions they could have been much worse.

"30,000lbs of Bananas" was Chapin's song and it was one of those most relished by audiences in concert. It is quite ironic that Chapin was to lose his own life in a crash between his Volkswagen Rabbit car and a truck in 1981.

Answer: Louisiana

"Ruby sat alone in the classroom
She never dreamed the other children wouldn't come
They hated her for the color of her skin
Well color is such an amazing illusion

She'd stop and she'd pray
That all the hatred would go away
She was only six years old but she knew
Walk a mile in Ruby's shoes..."

Ruby Bridges was born in Mississippi in 1954. When she was four, her family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. At that time, virtually all public schools, particularly in the American south, were segregated along race lines, even though the US Supreme Court had ruled that separating white and black children was unconstitutional [Brown v Board of Education].

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was determined to see that ruling brought into effect and sought out families of black children to send them to 'white schools'. At the age of six, Ruby Bridges became the first to attend such a school, an act that led to protests.

Answer: Chicago

On February 14, 1929, seven members of a notorious Chicago gang gathered for a feast day. Four unknown men, two dressed as police officers, entered, lined their victims up against a wall and shot them dead. Although the identities of the killers has never conclusively been proven, they were suspected of working for a rival gang led by Al Capone.

James Taylor included the song on his 1988 album "Never Die Young".

Answer: Beijing

"[Chorus]
Ah, I was seventeen that spring
Ah, we were just obeying orders
Ah, I still see everything
Through the factory's yellow windows
In the dirty stinking river
In the messages that find you
Then vanish in the ether
Then vanish in the ether..."

In June of 1989, protests for greater political freedom in China began, largely led by students. Following the death of one protester, a crowd of up to one million people gathered in Tiananmen Square. Initially, no action was taken against them, but then on June 3rd and 4th, troops were sent in to clear the square.

In the actions that followed, by the end of June 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel had died - according to Chinese government figures. The true figure may never be known. In 2017, a report by Sir Alan Donald, who was Britain's ambassador to China at the time of the protest, claimed that 10,000 had died.

Answer: US Civil War (1861-1865)

"I meet her on the mountain
There I took her life
Met her on the mountain
Stabbed her with my knife..."

Factually we know that a man called Tom Dula - it was pronounced locally as Dooley - was hanged in 1868 at Statesville, North Carolina, for the murder of his girlfriend Laura Foster. There are, however, other theories that claim Dooley was not the killer but it was in fact another of his lovers, Ann Melton. The incident became the subject of songs locally, and these were picked up upon by Frank and Anne Warren, who had heard them sung locally, in 1938. Twenty years later the Kingston Trio recorded their version.

As a coda, the singer Doc Watson claimed his great grandmother heard Ann Melton confess to the murder on her deathbed in 1874.

Answer: Jarrow Crusade

"Come on follow the Geordie boys, They'll fill your heart with joy
They're marching for their freedom now
Come on follow the Jarrow lads, They'll make your heart feel glad
They're singing now, yes now is the hour..."

In "Jarrow Song" Alan Price recalled the story of the Jarrow March of October 1936, also known as the Jarrow Crusade. It involved 200 men from Jarrow in the north east of England who set off to walk to London to protest against poverty and high unemployment rates after the closure of a shipyard two years earlier had thrown 10,000 out of work.

With its jaunty air, "Jarrow Song" reached number six on the UK singles charts in 1974. Alan Price did come in for some criticism over the line "with my blessings, burn them down". The Jarrow march had been peaceful and no violence was intended.

Answer: The Old 97

"They give him his orders at Monroe, Virginia
Sayin', Steve, you're way behind time
This is not 38, but it's Old 97
You must put her in Spencer on time.

Then he look around and said to his black, greasy fireman
"Just shovel on a little more coal
And when we cross that White Oak Mountain
You can watch Old 97 roll..."

On September 27, 1903, a fast mail train operating between Monroe, Virginia, and Spencer, North Carolina, crashed and left the tracks at a bridge near Danville, Virginia. Excessive speed was blamed for the crash that claimed 11 lives.

A ballad "The Wreck of the Old 97" was written by Henry Whitter, who became the first to release the song as a record in a duo with Gilliam Banmon Grayson in 1923. It went on to become a country music standard that was covered by scores of artists.