Dan Bern Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jerusalem

"Jerusalem" invariably gets the loudest applause at Dan's shows. He talks about the ancient kings asking him if he wants to be an ancient king and the ancient kings try to cite Albert Einstein. Later he compares how the Jews, Christians, and Muslims all waiting for the Messiah is like waiting for a bus or a phone call.

Answer: Oklahoma City bombing

In the song "Oklahoma" Dan describes the tragic attack that killed almost 200 people, most of them young children. He also talks about how people initially thought it was perpetrated by foreign terrorists but that it turns out that it was American extremists, showing we can just make generalist assumptions as to who our enemies are.

Answer: Bruce Springsteen

In "Talkin' Woody, Bob, Bruce & Dan Blues", Dan starts off by describing Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie's famous relationship. Then he goes into a description of how he broke into Bruce Springsteen's house and tried to convince The Boss that The Boss was dying. Of course the whole part of the song involving Bruce is fictional, but it makes for an amusing story.

Answer: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Dan's cabinet includes mostly people with liberal leanings and the former Republican governor of California, Schwarzenegger, does not fit in there. McEnroe is also mentioned in leading the country in one of Dan's new holidays where everyone plays tennis.

Earlier in the song, Dan talks about his first two weeks in office where he plans to accomplish many things including offering statehood to Mexico and Cuba, collective farms to help the farmers financially, legalizing pot, universal healthcare, and recognizing gay marriage. This was several years before the affordable healthcare act and while the majority of Americans were still opposed to gay marriage. He actually goes even further than allowing gay marriage telling people they can marry a monkey or a rhino if that's what they really want to do.

Answer: He sank

Of course he sank, he's not really the Messiah. And to get a good rhyme, the next thing he did was "turned wine into whiskey and drank, drank, drank". The song does give some good advice, though. It ends by saying "Stop what you're doing and breathe" several times as it fades out.

Answer: Bartender

The song talks about how hard-working Joe is as a bartender. It mentions that the only reason he didn't work on Christmas is because that holiday had yet to be invented. Then Mary comes into the bar and tells her husband how the Lord seduced her and she's now pregnant. Since Joe is unable to father children of his own, he accepts the baby into the family and agrees to raise him, even going so far as to celebrate by buying a round of shots on the house.

Answer: The family ranch of George W. Bush

In the song, written before Bin Laden was killed, he is captured in Pakistan and brought back to the US. When he escapes from jail, he heads to the only place in the country he feels safe, George Bush's ranch. Bush teaches him how to blend in with other Americans and he starts to fit in until he begins talking in his sleep - at which point his girlfriend turns him in for the reward.

Answer: To go fishing with grandpa

The song "Grandpa" talks about how he wants to go fishing with his girlfriend's grandpa, but that her grandfather won't go with them while they are living in sin. It's probably not the best reason to get married, but it makes for a funny song. He doesn't care what anyone else thinks about their living together, but if her grandpa won't take him fishing, then something needs to be done.

Answer: Barry Bond's yearly home run totals

Dan is a big baseball fan and his favorite team is the San Francisco Giants. He has a song called "The Year-by-Year Home Run Totals of Barry Bonds" with the chorus including the actual number of home runs that Bonds hit every year in his career starting in 1986. He tries to get the audience to sing along with the chorus when he's performing in concert, albeit with little success.

In addition to releasing an album called "Doubleheader" which contains eighteen baseball songs, Dan also participated for several years in an annual series of baseball CDs by an organization known as Hungry for Music which helps provide musical instruments to inner city and underprivileged kids. (www.hungryformusic.org)

Answer: Prevent the Titanic from hitting the iceberg

In the song God refuses each of these requests because if he sends Dan back in time, Dan won't do what he sets out to do. For example, if he went back to save Kurt Cobain, Dan would only ask Cobain to help him get a recording deal.

Dan has a couple of songs where he talks to God (in addition to the ones where he claims to be the Messiah). One of my favorites was never actually released and is called "Lightnin' Jazz". In it, Dan is talking to God about the commandments when God says that he only gave Moses eight commandments and not ten. One of those which is not very well known is "Thou shalt not be mean to a moose".

Dan Bern does have very unusual lyrics.