Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. The first song for the evening has the following introduction: "I'd like to take you now on wings of song as it were, and try and help you forget, perhaps, for a while, your drab wretched lives. Here is a song all about springtime in general, and in particular about one of the many delightful pastimes that the coming of spring affords us all." What ditty follows?
2. Lehrer starts his introduction for the second song with "For my first encore, I'd like to turn to a type of song that people like myself find ourselves subjected to with increasing frequency as time goes on, and that is the college alma mater. You find yourself at a reunion of old grads and old undergrads, and somebody will start croaking out one of these things and everyone will gradually join in, each in his own key of course, until the place is just soggy with nostalgia." What offering follows?
3. What song, with a title that sounds like a Charles Dickens tale, has an introduction that claims "none of the Christmas carols that you hear on the radio, or in the street, even attempts to capture the true spirit of Christmas as we celebrate it in the United States, that is to say the commercial spirit"?
4. What song's introduction includes, "I'd like to sing a song which is completely pointless, but is something which I picked up during my career as a scientist. This may prove useful to some of you some day, perhaps, in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances"?
5. Describing the failure of a film version of a famous Greek tragedy, Lehrer says, "And I maintain that the reason it was not a financial success... you're way ahead of me... was that it did not have a title tune which the people could hum, and which would make them actually eager to attend this particular flick." What was the name of the film, and the title of the song being introduced?
6. The next introduction, funny as it is, has virtually nothing to do with the song, which is 'In Old Mexico'. Then comes a song that Lehrer introduces with the assertion, "I should like to consider the folk song, and expound briefly on a theory I have held for some time, to the effect that the reason most folk songs are so atrocious is that they were written by the people." What traditional song is this?
7. In introducing his next song, Lehrer says, "I have only comparatively recently emerged from the United States Army, so that I am now, of course, in the radioactive reserve. And, the usual jokes about the Army aside, one of the many fine things one has to admit is the way that the Army has carried the American democratic ideal to its logical conclusion, in the sense that not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on the grounds of ability." What military-themed song follows?
8. In introducing his next song, Lehrer says (in part), "I'm sure you're familiar with love songs ... where the girl who sings them tells you that, although the man she loves is antisocial, alcoholic, physically repulsive, or just plain unsanitary, that, nevertheless, she is his because he is hers, and like that. But, as far as I know, there has never been a popular song from the analogous male point of view." What song does he offer to fill this void?
9. For what song does Tom Lehrer use this introduction?
"Another familiar type of love song is the passionate or fiery variety, usually in tango tempo, in which the singer exhorts his partner to haunt him and taunt him and, if at all possible, to consume him with a kiss of fire."
10. For what "modern, positive, dynamic, uplifting song, in the tradition of the great old revival hymns" does Lehrer start his introduction with the story of "a fellow I used to know whose name was Henry, only to give you an idea of what an individualist he was, he spelled it H-E-N-3-R-Y - the three was silent, you see"?
Source: Author
looney_tunes
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agony before going online.
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