Tom Paxton Sings Funtrivia Trivia Quiz

Answer: Elephant

"What excitement in the jungle, what a holy hullabaloo
What a race to find a costume and to learn a step or two
You could feel the jungle shaking and I bet it's shaking yet,
While Englebert was learning how to dance the minuet..."

Tom Paxton wrote many children's songs and released several albums in the genre. Other animals he sang about were an alligator called Allen and a dog called Fred.

Answer: Butterfly

"Now I know where the wooly boogers go.
Shall I tell you the secret so you'll know?
See it floating in the sky?
It became a butterfly!
Now you know where the wooly boogers go..."

Yet another of the many songs Paxton wrote for children. He was also the author of a range of illustrated books for children. They included "Engelbert the Elephant", "The Story of Santa Claus" and "Jennifer's Rabbit".

Answer: Frozen orange juice

"You spoke in Miami to set the record straight.
Gave the folks a target acceptable to hate.
You told us there are some things one may never do in bed..."

Paxton came from the troubadour tradition that wrote songs of meaning and commitment, but sometimes only biting social comment would do. Few songwriters of his generation could make a serious point through humour or sarcasm to the same high level as Tom Paxton.
Anita Bryant was an American singer who had four top 40 hits in the 1950s. ("Paper Roses" was her top hit, reaching number five in 1959). She was a noted opponent of gay rights, particularly in Florida in 1977, at a time when she was employed by the Florida Citrus Commission to promote its products. Two years later, as a result of the controversy, the FCC allowed her contract to lapse.

Answer: New York

"Oh lordy don't you see, this old stud poker be the ruin of me
You gotta get ready to shed some blood when the name of the game is stud"

The clubs and coffee houses of Greenwich Village were, as Paxton put it: "Places to be terrible and to learn from being terrible". He used to sneak into New York on weekend leave from the Army to listen to the singers and songwriters. Within a few years he was to be one of the leading lights.
The Kettle of Fish, Cafe Wha?, The Bitter End and Gerde's Folk City were among the places that hosted the music of Paxton, Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, David Blue, Dave Van Ronk, Eric Andersen,Joan Baez, Carolyn Hester, Bob Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary - and many others.

Answer: Zip, bop and whirr

"It went zip when it moved and bop when it stopped,
And whirr when it stood still.
I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will."

Paxton wrote the song while serving in the clerk-typist pool in the US Army. It was, he said in his autobiography, the earliest of his songs that had survived. (But not his first, as some sources claim).
Peter, Paul & Mary and John Denver were among those to record the song and Paxton claimed it had been a Number one hit in France.

Answer: Most popular place in the USA to commit suicide

"And I can't help but wonder
Where I'm bound, where I'm bound.
Can't help but wonder where I'm bound."
And nor can you, I'm sure.
"I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound" was one of Paxton's famous 'travelling songs'. Others included "Ramblin' Boy" and "Bound For The Mountains And The Sea".

Opened in 1937, by 2005 it was estimated that 1,200 people had jumped to their deaths from the bridge, which was 746 feet above the water level.

Answer: Oklahoma

"Down along the Verdigris, the seasons come and go
Life is right beside you here and you can feel it flow
Down to meet the Arkansas then rolling to the sea
All the way to New Orleans from here on the Verdigris"

The Verdigris is a river that flows through southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma. It is a tributary of the Arkansas.
Although born in Chicago, Illinois, Paxton's family moved to Arizona and then Oklahoma when he was a boy and he came to regard it as his 'home' state.

Answer: 18th

"I'm the man that built the bridges.
I'm the man that laid the track.
I'm the man that built this country.
With my shoulders and my back.
I'm the man that built the power dams,
And oiled all the cars,
And I laid down the cornerstone
For this great land of ours."
Paxton was from a line of troubadours for whom the lives of the "ordinary" workers of America were crucial. Other songs in a similar vein included "Who Will Feed The People?", "The High Sheriff of Hazard" and "A Job of Work".

American settlers fought for, and won, independence from the British Crown between 1775 and 1783.

Answer: Rubik's Cube

The lyrics went on to record the shop assistant saying:
"That's easy he said as he handled my cash and he dropped the cube into a sack
Some of the colours you twist right or left, some you twist forward some back
Before very long if you're clever at this you've got all the colours the same
And then if you like you over again for it's fun and it's only a game..."

Like many people in real life, the protagonist in the song found himself driven to distraction by the cube and he ended up a figure of pity: "And now I get visitors here in my room and they murmur poor man what a shame
For he's twisting his ears and he's twiddling his nose and he tells us it's only a game."
The first Rubik's cubes (named after their inventor Ernő Rubik) became available in 1974. Over the next 35 years, 350 million were sold worldwide.

Answer: Jesus Christ Superstar

"Jesus, you're S.R.O. on Broadway,
Told us you'd be back, but what do you know?
A-wop bop a loo-bop, a-wop bam boom!
Rolled the stone back from the tomb,
And out came Jesus, starring in a Broadway show!"
(S.R.O. - Standing Room Only).

