Literary Allusions in Rock Trivia Quiz

Answer: Led Zeppelin

"Ramble On" from the 1969 "Zeppelin II" album contains the lines "Mine's a tale that can't be told / My freedom I hold dear / How years ago in days of old / When magic filled the air / T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor / I met a girl so fair / But Gollum, and the evil one crept up / And slipped away with her." Other Zeppelin songs that may have been inspired by Tolkien's trilogy include "The Battle of Evermore" and "Misty Mountain Hop" from the 1971 "Zeppelin IV" album.

Answer: Kate Bush

Released in 1978 when Kate Bush was only 19, "Wuthering Heights" was the first song written by its female singer to hit Number One on the UK charts; it stayed there for four weeks. Bush said in interviews that she wasn't a huge Bronte fan but that she was fascinated by the idea that "people should want something so much that even when they die they won't let go."

Answer: Guinnevere

David Crosby said in interviews that he wrote the beautifully haunting song "Guinnevere" about three women, fellow folk singer Joni Mitchell, his girlfriend Christine Hinton, who was killed in a car crash in 1969 (the year that "Guinnevere" was released) and a third, unnamed woman.

Answer: Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"

The first line of the poem reads, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree," whereas, when FGTH used the line in their song, they changed "decree" to "erect." Electric Light Orchestra and Olivia Newton John also referenced the Coleridge poem in their song "Xanadu" from the 1980 roller disco film of the same name, which was produced as a Broadway musical in 2007. Poe's "The Raven" inspired Alan Parson's Project's 1976 song of the same name. Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric" inspired a song of the same name on the "Fame" soundtrack.

Answer: All of them

These three are just a few of the acts that have recorded songs with Shangri-La in the title. Others include Mark Knopfler, The Lettermen, Billy Idol, Mother Love Bone, Ry Cooder and Teena Marie. Insane Clown Posse, Stevie Nicks and Stone Temple Pilots have included Shangri-La in album titles. Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Patti Smith, AC/DC, Oasis, Saxon, Motley Crue and Cyndi Lauper have all recorded songs that mention Shangri-La. Big hits of 60s girl group The Shangri-Las were "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" and "Leader of the Pack." The Band and Skinny Puppy both had recording studios called Shangri-La.

Answer: The Police's "Wrapped Around Your Finger"

Greek mythology's Scylla (or Skylla) and Charybdis were monsters that each inhabited one side of a strait so narrow that sailors wishing to avoid one would end up too close to the other. The persona of the Police song feels similarly trapped.

Answer: Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"

"A Whiter Shade of Pale" includes the line "And when the Miller told his tale, her face at first just ghostly turned a white shade of pale." While the styles and topics of Chaucer's Middle English tales vary, "The Miller's Tale" is a bawdy tale of the narrator's scheme to bed his landlord's young wife.

Answer: Dire Straits

Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler wrote the song which references Shakespeare's play with lines about Romeo "singing up" at Juliet, as in the famous balcony scene from the play, and the two of them coming up on "different streets," whereas, in the play, they come from the opposing houses of Montague and Capulet. Also, the line, "there's a place for us," is directly copied from the song "Somewhere," which was written for "West Side Story," the Broadway musical modernization of "Romeo and Juliet" (and later film) set in 1950s New York City.

Answer: The Byrds' "Turn! Turn! Turn!"

Pete Seeger wrote "Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There is a Season)" in the 1950s, but the Byrds' 1965 recording was the most popular, staying at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks. The lyrics come almost exclusively from the King James version of the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

Answer: Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass"

"White Rabbit," often mistakenly referred to as "Go Ask Alice," reached Number eight on the Billboard Hot 100. The song directly references Carroll's books when it speaks of the Red Queen, the White Knight, the hookah-smoking caterpillar and ingesting something (a drink in the book, a pill in the song) that makes you smaller.