To End or Not to End Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lamb Chop's Play-Along

'Lamb Chop's Play-Along' ran in the US from 1992 to 1997 on PBS, and on other networks around the world at roughly the same time. Lamb Chop was a puppet (a lamb, of course), who ended each episode singing 'The Song That Doesn't End' (a variant on the original title) along with the children in the studio, as Shari tried to bring them to a stop for the end of the show. It is a circular song, as the last line is then immediately followed by the first, and it goes on and on, my friend.

"This is the song that doesn't end.
Yes, it goes on and on my friend.
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever just because . . ."

The first line is sometimes sung with these lyrics, sometimes with the original "song that never ends", and sometimes with "song that has no end". Children of a certain age found it irresistible, and continue to do so. For some reason, it seems to alleviate the boredom of a long car journey at least as well as 'A Hundred Bottles of Beer', with roughly the same impact on the adults in the car.

Answer: Dead End Street

'Dead End Street' was originally released as a single, and not on an album, but since 1998 it has been included as a bonus track on the CD version of the album 'Face to Face'. Because the song is about the difficulties faced by members of the British lower classes, the video was filmed on a street of Georgian houses, with the members of the band dressed as undertakers, collecting a corpse from one of the buildings, all with a suitably somber and Dickensian feeling. The twist near the end involved the 'corpse' leaping out of the coffin and running away, only to disappear into a brick wall.

As the song states several times,

"Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
(dead end!)
People live on dead end street.
(dead end!)
People are dying on dead end street.
(dead end!)
Gonna die on dead end street."

Answer: The Smashing Pumpkins

While the other three artists contributed to the 'Batman & Robin' soundtrack, it was the Smashing Pumpkins who played 'The End is the Beginning is the End' over the closing credits. The soundtrack album opened with this song, and ended with 'The Beginning is the End is the Beginning', a variant that uses the same chorus with different verses, and has a softer sound.

The single release included both of these, as well as an instrumental version based on the electronic instruments ('The Guns of Love Disastrous') and one using the guitar parts ('The Ethers Tragic'). Billy Corgan, the band's lead singer who wrote the song, has stated that he intended to draw on the persona of Batman that was seen in the early days of the original comic, when social commentary featured more strongly than was the case after World War II, when it became increasingly oriented towards fantasy.

Answer: James Carr

James Carr's 1967 version of 'The Dark End of the Street' was a hit on Billboard's Black Singles Chart, reaching Number 10, as well as making it to Number 77 on the Pop Chart. The song is addressed to the singer's illicit lover, and declares the singer's intention to continue with the affair, despite the fear of being discovered, because the attraction is too strong to resist.

It has come to be considered a classic example of the music produced in the Muscle Shoals Studio. Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton released a duet of the song in 1968, Aretha Franklin included it on her 1970 album 'This Girl's in Love With You', while the Commitments performed it in their eponymous 1991 movie.

Answer: Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, wrote this song which was originally about the end of a relationship, but which evolved over time to incorporate much of the angst of life. As he stated in an interview published in a 1981 edition of the magazine 'Creem', "People fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah - I guess it is a friend." The song has come to be considered by some as a portent of Morrison's early death, at the age of 27, in Paris.

'The End' was included on the 1967 album 'The Doors', in a version that ran over eleven minutes. Oliver Stone used an abridged version, running for less than seven minutes, in 'Apocalypse Now'.

Answer: Skeeter Davis

The nickname 'Skeeter' was given to her by her grandfather, because, as a young girl, she had so much energy that she reminded him of a mosquito. The surname came from the duet she formed with a high school friend named Betty Jack Davis. They called themselves the Davis Sisters, and had a number of moderate hits during the 1950s.

After Betty Jack was killed in a car accident in 1953, her sister Georgia took her place, until Skeeter decided to retire and have a family in 1956. Retirement didn't last long, and she was back in action as a soloist in 1958.

In 1963 she had her biggest success with 'The End of the World', a song written by Arthur Kent and Sylvia Dee. The song is a lament over the end of a relationship, but Sylvia Dee has said that she was using the sorrow she felt at her father's death as the basis for the depth of emotion she was trying to convey.

Answer: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

'Murder Ballads' featured songs about or inspired by murder and death. The album included a number of guest appearances, including one by Kylie Minogue on 'Where the Wild Roses Grow', which was a hit single in Australia. 'Death is Not the End', the final song on the album, features the members of the band and a range of guest singers (including Anita Lane, Kylie again, PJ Harvey, and Shane McGowan) each singing a verse.

It offers a note of positivity at the end of the previous tales of death - the album's body count is over 50!

Answer: Hybrid Theory

If you recognized the minotaur, a hybrid between a bull and a human, you might have found it easier to recall which of these four albums came first. Hybrid Theory was actually one of the band's previous names, along with Xero, as various members joined and left during the arduous process of establishing themselves and gain a recording contract. 'In the End' was released in 2001 as the fourth single from the album 'Hybrid Theory', achieving both critical and commercial success, reaching Number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and achieving similar success internationally.

Answer: Bookends

The first side of 'Bookends' is a concept production. After the opening 'Bookends Theme', songs track changes through life, starting with 'Save the Life of My Child', and finishing with the reflective 'Bookends'. The second side of the album uses songs originally written for the soundtrack of the movie 'The Graduate', most of which did not end up being used in the movie. They include 'Mrs Robinson', as well as the incorrect options used for this question. 'Punky's Dilemma' includes some of my favorite lighthearted lyrics from Paul Simon:

"Wish I was a Kellogg's Cornflake
Floatin' in my bowl takin' movies,
Relaxin' awhile, livin' in style,
Talkin' to a raisin who occasionally plays L.A.,
Casually glancing at his toupee.

Wish I was an English muffin
'Bout to make the most out of a toaster.
I'd ease myself down,
Comin' up brown.

I prefer boysenberry
More than any ordinary jam.
I'm a 'Citizens for Boysenberry Jam' fan."

Answer: The Beatles

This short couplet was written by Paul McCartney to be the conclusion of the medley. He hoped to provide a bit of a meaningful statement for listeners to take away. "And in the end, the love you take / Is equal to the love you make." Although it is the end of the medley, there is actually one more brief track, 'Her Majesty', which had originally been part of the medley, but was cut and added to the end of the album. It takes McCartney 23 seconds to sing:

"Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn't have a lot to say.
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day.

I want to tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a belly full of wine.
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
Someday I'm going to make her mine, oh yeah,
Someday I'm going to make her mine."