Rockin' Fairy Tales Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sam The Sham & The Pharoahs

This 1966 song was released on the MGM label and it went to number two in both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian RPM Magazine charts. The band's biggest hit was "Wooly Bully".

The song is based on the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood".

Answer: 100 Proof (Aged in Soul)

This hit appeared on the Hot Wax Records label. "Somebody's Been Sleeping in My Bed" also appeared on the album of the same name. The song was the band's biggest hit, going to number eight on the Billboard US Pop Singles chart and number six on the US R&B chart in 1970. It was the band's biggest hit.

The song is based on the fairy tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".

Answer: Kate Bush

"The Red Shoes" was a single by Kate Bush released on April 4, 1994. It was the third single released from the album 'The Red Shoes'. It charted at number 21 in the UK singles chart. The song itself is inspired by a character in Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's film 'The Red Shoes' and is about a girl who slips on a pair of enchanted basllet slippers and cannot stop dancing until she breaks the spell.

Answer: David Bowie

The opening track from many people's favorite David Bowie album "Heroes" from 1977 (and in my opinion the best track on that album). David was already a huge star before this album was released, but the Heroes album and 1978 world tour for that album took his stardom to the next level (which the following tour for the 'Let's Dance' album took completely over the top). I myself was in Europe at the time of the tour and followed it for nine shows straight (The ONLY difference in any of those nine shows was that he played an encore in Essen, Germany).

While it is probably much more likely that Bowie was referencing the Jean Genet movie of the same name, that same movie was based on the fairy tale of the same name. "Beauty & The Beast was the second single from the album and was released on January 8, 1978.

It only went to number 39 on the UK Singles Chart that year.

Answer: Jefferson Airplane

Released as a single on June 24, 1967 and taken from the album Surrealistic Pillow (The fourth album I ever bought back then) "White Rabbit peaked on the Billboard charts as number eight. The song itself was written by Grace and Darby Slick and performed with their previous band 'The Great Society'. Grace brought this song (as well as 'Somebody To Love') with her to the Jefferson Airplane when she replaced their original singer Signe Toly Anderson, when Signe quit the band after their first album 'Takes Off' to raise her child.

The song "White Rabbit" was directly inspired by the 1865 Lewis Carrol books 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and its 1871 sequel 'Through the Looking-Glass'. You have probably heard of the alternate choices listed barring one: that was my old punk band Pilgrim State. Our final 4 shows before splitting up all opened with our version of White Rabbit ;-)

Answer: Emerson, Lake & Palmer

As the question says: Tchaikovsky's "March of the Toy Soldiers", from his ballet The Nutcracker". The ballet was based on the story "The Nutcracker and the King of Mice". The gist of the story is that a child's favorite toy, a nutcracker, comes to life and defeats the evil mouse king in battle, after which the Nutcracker whisks her away to a land populated by dolls.

In 1892 composer Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned an adaption of the story into what is considered quite probably the world's most famous ballet.

Answer: B. Bumble and the Stingers

In 1962 a certain Kim Fowley obtained the rights to an arrangement of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "March of the Wooden Soldiers" from his ballet The Nutcracker ( "The Nutcracker and the King of Mice"). And he decided to rock it up. The original version that was issued was credited to "Jack B. Nimble and the Quicks" and was released on the tiny Del Rio label.

It came nowhere near the charts anywhere. But it did catch the attention of Rod Pierce from Rendezvous Records who convinced Kim that they could do a much better job getting this thing into the charts if he was willing to record another version of it and let them have it for release. Which begat the B. Bumble and the Stingers (note that BOTH of the "bands" that recorded the track were bands thrown together purely for the recording sessions and not actually pre-existing bands). Well THIS time around the single went to number 23 in the US and to #1 in the UK charts! Interesting trivia: originally the BBC had a strict policy involving tracks that they felt "parodied" classical music.

After putting it up for vote they decided that(quote) "this instrumental piece is quite openly a parody of a Tchaikovsky dance tune, is clearly of an ephemeral nature, and in our opinion will not offend reasonable people". One can assume that only unreasonable British people were offended?

Answer: Metallica

Alrighty. This one might be pushing it insofar as the topic of the quiz is concerned, but it should still be an easy one for many. There is a very noticeable reference to Peter Pan in the "Take my hand, we're off to never never land" portion of the lyrics (where the Sandman lives).

Answer: Sinead O'Connor

The Emperor's New Clothes is a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen. Sinead recorded this track for her 1990 album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got". The story itself is rather amusing and worth a read if you come across it.

Answer: Crispian St. Peters

The title refers to an old fairy tale: The Pied Piper of Hamelin, which originated in the Middle Ages in Germany. Crispian St. Peters scored with it, one of only two Top 40 hits in his career - the other one was "You Were On My Mind". In the summer of 1966 'The Pied Piper', as recorded by Crispian (and written by the duo of Steve Duboff and Artie Kornfeld who first recorded the song in 1965 as The Changin' Times and flopped with it), reached number four in the United States, number five in the United Kingdom and number one in Canada.