The Beagles Have the Blues Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lou Gramm

The correct answer is Foreigner's Lou Gramm, who really grasped the concept of a love ballad with the great lyric, "Even if heaven and earth collide tonight, we'll be all alone in a different light". Personally, I see this as a deep, soulful song. Foreigner was a band that originated in the 1970's and had some great hits spanning throughout the 1980's. Of the incorrect answers, Paul Rodgers voiced Bad Company, David Coverdale was the singer of Whitesnake, and Jon Bon Jovi is the face of Bon Jovi.

Question submitted by user TallKool1.

Answer: Because the son doesn't have any time to spend with his father.

His only number one hit (1974), "Cat's in the Cradle" had many inspirations, including being about Chapin's greatest fear about the conflict between his growing time on the road as a musician, and spending time with his own son. Nominated for a Grammy in 1975, the song was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. It's one of those songs that, as a kid, you know is sad. But it's only when you become a parent that you realize its full pathos.

Question submitted by user coventry815.

Answer: Eric Clapton

Conor Clapton was 4 years old when, in 1991, he fell from the 53rd floor window of the New York apartment where he was staying with his mother Lory Del Santo. Co-written with Will Jennings, Eric wrote the song to help deal with his grief after the loss of his son. Originally it formed part of the soundtrack to the movie "Rush" before appearing on the Grammy-winning 1992 album "Unplugged".

Question submitted by aliceinw.

Answer: Send In the Clowns

"Clowns", in this case, are not circus clowns but rather comic actors, as in "if the show isn't going well, let's send in the clowns [jokers]." Sondheim once said that an alternate title could have been "Send In the Fools", with the idea being that the singer, like all of us, is a fool when it comes to love. As befits a song about actors, the song is dramatic and liberally uses theater terms such as 'entrances', 'farce', and 'timing'.

The song was a major pop hit for Judy Collins in the mid-70s. Renditions by Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand were also well received.

In addition to its moving lyrics, the song is interesting musically. It uses a complex meter that alternates between 12/8 and 9/8, which perhaps explains why it has become so popular with jazz musicians, that it is now considered a jazz standard.

Question submitted by user SatchelPooch.

Answer: Pearl Jam

Wayne Cochran wrote and recorded the song in 1961, but it received very little airplay and no chart success. The song was inspired by a real life incident about two sixteen-year-olds on a date, who crashed in Georgia just before Christmas.

In the late nineties Eddie Vedder found a copy of the record in an old record store and convinced his band to record it. After a slow start, it made it to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1999. It remains one of the saddest songs in my collection and always makes me wonder if he made it to heaven to re-unite with her.

Question submitted by strudi74.

Answer: Brian Wilson

"Dead Man's Curve" is often the nickname used by the people of numerous communities in the United States to refer to a dangerously sharp curve in a roadway that has caused many vehicle crashes and taken many lives.

Jan Berry and Brian Wilson were co-contributors to the song; however, Artie Cornfeld, who organized the Woodstock festival, and Roger Christian, who had written other Beach Boys songs about cars, also contributed to the composition of the song.

While there is debate over which real "Dead Man's Curve" is being referred to in the song, many believe it to be a reference to The North Whittier Drive curve, a nearly 90° right turn while traveling west on Sunset Boulevard.

The song is narrated by the driver of the Corvette. He relates the details of the meeting of the two drivers, the race itself, and the horrible crash in the curve. In the last verse, listeners learn that the driver of the Corvette is relating this tale to his doctor. Whether he dies afterwards and whether the driver of the Jaguar has died as well seems ambiguous.

Interestingly, on April 12, 1966, Jan Berry truly crashed his Corvette into a parked truck and spent months in a coma. He suffered some paralysis and permanent brain damage, but recovered well enough to return to touring with Dean Torrence in 1978.

Question submitted by davefarm.

Answer: Bonnie Raitt

"I Can't Make You Love Me" was written by Nashville songwriters Allen Shamblin and Mike Reid, and Bonnie Raitt recorded it for her eleventh studio album, "Luck of the Draw", published in 1991. Raitt released "I Can't Make You Love Me" in October after the success of another single "Something to Talk About".

Originally, Shamblin and Reid composed the song as a fast-paced blue grass piece, but after several months of rewriting, a slower song emerged and they realized how tremendously more powerful the song was. Shamblin said the following: "And we'd worked on this song for more than six months. One day, he [Reid] said, 'Come up to the living room,' where his piano was. He sat down and started playing this melody, and it was one of the most moving pieces of music I'd heard. I mean, it hit me in a hard way... Instantly, I knew it was the best thing I'd ever been a part of."

Raitt's vocal on "I Can't Make You Love Me" was finalized after only one take. She explained the song's message made her so sad while making the initial recording that she could not recapture the emotion in later attempts: "We'd try to do it again and I just said, 'You know, this ain't going to happen'". I must say that you can truly hear the despair and resignation in her voice. The website "Ultimate Classic Rock" ranks "I Can't Make You Love Me" at number 24 on its list of "25 Saddest Songs Ever", and in 2000 "Mojo" magazine ranked the song as number 8 on its list of "100 Greatest Songs of All Time". It's very difficult to truly learn the truth of ". . . I can't make you love me if you don't / You can't make your heart feel something that it won't". It's difficult to resign yourself to this and "give up this fight". Those who have been in this situation truly know the mountainous ache that comes.

Question submitted by user alaspooryoric.

Answer: Hard Times Come Again No More

"Hard Times Come Again No More" illustrates how attitudes towards social justice issues were evolving in mid-19th century America. This era saw the beginning of many social reform movements for such problems as poverty, child labor, and dangerous prison conditions.

This song is still popular today and has been widely covered by such musicians as Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, and Bruce Springsteen.

Question submitted by user SatchelPooch.

Answer: Everybody Hurts

R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck has said that "Everybody Hurts" is especially aimed at teenagers. The message is to the young, who have no experience of adversity, being one of reassurance that we all have bad times, but things do get better.

When the day is long
And the night, the night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough
Of this life, well hang on.

Don't let yourself go
`Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes.

Question submitted by raffucci.

Answer: k. d. lang

Roy Orbison's "Crying" was was released in July 1961 as a single with "Candy Man" as its B side. What a great record to own! The album from which it was released is also titled "Crying" and was Orbison's third one, produced in studio. The song remarkably ranked #69 by "Rolling Stone" in 2010 on the magazine's list of top 500 Greatest songs of All Time. In 2002, the song was recognized by a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Don McLean, famous for "American Pie", also released a cover of "Crying" in 1980, which reached number two on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart and number one on the UK Singles Chart.

Question submitted by user davefarm.