Song, You Send Me Trivia Quiz

Answer: Are You Lonesome Tonight?

This gorgeous song was written in 1926 by Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Roy Turk and Lou Handman. In 1927 De Leath and many others released other versions. Al Jolson, Jaye P. Morgan and Jim Flaherty sang it from "schmaltz" to "dreamy", keeping the song on the hit single charts.

Presley was just out of the Army in 1960 and still considered a new kid, unsuited to a romantic ballad, when his manager Colonel Tom Parker pressed him to try it. Presley asked everyone to leave, turned out the lights, and rendered it "tender" and "intimate". While he said he didn't do it well, and it wasn't his style, in the first week alone fans ordered 900,000 copies. This hit topped both US and UK Pop Singles charts, earned a Gold Record Award for 1,000,000 US copies sold, became a signature song for Elvis, and broke 2,000,000 sold in 1992. Greats such as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Merle Haggard also charted with the tune, but never brought it close to Number One.

"...Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?..."

Answer: The Way We Were

"The Way We Were" was a 1973 film starring Barbra Streisand (born 1942) and Robert Redford, featuring the hauntingly beautiful theme song, "The Way We Were", composed by Marvin Hamlisch. It won an Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy Award in 74' and 75'. It was a number one single for mezzo soprano Streisand, and remained her signature song for over four decades. It was certified Platinum in 1997 for sales of over one million copies. Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, and Gladys Knight and the Pips sang cover interpretations. Streisand was honored for the song with a 2007 Grammy Hall of Fame Award. A 2016 book by Neal Gabler claims that back in 1973 Streisand had a massive crush on Redford. That seems unlikely, eh?

"Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?"

Answer: What a Wonderful World

After Tony Bennett turned it down, jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) recorded, "What a Wonderful World" in 1967. Abandoned by the President of ABC-Paramount records it went virtually unnoticed in the USA, but was the best-selling single of 1968 in the UK. Written by Bob Thiele and George Weiss, Armstrong was paid just $250 to record it. "It's been hard (expletive) work, man...like I blowed my chops off", Armstrong said. Days after his 75th birthday he lay in state in New York City, surrounded by up to 30,000 fans. The song features in a number of hit movies and appears at the top of the charts throughout the decades, covered by voices as diverse as Eva Cassidy, Roy Clark and yes, Tony Bennett. Forever associated with the great Satchmo, though, it was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

"...I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world..."

Answer: Ring of Fire

Written by Merle Kilgore and June Carter (1929-2003), the lyrics were a love letter to Johnny Cash (1932-2003), though Carter and Cash were each married to another at the time. Adding the trumpets came to Cash in a dream, making for one hot Carter-Cash duet. The song stayed at No. 1 for seven weeks, and moved from the Rolling Stone's 2003 list of 500 greatest songs, to the list of "100 Greatest Songs of All Time", in 2014. Carter and Cash were married for 35 years, dying just four months apart.

"Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell in to a ring of fire
I fell in to a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher..."

Answer: You Send Me

Sam Cooke both wrote and recorded his first single, "You Send Me" in New Orleans, released in 1957. People were thrilled and infatuated, making it No. 1 on both Rhythm & Blues and the Billboard Hot 100 charts, shooting Cooke to stardom. Interesting is a common 1950s practice with a white singer quickly cutting a cover for the Pop charts. Teresa Brewer did that, reaching No.8, but Cooke's version successfully crossed over and passed up the cover, achieving No. 1 as a Pop hit. "You Send Me" is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, it's a Rolling Stone "Greatest Song of All Time" and holds a place among the most important Rock & Roll songs ever recorded. Aretha Franklin, Ponderosa Twins Plus One, The Manhattans, Nat King Cole, the Dixie Chicks, Van Morrison, The Supremes, Rod Stewart and a long list of other fine entertainers released popular covers.

"Darling you...
You thrill me
Honest you do
At first I thought it was infatuation
But wooh, it's lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting to marry you
and take you home..."

