Is There Any Truth to that Song? Quiz

Answer: Edmund Fitzgerald

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was one of the biggest ore carriers on the Great Lakes. Caught in a brutal storm, she sank on November 10, 1975. All 29 crew members were lost. Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot saw a story about the sinking in a news magazine and wrote "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" about it. He considers it his best work.

Answer: Sacco and Vanzetti

Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were suspected anarchists who were executed in 1927. The trial was very controversial; later opinion was that the men were executed for their political beliefs. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about them, "Two Good Men". In 1977, then-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that they had been unfairly tried. The case remains open.

Answer: American Pie

Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson and pilot Roger Peterson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa in 1959. In 1971 Don McLean wrote and recorded the song "American Pie" about the crash which he summarized as "The Day the Music Died"; it became a hit record in 1972.

Answer: Alice's Restaurant

"I want to tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car..." Arlo Guthrie, who wrote "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" swears that the littering story is basically true and that's why he was turned down at his draft (military induction) physical exam.

The song ran for over eighteen minutes and many radio stations of the day would only play it late at night when they didn't have many commercials to play.

Answer: Reuben James

The USS Reuben James was a U.S. Navy destroyer assigned to protecting supply convoys sailing from America to the United Kingdom. On October 31, 1941, her captain had positioned her between an ammunition ship and the known position of German submarines. She was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine U-552 near Iceland. Of the 159 crew members, only 44 were saved. Woody Guthrie wrote the song "The Sinking of the Reuben James" to the tune of "Wildwood Flower", a Carter family song. It achieved some national recognition in the 1960s when the Kingston Trio included it on one of their albums.

A clear picture of the Reuben James was not available; this picture is of the USS Saterlee, which was of the same class (Camden) as the James.

Answer: Strange Fruit

"Strange Fruit" was written first as a poem and later as a song by Abel Meeropol. A white, Jewish school teacher, Meeropol was appalled by the lynchings of Black people and wrote the poem as a protest. When the song was introduced to African-American singer Billie Holiday, she was fearful of retaliation but recorded it and sang it often because of the message it imparted.

Answer: Bear Mountain

A New York City social club chartered a boat for a Father's Day cruise up the Hudson River to Bear Mountain in 1961. Someone had sold 1,000 counterfeit tickets. The three decks of the boat became overcrowded and fighting broke out. The cruise was cancelled and a dozen people were taken to hospitals. Bob Dylan saw a newspaper story about it and wrote "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" in Woody Guthrie's talking-blues style.

Originally scheduled to be on Dylan's "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" album it was finally included in the "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1-3..." CD set.

Answer: Wasn't That a Mighty Storm

"Wasn't That a Mighty Storm" was written about the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people. It was the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history. John Lomax first recorded the song in 1934. It was revived by Eric Von Schmidt and Tom Rush, Boston musicians of the folk music revival in the 1960s.

Answer: Telstar

Telstar was the first satellite launched for general communications usage. Launched in 1962, it provided transatlantic communications without depending on cables. It was so popular that a music group named The Tornados recorded an instrumental song by the name "Telstar" which became a number one song in the U.S. and UK.

Answer: Wreck of the Old 97

"Wreck of the Old 97" was a song about a mail train, engineered by "Steve" Broady. Running one hour late from Washington, D.C. to Spencer, Virginia, Broady was told by a dispatcher in Monroe, Virginia to get to Spencer on time (The Southern Railway had a lucrative contract with the U.S. Post Office). Running at perhaps 50 mph (80 km/h), the train derailed on a steep downgrade near Danville, Virginia. The wreck killed nine people including the train crew and mail clerks in the mail car. The song has been recorded by literally dozens of musicians; from well-known singers like Johnny Cash to The Pubcrawlers, a Portland, Maine Celtic punk band.

The wreck pictured is not Old 97 but a circus train wreck that looked eerily similar to the one in Danville.