Did They Really Say THAT? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lola

According to Wikipedia, Ray Davies, who wrote the lyrics to "Lola", supposedly based the song on a story told by the band manager Robert Wace, who claimed to have once spent a drunken evening dancing with a transvestite.

Answer: Freddie Mercury

The rock band, "Queen" also featured Brian May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor. According to lead singer Freddie Mercury, the song "Killer Queen" was intended as a snide commentary about a high-priced call girl.

Answer: Klaatu

The complete title of the song was,
"Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem Of World Contact Day)."
Now, there's a mouthful.

The Carpenters' version predated the movie, "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" by about three months.

The original concept of the song by Klaatu was based on an actual event that was described in The Flying Saucer Reader in 1967. In 1953 a group called "The International Flying Saucer Bureau" sent out a bulletin to all its members asking them to participate in "World Contact Day" so that on a certain date they would all attempt to send a telepathic message to visitors from outer space. The message began with the words of the song: "Calling occupants of interplanetary craft..." (Source: Wikipedia)

Answer: The Beatles

The Beatles produced the album "Magical Mystery Tour" in 1967, and the song "I Am The Walrus", from which these lines were taken, was a cut on that album.

The entire song was deliberately nonsensical, according to John Lennon. He had received a letter from a student at the school that Lennon had attended and discovered that one of the teachers was requiring analytic reviews of the lyrics of Beatle's songs. John then chose to cobble some nonsense phrases and words together to confound the teacher's efforts.

It was probably indicative of the nature of the song that John admitted to doing LSD for the two previous weekends and his brain was likely primed to present just such bizarre thought patterns to the work.

Answer: The Statler Brothers

The Statler Brothers are not named "Statler" at all, and are not related, except for brothers Harold and Don Reid. Jimmy Fortune and Philip Balsley round out the group. All but Jimmy hail from the area of Staunton, Virginia.

Don Reid was once quoted in an interview stating, "I guess we're just dull.... We try not to get involved in anything controversial. We entertain and keep it light. We leave the messages to Western Union."

"The Class of '57" had its dreams...

Well, nowadays, I think the term "insane ward", and the line about Freddie "taking his life" might be construed as INSENSITIVE, if the PC folks have their way about it.

Answer: his mother-in-law

A lot of other people must have felt similarly, since the song sky-rocketed to number 1 in the U.S. on both Billboard's Pop AND R&B charts!

Perhaps ironically, Ernie is buried in New Orleans in the same tomb as...
his second mother-in-law, whom he apparently liked a lot!

Answer: Henson Cargill

While Henson Cargill had the best success with "Skip A Rope", several people have covered this song; among them Jimmy Dean, George Jones, and more recently, the Kentucky Headhunters.

One line from the song goes like this:

"Daddy hates Mommy; Mommy hates Dad
Last night you shoulda heard the fight they had.
Gave little sister another bad dream;
She woke us all up with a terrible scream."

Answer: Japan

Alvis (Buck) Edgar Owens, Jr. got his nickname from the family mule. He was born in Sherman, Texas in 1929 just prior to the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression. One day, when he was about three or four years old, he walked into the house and told his family that his name, just like the mule's, was "Buck". The name stuck and from then on he was known as Buck Owens.

The song "Made In Japan", was a number one hit for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos in 1972, after a three year dry spell for the group.

Buck died of a heart attack in March 2006, just a few hours after his last performance at his Crystal Palace restaurant in Bakersfield, California. (Source: Wikipedia)

Answer: Indian Giver

While all the songs mentioned came from the album, "Special Delivery", (remember albums?), "Indian Giver" was the correct answer. The term has derogatory connotations, essentially implying that something has been given, only to be asked for back. This stems from the basic cultural clashes noted early in the settling of the American continent.

Native Americans were accustomed to a barter system, whereby they offered something in good faith, expecting others to reciprocate or return the original item or goods. European "guests" misinterpreted the gesture, thinking that they had received a gift with no obligations attached, and were hurt by thinking that the donors had reneged on the original offer.

This misunderstanding led to the term "Indian giver".

Answer: Good Timin'

Jimmy Jones was born in Birmingham, but moved to New York where he began his career as a tap dancer. Later still, he joined up with The Berliners, a group which then changed it's name to The Sparks Of Rhythm. In 1955, he started his own group, The Savoys, which evolved into The Pretenders.
Source: "Yesterday's Gold"

Following are a few of the lyrics to his 1961 hit, Good Timin':

"If little, little David hadn't grabbed that stone
Lyin' there on the ground
Big Goliath might've stomped on him
Instead of the other way 'round
But he had -

Timin - a tick a tick a tick a
Good timin' a tock a tock a tock a tock a
Timin' is the thing it's true
Good timin' brought me to you."

Who in the world would've ever known
What Columbus could do
If Queen Isabella hadn't hocked her jewels
In fourteen ninety two
But she had -

Timin'...(repeat chorus)

What would've happened if you and I
Hadn't just happened to meet
We might've spent the rest of our lives
Walkin' down Misery Street
But we had -

Timin'...(repeat chorus)"