Answer: The Shadow of Your Smile

"The Shadow of Your Smile" was first heard as a choral theme song for the 1965 film "The Sandpiper" starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who were married just before filming. The song won an Oscar for Best Original Song. In 1966 Tony Bennett (born 1926) made it a hit, earning it a Grammy as Song of the Year. Written by Johnny Mandel with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, this lovely tune was covered dozens of times across the decades, by the likes of Nancy Sinatra, Benny Carter, Engelbert Humperdinck, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Marvin Gaye and Salena Jones. Frank Sinatra's version, like many others, removed all mention of the sandpiper bird so central to the movie. But Bennett retained the original lovely theme:

"One day we walked along the sand
One day in early spring
You held a piper in your hand
To mend its broken wing
Now I'll remember many a day
And many a lonely mile
The echo of a piper's song
The shadow of a smile.

The shadow of your smile
When you are gone
Will color all my dreams
And light the dawn..."

Answer: Lady

Just after Lionel Richie (born 1949) left the "Commodores" they turned down a pitch for his new song "Lady". Happily it was recorded by country legend Kenny Rogers, already a superstar with nine No. 1 hits. "Lady" blew us away, charting in all FOUR major singles charts--Hot 100, Country, Soul and adult contemporary--as well as in Ireland, Belgium, New Zealand and many other countries. In 2012 Richie and Rogers recorded "Lady" together as a duet for Richie's album "Tuskegee". Kenny told a 2017 crowd that Richie finished the second verse of the song in the bathroom while Rogers waited for it. Rogers died in March of 2020, 81 years old, amidst rumors the cause may have been Corvid-19, but his family said it was long standing health issues. "Lady" was his biggest solo chart hit.

"Lady
I'm your knight in shining armor and I love you
You have made me what I am and I am yours
My love
There's so many ways I want to say I love you
Let me hold you in my arms forever more...."

Answer: Blackbird

First released on the Beatles "White Album" of 1968, "Blackbird" was written and performed by Paul McCartney, but credited to John Lennon as well. Folk singer Donovan taught McCartney the guitar fingerpicking technique. McCartney sometimes explained the song as a metaphor for a black girl struggling through racial tensions in the US south of the 60s. At other times he said simply he heard a blackbird calling as he meditated in India. Tragically this is one of the tunes the lunatic killer Charles Manson interpreted as a call to a "rise" of black Americans to a race war, justifying his 1969 murders. In 2009 McCartney again referred to the song as connected to civil rights, while many hear it as sweet encouragement for anyone struggling. In 2015 McCartney told a live concert crowd the accompaniment was inspired by Bach's "Bourree in E minor". Across the decades "Blackbird" remains among the most frequently covered songs of all time.


"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for the moment to arise..."

Answer: Summertime

Called the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) sang "Summertime" with Louis Armstrong, producing a record in 1958. This 1934 jazz standard is an aria by George Gershwin (co-credited to Ira Gershwin), created for the 1935 opera "Porgy and Bess", based on Dubose Heyward's novel. Heyward's much-acclaimed lyrics for "Summertime" are based on a southern folk spiritual-lullaby. The song has been covered literally thousands of times. Fine renditions include Sam Cooke, Ricky Nelson, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday and Loulie Jean Norman.

"Summertime, an' the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' an' the cotton is high.
Oh, yo' daddy's rich and yo' ma is good-lookin'
So hush, little baby, don' you cry.

One of these mornin's you goin' to rise up singin'
Then you'll spread yo' wings an' you'll take the sky".

Answer: The Sound of Silence

Produced by Tom Wilson, written and released in 1964 by Paul Simon (born 1941), "The Sound of Silence" took months to write, and Simon and his friend Art Garfunkel (born 1941) were living in separate countries when a re-release in 1965 was a breakthrough hit for the pair, "Simon and Garfunkel". It topped the charts as far as Japan and South Africa, in over a dozen nations, and remains one of Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", preserved in the US Library of Congress. Its theme of alienation has more recently been interpreted far from the original folk-rock ballad, including punk rock, heavy metal band "Disturbed" taking an eerie and rageful rendition to #42 on the Hot 100 in 2015, and rapper Eminem tinkering on guitar with it in 2020. Many interpret the "neon god they made" as a warning about the social effects of TV, computers and cell phones. In its 50th year Simon told Smithsonian magazine this was one of the best songs he'd ever written.

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain.."