Sweet Treats from The Beatles Trivia Quiz

Answer: Coconut fudge

The complete lyric is:

"Cool cherry cream and a nice apple tart
I feel your taste all the time we're apart
Coconut fudge--really blows down those blues
But you'll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle."

Harrison wrote the song as a tribute to his friend Eric Clapton's chocolate addiction, and indeed he derived the title and many of the lyrics from a box of Mackintosh Good News chocolates.

Answer: Rocking horse people

The complete lyric is:

"Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies,
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That grow so incredibly high."

Answer: Honey Don't

"Honey Don't" is a song written by Carl Perkins, originally released on January 1, 1956 as the B-side of the "Blue Suede Shoes" single.

The Beatles recorded their version on October 26, 1964 one of the last songs recorded for "Beatles for Sale" which was released in the UK on December 4, 1964. Although John Lennon had previously sung the song live, Ringo Starr sang it for the album, his requisite one lead vocal per album.

Answer: Till There Was You

The complete lyric is:

"Then there was music and wonderful roses
they tell me in sweet fragrant meadows
of dawn and dew"

"Till There Was You" is a song written by Meredith Willson for his 1957 musical play "The Music Man", and which also appeared in the 1962 movie version. Interestingly, The Beatles had previously performed "Till There Was You" as part of their failed audition for Decca Records in London on January 1, 1962.

(I'd call this "sweet justice" as well!)

Answer: Sugar Plum Fairy

The full sequence from "Anthology" goes like this:

(take 1):
"Not the micro of the piano's quite low, is it
Just keep like the maracas.
You know all those pianos.
OK, you're on.

[Sugar plum fairy, sugar plum fairy.]...I read the news today, oh boy..."

The orchestra was added later, and the ending was changed. You can feel the raw power of this song without the orchestra, and also feel its unfinished, avant-garde attitude.

Sugarplum Fairy are a pop-rock band from Borlänge, Sweden. The members took the name from a version of the Beatles' song "A Day in the Life" where John Lennon counts the song in by saying "sugar-plum-fairy, sugar-plum-fairy".

Answer: Honey

The complete lyric that starts the song (and can be heard in the reprise) is:

"Well they took some honey from a tree
Dressed it up and they called it me

Everybody's trying to be my baby
Everybody's trying to be my baby
Everybody's trying to be my baby, now"

An interesting sidenote: the song is currently owned by the Perkins family and administered by former Beatle Paul McCartney's company, MPL Communications which still credits the song to Perkins.

Answer: Penny Lane

The complete lyric reads:

"Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she's in a play
She is anyway"

The lyrics apparently have a more nefarious meaning than the happy song belies. The mysterious lyrics "Four of fish and finger pies" are British slang. "A four of fish" refers to fourpennyworth of fish and chips, while "finger pie" is sexual slang of the time, apparently referring to intimate fondlings between teenagers in the shelter, which was a familiar meeting place. The combination of "fish and finger" also puns on fish fingers.

Answer: Chocolate cake

The complete lyric reads:

"Made a lightning trip to Vienna
Eating chocolate cake in a bag
The newspapers said
she's gone to his head
They look just like two gurus in drag"

Answer: Wild Honey Pie

Here are the full lyrics, short but sweet:

"Honey Pie,
Honey Pie, I love you
Honey Pie"

Of the song McCartney once said "We were in an experimental mode, and so I said, 'Can I just make something up? The song might have been excluded from "The Beatles" album, but Pattie Boyd "liked it very much so we decided to leave it on the album."

Answer: Jam

The complete lyric reads:

"He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola
He say "I know you, you know me"
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me"

An interesting historical footnote records that "Come Together" was the subject of a lawsuit brought against Lennon by Chuck Berry's music publisher, Morris Levy, because one line in "Come Together" closely resembles a line of Berry's "You Can't Catch Me". It was NOT "toe-jam football".

Answer: Wine

The full lyric that begins the song is:

"A taste of honey...tasting much sweeter than wine

I dream of your first kiss, and then
I feel upon my lips again
A taste of honey...tasting much sweeter than wine"

"A Taste of Honey" was a favourite of Paul McCartney's which was part of the Beatles repertoire from 1962, and included on their 1963 debut album "Please Please Me".

Answer: Lend Me Your Comb

There are six Beatles performances of 'unreleased' numbers that George Martin deemed too poor for the BBC album: "Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)", "Besame Mucho", "A Picture of You", "Beautiful Dreamer" and Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking About You".

Carl Perkins's "Lend Me Your Comb", from the 16 July 1963 broadcast, was also omitted; it did appear on "Anthology 1" (1995).

Answer: Old Brown Shoe

Harrison once commented about this song: "I started the chord sequences on the piano, which I don't really play, and then began writing ideas for the words from various opposites... Again, it's the duality of things - yes no, up down, left right, right wrong, etc." This idea was also prevalent in their earlier single, "Hello Goodbye".

Beatles fans might recall that Gary Brooker performed the song at the "Concert for George".

Answer: Yellow matter custard

The complete lyric reads:

"Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye
Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess,
Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen
I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob "

Lennon's friend and former fellow member of The Quarrymen, Peter Shotton, was visiting, and Lennon asked Shotton about a playground nursery rhyme they sang as children.

Shotton remembered:

"Yellow matter custard, green slop pie,
All mixed together with a dead dog's eye,
Slap it on a butty, ten foot thick,
Then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick"

Answer: Pineapple torte

Harrison explained the song this way: "'Savoy Truffle' on 'The White Album' was written for Eric. He's got this real sweet tooth and he'd just had his mouth worked on. His dentist said he was through with candy. So as a tribute I wrote, 'You'll have to have them all pulled out after the Savoy Truffle'. The truffle was some kind of sweet, just like all the rest - cream tangerine, ginger sling - just candy, to tease Eric."

Enough said...I'm hungry now!