Songs Inspired by Accidents or Natural Disasters Quiz

Answer: Pliny the Younger

The album was released in 1991, and among its tracks are "Admiral of the Sea: 79 A.D. Version" (the year Vesuvius erupted), "The Last Days of Pompeii/Benediction", and "Where You Gonna Land (Next Time You Fall Off of Your Mountain?".

It's quite a nutty storyline. German rocket scientist Werner von Braun escapes World War II as the Nazi regime falls, and he time travels back to Pompeii in that fateful year 79 A.D. How does Werner time travel? In a V2 rocket summoned up by the Norse God of War, Wotan. He meets Pliny the Younger, who has been narrating most of the album, and Pliny escorts him to Pompeii.

Answer: The Ballad of Casey Jones

All those names belong to engineers of trains that crashed in the first five years of the 20th century history of locomotive accidents. There have been several accounts of what exactly or how exactly Casey Jones' passenger train, "Cannonball" crashed into a stalled freight train in Vaughan, Mississippi.

When he and his fireman Slim Webb saw the stalled train as they rounded a bend, they were going 75 mph. Jones slammed the air on, told Webb to jump from the train which he did while Casey stayed on blowing the train's whistle to alert everyone.

He managed to slow the train to 40 mph, which was why no one else died when the train crashed. No one except for Casey Jones, of whom Wallace Saunders, the lyricist, was a friend.

Answer: New York City

On March 25, 1911, in a factory located in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in New York City, a fire broke out and killed 146 garment workers-- 123 women and girls and 23 men. Cruelly, doors in the factory had been locked to prevent workers from taking unofficial work breaks. This tragedy led to the emergence of the International Ladies' Garment Worker's Union.

"Then on that fateful day - dear God, most terrible of days!
When that fire broke out, it grew into a mighty blaze.
In that firetrap way up there with but a single door,
So many innocent working girls burned, to live no more!"

Answer: Titanic

They were all nominated, but yes, "Titanic" the musical, won for Best Musical; music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, book by Peter Stone. Both those men also won, and it also won for Best Scenic Design (three levels were built to depict upper decks and lower decks). "Titanic" was also the first ever winner of the Best Orchestrations Tony Award given. Musical numbers in Act II included, "Wake Up, Wake Up!", "The Blame", and "To The Lifeboats".

Answer: Bessie Smith

All great female blues singers, but Ms. Thomas, James, and Thornton, were all born well after that 1926 flood. Irma Thomas did sing a cover of the song but not until 2005. Bessie Smith, "The Empress of the Blues" was born in 1894, and those who toured with her attest that she wrote "Backwater Blues" about the 1926 flood in Tennessee where the waters from the Cumberland River rose to 9 feet above the flood line and 1,000 people were made homeless.

"It rained five days
The sky has turned black as night
And there's trouble takin' place
Way down in the lowlands tonight"

B. B. King, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Lead Belly, and several others also covered the song.

Answer: Essex County, England

Inverness-shire, Carrauntoohil, and Gwynedd, are the highest points in their respective countries, unlikely areas of flooding. Canvey Island lies just above sea level, and is separated from the mainland Essex by a series of creeks. In addition to those who died in the North Sea flood on January 31, 1953, more than 30,000 people were forced to abandon their homes. It was the worst flood in England in the 20th century.

"Canvey Island" was on British Sea Power's third album "Do You Like Rock Music" in 2008. The band now calls themselves simply Sea Power.

"On Canvey Island, 1953
Many lives were lost
With the records of a football team
I can't believe it's happening..."

Answer: John Lee Hooker

Big Bill Broonzy died in 1958, Blind Lemon Jefferson passed on in 1929, and Robert Johnson passed away in 1938, all three departing this life before that 1959 Tupelo flood. John Lee Hooker wrote and performed "Tupelo Blues". Mr. Hooker said of the flood that "People never forgot it. So when I grew up and got famous, I wrote about it and it brought back memories to a lot of people." Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds did their own version of this song in 1985 and called it "Tupelo".

Answer: Big Joe Turner

Buddy Holly ("That'll Be The Day") and Ritchie Valens ("La Bamba") both perished in that crash along with J. P. Richardson, also known as The Big Bopper ("Chantilly Lace"). Big Joe Turner, "the brawny voiced 'Boss of the Blues'" died of heart failure in 1985 at the age of 74.

Don McLean loved Buddy Holly's music and wrote this song of when he learned of the tragic death, saying, "It was a real ache in my heart. So, I ended up bringing back all those memories of 1959 and the things that happened later." Mr. McLean has also joked about the cryptic meaning of the song by saying, "It means I never have to work again."

Answer: "Trainwreck 1979", by Death From Above 1979

"Trainwreck 1979", by Death From Above 1979 is the only real song in that list of answers; the other songs don't exist although the band names are all real. The song is from their album "The Physical World" released July 8, 2014, almost 35 years after the train derailment that occurred November 10, 1979 in Mississauga, Canada that inspired the song. A freight train with a cargo of hazardous chemicals caught fire, leading to the evacuation of over 200,000 people. The miracle of it all was that no one died.

"They packed up their families
And headed up wind
A poison cloud
A flaming sky
200,000 people
And no one died...."

It was known as the biggest evacuation of people during peacetime in North American history. Until 2005....

Answer: Treme

Several songs have been written and recorded about Hurricane Katrina in 2005, that devastated New Orleans, like Spencer Bohren's "Long Black Line", referring to the receded water-line marks that were signs of the flooding after the waters went away.

Davis Rogan, a song satirist in the vein of Randy Newman, recorded a song called "Hurricane" that poked fun of New Orleans residents who were stubbornly against evacuating. The problem was he put the master disc in the mail on August 28, 2005....luckily the studio engineer had a digital back copy, because the package was drowned in the waters from Lake Pontchartrain. But Rogan was mostly sympathetic to the people of New Orleans and reflected in the song how frustrating dealing with FEMA was for everybody. Rogan's house in Treme took only 6 inches of water but of course other residents weren't so lucky. He was only too happy to contribute songs to that HBO series "Treme" one of those songs being "The New 9th Ward."