A Tom Paxton Gallimaufry Vol. 2 Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Which singer/songwriter once said: "We are all born knowing Tom Paxton songs"?

Answer: Nanci Griffith

All have sung on Paxton recordings. Paxton also released a joint album with Anne Hills, "Under American Skies" and they toured with the late Bob Gibson for several years as the trio Best of Friends, producing an album of the same name. Nanci Griffith was a Grammy award winner. Linda Williams sang and recorded with her husband Robin (no, not that Robin Williams). Mary (Hopkin) Visconti was a Welsh-born singer whose early career was championed by Paul McCartney.

2. About which great folk musician did Tom Paxton write the following lyrics? "They could take away your money, they could take away your land Drive you out on the endless highway, leave you out on the desert sand They could take the food from your hungry mouth and lock you in the hole But they couldn't take the music from your soul"

Answer: Woody Guthrie

Many critics have traced a direct line from Guthrie to the early works of Tom Paxton. Like Guthrie, Paxton wrote songs about the 'ordinary man' in the USA; songs like "I'm The Man That Built The Bridges"; and road songs about traveling, such as "I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound" and "Ramblin' Boy".

He also wrote powerful anti-war songs, such as "Jimmy Newman" and "Lyndon Johnston Told The Nation". Also like Guthrie, Paxton wrote children's songs, examples include "Going To The Zoo" and "The Marvelous Toy".

He was also inspired by Seeger and Ives and was a contemporary and friend of Ochs.

3. On one of his early albums, the folksinger Tom Paxton lampooned the grandiose burial services offered at a US cemetery. Which cemetery?

Answer: Forest Lawn

"Oh lay me down in Forest Lawn, they understand there
They have a heavenly choir and a military band there
Just put me in their care, I'll find my comfort there
With sixteen planes in a last salute
Dropping a cross on a parachute

Chorus: "I want to go simply when I go
They'll give me a simple funeral there, I know
With a hundred strolling strings
And topless dancers in golden wings
Oh, take me when I'm gone to Forest Lawn"

Few songwriters could match Paxton for dressing biting social comment in a humorous song. John Denver had wanted to sing this song on the 'Tonight Show' but the broadcasters would not let him. Finally, though, when he was guest host one night Denver said he would sing what he liked - and, as Paxton later noted, "let it rip" with 'Forest Lawn'.

4. More than five years after he wrote 'Outward Bound', Tom Paxton sang the song on a televised tribute to a US political leader who had been murdered. Which of these was it?

Answer: Robert Kennedy

'Outward Bound' was first recorded by Carolyn Hester in 1963. In 1968 on the night before the funeral of Bobby Kennedy, Paxton was invited by CBS television to record - with others - a tribute to be broadcast the next day. His turn did not come until 6am, and he sang 'Outward Bound'

"Outward Bound, upon a ship that sails no ocean
Outward Bound - it has no crew but me and you
All alone, when just a minute ago the shore was filled with people
With people that we knew

So farewell, adieu, so long, vaya con dios
May they find what they are looking for
Remember when the wine was better than ever again
We could not ask, we could not ask for more."

5. One of the best-known of US singer/songwriter Tom Paxton's children's songs was "Goin' To The Zoo". In it he sang about various animals. Which of these were *not* among them?

Answer: Lions

Altogether now:
"We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo
How about you, you, you
You can come too, too, too
We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo"

Paxton recorded several albums of children's songs. He also write children's books. One of those songs "My Dog's Bigger Than Your Dog" was picked up by a pet food company.

6. In the latter part of the 20th century, a bloody civil war in Eastern Europe saw tens of thousands killed in what was virtually the ethnic cleansing of a country. The American folksinger Tom Paxton wrote a song about one place that became a byword for the cruelty. Which place was that?

Answer: Srebrenica

"On the road from Srebrenica, I saw the men all pulled aside and marched away.
While the women screamed in terror all the men went down the pathway to the trees.
The sound of guns was muffled by the forest, but the shots went on and on
While the soldiers pushed the women to keep moving
And the rain began to freeze.

Chorus: "On the road, on the road from Srebrenica, blackbirds fly, blackbirds flying overhead.
Cry no mercy on the road from Srebrenica, where there's no one left alive to count the dead"

In Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995 thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed by army units as part of a bitter ethnic cleansing conflict between Serbs and Croats.

7. In 2005, a British radio station presented a 'lifetime achievement' award for songwriting to the American folkie Tom Paxton. Which radio station was it?

Answer: BBC Radio 2

On the same night, Ramblin' Jack Elliott also received a lifetime award.
Three years earlier, Paxton received an ASCAP 'Lifetime Achievement Award' in Folk Music.
Paxton lived in London for an extended period in the 1970s and enjoyed as much success there as in his native USA.

8. Which 1960s icon was the subject of a song called 'Crazy John' by the American folkie Tom Paxton?

Answer: John Lennon

"Crazy John, where you gonna run to today?
Crazy John, so early to be up and away
They're never gonna here you John, so how can you teach them?
They never come near you John, so how you gonna reach them?"

