There's Nothing Like Songs for the Holidays Quiz

Answer: No

Burns himself said of the song that he "took it down from an old man". A 1711 song called "Old Long Syne" is very similar in wording. The melody may or may not have been original; it is similar to several other songs, but that might have more to do with them all being tunes for the same type of dance, rather than any "borrowing".

Answer: A top

All of these are symbols of the Jewish festival of light, but a dreidel is a top (not often made of clay, these days).

The way the story goes, at a time in the past when Jews were banned from reading Torah, they would pretend instead to be just playing with their little tops when the authorities came by.

Answer: Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie (1912 - 1967) put a sign on his guitar saying "This machine kills Fascists" during World War II.

Guthrie wrote the song in Oklahoma City in 1940, to commemorate the role women played in the struggles of the labour movement. The lyrics were set to the old tune "Red Wing", which is itself a reworking of Schumann's "The Happy Farmer".

Answer: The Monster Mash

"The Monster Mash" from Bobby "Boris" Pickett has been a Hallowe'en staple since it first came out in 1962. When dancing to this song, it is obligatory to move the arms and upper body like Frankenstein.

Answer: 1967

Canada confederated in 1867, so the Centennial was a hundred years later. The original recording was two children's choirs, but there were plenty of non-choir kids belting it out, too - I was ten years old at the time, and every kid in my school had the song memorized, both the French and the English lyrics.

"Allons! Vive le Canada!
Three cheers Hip, Hip, Hooray!
Le centenaire,
That's the order of the day
Frère Jacques Frère Jacques
Merrily We Roll Along
Together all the way"

Canada celebrated its 150th birthday on July 1 2017, while the USA had its bicentennial in 1976.

Answer: Fred Astaire and Judy Garland

The song was actually written about thirty years earlier, which puts it in the right time frame for the movie, which was set in 1912.

"On the avenue, Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us,
And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure.
Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet,
And of the girl I'm taking to the Easter Parade."

People still parade around on Fifth Avenue in New York City in their fancy hats on Easter Sunday.

Answer: yet you're my favourite work of art

"My Funny Valentine", from Rogers and Hart, 1937. It was originally in the show "Babes in Arms" but since then it's been covered by everyone who covers this sort of thing - and by several who usually don't. One memorable version is when Nelson sings to Lisa on "The Simpsons".

Answer: July 14

It commemorates the storming of the Bastille Prison on that date in 1789, a significant event during the French Revolution.

"La Marseillaise" is a song from the time of the Revolution. It was written in 1792 to rally troops and rouse national feeling as France was defending herself from invasion from other European nations, who were concerned about the revolutionary mood sweeping into their own countries. It had a bit of a checkered history over the next hundred years, depending on who was in power in France, but was established for good as the national anthem in 1879.

The incorrect options are the national days of the USA, the UK, and Italy.

Answer: Yes

"Over the river and through the woods,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh,
Thru the white and drifted snow, oh!

Over the river and thru the woods,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.

Over the river and thru the wood,
To have a first-rate play;
Oh, hear the bell ring, "Ting-a-ling-ling!"
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day-ay!"

And there's another mention of Thanksgiving further on, along with pumpkin pie! Note the "grandfather's house" - most people now sing it as "grandmother's house".

This song has its origins as an 1844 poem, "The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day", from Lydia Maria Child, who's pretty much unknown now, but who seems, from her wikipedia page, to have been quite the firecracker in her time! She was an abolitionist and freethinker who fought for women's and Native American rights.

Answer: The Yankee Doodle Boy

"I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,
A Yankee Doodle, do or die;
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam,
Born on the Fourth of July."

From George M. Cohan's 1907 "The Yankee Doodle Boy". It was originally from the show "Little Johnny Jones". Cohan's biopic, in 1942, was entitled "Yankee Doodle Dandy".

The fourth of July is the national day of the USA.