Paxton later noted: "When John Lennon had the temerity to come out for peace he was vilified in the press and the right-wing sections of Congress and became the subject of an FBI investigation His sojourn in bed in Canada with his wife, Yoko, and the release of the single 'Give Peace A Chance' only intensified the rage of the hawks. I loved him for exposing himself to that hatred when he could have just stayed a Beatle."

9. The US folkie Tom Paxton once wrote a song deriding the right-wing views of a New York newspaper. Which one?

Answer: The Daily News

"Civil Rights leaders are a pain in the neck
Can't hold a candle to Chiang Kai Shek
How do I know
I read it in the Daily News
Ban the bombers are afraid of a fight
Peace hurts business and that ain't right
How do I know
I read it in the Daily News

Chorus:
Daily News, daily blues,
Pick up a copy any time you choose.
Seven little pennies in the newsboy's hand,
And you ride right along to never, never land."

Newspapers gave Paxton ideas for many of his topical songs.

10. The US Congress bail-out of a giant US company in the late 1970s gave singer/songwriter Tom Paxton fuel for a topical song that mixed humour with irony. Which company was it?

Answer: Chrysler

"Oh the price of gold is rising out of sight
And the dollar is in sorry state tonight
What a dollar used to get us now won't buy a head of lettuce no the economic forecast isn't right
But amidst the cloud I spot a shining ray
I begin to glimpse a new and better way
I've devised a plan of action, worked it down to the last fraction and I'm going into action here today.
I am changing my name to Chrysler I am going down to Washington DC
I will tell some power-broker 'What you did for Iacocca would be perfectly acceptable to me'
I am changing my name to Chrysler I am leaving for that great receiving line
And when they hand a million grand out I'll be standing with my hand out
Yes sir, I'll get mine."

Arlo Guthrie, who covered the song, reckoned it was worth singing for another line alone: "Since the first amphibian climbed out of the slime..." Of course no modern government would ever bail out a big loss-making business like that any more...would it?

11. The American singer/songwriter Tom Paxton wrote a song about Vietnam that struck a particular chord at his concerts in Ireland. What was that song called?

Answer: Peace Will Come

During the darkest days of Northern Ireland's violence in the 1970s and early 1980s, Paxton was one of the few artistes of international standing who continued to perform in Belfast and other places in Ireland. There are few Paxton fans more passionate about his music than those of us who have been there and sung along with him in places such as the Grosvenor Hall and the Ulster Hall.

12. What was the name of the singing trio Tom Paxton was part of at the University of Oklahoma in the late 1950s?

Answer: The Travelers

Johnny Horton and Buck Bollman were the other members of what Paxton candidly admitted was a clone of the Kingston Trio. It was during his university days that Paxton developed his admiration for Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives and Pete Seeger.

13. 'The Marvelous Toy' was the first song that the US folksinger Tom Paxton ever wrote.

Answer: False

Paxton says he wrote 'The Marvelous Toy' while in a clerk-typist class at the US Army's Fort Dix. In his songbook 'The Honor Of Your Company' (Published by Cherry Lane Music in 2000) he noted his first song was called 'Robert', "an imitation Elizabethan murder ballad", which he wrote in a Shakespeare class at University of Oklahoma. He cited 'Marvelous Toy' as the first song he wrote that lasted.

It was recorded by the Chad Mitchell Trio, of which Paxton had briefly been a member - on trial for a week. Being at Fort Dix was Godsend for Paxton At weekends he was able to travel into New York to soak up the atmosphere at the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk scene. He became one of the most eloquent graduates of the coffee house 'folkscare' scene.

14. Which of his Vietnam era songs did the US folkie Tom Paxton update to apply to the second war in Iraq?

Answer: Lyndon Johnston Told The Nation

The original lyrics began:
"I got a letter from L. B. J.
It said this is your lucky day.
It's time to put your khaki trousers on.
Though it may seem very queer
We've got no jobs to give you here
So we are sending you to Viet Nam

Cho:
"Lyndon Johnson told the nation,
Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn't really war,
We're sending fifty thousand more,
To help save Viet nam from Viet Namese."

And later became:

"I got a letter from old George W
It said son I hate to trouble ya
But this war of mine is goin' bad
It's time for me to roll those dice
I know you've already been there twice
But I am sending you back to Baghdad.

Chorus:
George W told the nation this is not an escalation
This is just a surge towards victory
Just to win my little war I'm sending 20,000 more
To help me save Iraq from Iraqis."

Watch video interpretations of both songs on youtube.

15. Which word completes the title of an album of music for children recorded by the singer/songwriter Tom Paxton: 'The Marvelous Toy & Other _________ " ?

Answer: Gallimaufry

Now you know how the title of this quiz came about. My dictionary defines Gallimaufry as "a jumble" or "a hotchpotch". Part of Paxton's longevity has been the breadth of his appeal; an appeal to children as well as adults. His songs covered a range of topics including deeply political, beautifully romantic; socially observant; and patently nonsensical.

As well as his singing and songwriting career, he was the author of many books for children.

Source: Author darksplash

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor gtho4 before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

This 'coda' to the first Tom Paxton Gallimaufry continues the story of a songwriter whose music has entered the musical consciousness of America and is loved far and wide.

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