The first Broadway run began in June 1971 and was based on the album of the same name. It closed in June 1974. However, hardly a year passed over several succeeding decades that did not feature a version of the show somewhere in the world. It even returned to Broadway.

Answer: Vietnam

[Chorus.]
"I was born on the fourth of July
No one more loyal than I
When my country said so, I was ready to go,
And I wish I'd been left there to die..."

Paxton wrote many songs about Vietnam, including the very sober "My Son John", and "Jimmy Newman" and the humorous "Bayonet Rap" and "Talking Vietnam Pot Luck Blues".
It was songs like those and singers like Paxton that changed the American public's perception of the war.

Ron Kovic was born in Wisconsin and joined the Marines while still at High School. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and was critically wounded on the second. Those wounds left him paralysed from the waist down. Back home again, he became a peace activist. His book was turned into a movie, with Tom Cruise playing him.

Answer: The Price of Art

Louis Zorrich played 'Forrest White' in what the film company claimed told the "haunting tale" of an actor's 60-year career and the setbacks and empty days that were "the price one pays for one's art".
It's the story of an actor who calls in with his agent each week to see if there is any work for him. The agent, though, has lost interest in the actor and no longer see his career as viable. He suggests Forrest retire, but he refuses to, saying he has never had "a real job". Charlie Spickler directed Tom Brennan also starred in a C-Squared Pictures production.
Louis Zorich was born in Chicago, Illinois in February 1924. Acting roles included "Death of a Salesman" on Broadway, "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971) and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988). He married actress Olympia Dukakis in 1962.
(Apart from the movie company's own site, I've not turned up any reference to this picture).

Answer: Phil Ochs

"I know I'm gonna spend the rest of my lifetime wondering why,
You found yourself so badly hurt you had to die..."

Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs were friends in that heady period in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s when folksingers were a dime a dozen. Both shared a commitment to the protest song movement, but Ochs, unlike Paxton (and Bob Dylan), was unable to break free from that tradition (In truth, his many fans did not want him to). With the end of the Vietnam War and with Civil Rights seemingly won, Ochs found less relevance for his songs. He suffered from Bipolar Disease and committed suicide in 1974.
Guthrie, Ives and Brel were all heroes of the young Tom Paxton.

Answer: Richard Nixon

Lyndon Johnson told the nation,
"Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn't really war,
We're sending fifty thousand more,
To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese."

In later years, Paxton rewrote the song to apply it to George W. Bush and the second Iraq War:
"I got a letter from old George W.,
It said, "Son, I hate to trouble ya,
But this war of mine is going bad.
It's time for me to roll the dice;
I know you've already been there twice,
But I am sending you back to Baghdad."

Chorus:
George W. told the nation,
"This is not an escalation;
This is just a surge toward victory.
Just to win my little war,
I'm sending 20,000 more,
To help me save Iraq from Iraqis."

Lyndon Johnson (then the vice-president) was sworn in as President after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. He won the Presidential election in his own right the following year, but did not run in 1968, when Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey.

Answer: Isaiah

"Marching 'round the White House,
Marching 'round the Pentagon,
Marching 'round the mighty missile plants,
Speaking truth to power, singing peace to Babylon,
Asking us, Why not give peace a chance?
God knows the courage you possessed,
And Isaiah said it best..."
In the King James translation, Isaiah 52:7 puts it: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace..."

Answer: Neutron Bomb

Better still for Paxton's bomb: "But perhaps its greatest feature, its happiest surprise
Is the way our perfect weapon searches out the meanest lies
It captures them completely, and before the bomb is through
Every word a politician says is absolutely true."

The theory behind the Neutron Bomb was that was that it produced less directly destructive explosive force - causing less damage - but could penetrate buildings and tanks and kill the people.

Answer: Saint Louis

"That was my favorite spring, I could do anything.
Full six feet tall and lean, I was just seventeen.
My fastball was nothin' but smoke, my curve ball snapped and broke
My change-up made 'em look bad, they couldn't hit a thing I had."

Paxton once said: "I spent the first 10 years of my life in Chicago, where no Major League Baseball is played. It was hard...it does something to you, permanently, to grow up in a city where bad baseball is played over and over."
Other sporting loves were jogging ("Twenty-five laps around the pond/Will make us tall and slim and blond/Oh hand my down my jogging shoes today") and poker )"You'd better prepare to shed some blood/When the name of the game is stud".)
Note to Chicago baseball fans: Please don't take it out on me, I'm just the messenger.

Answer: Howard Cosell

"The present rules could use revision, make the obvious decision
Put it all on television, let's bring back the chair
Slap a little make-up to 'em and as the juices filter through 'em
Howard Cosell can interview 'em, let's bring back the chair"

Howard Cosell was a broadcaster who covered a lot of sport events including (American) football, boxing and the Olympics.

Answer: Japan

"They don't let me eat much they basically feed me on numbers
I'm sorting out zip codes and counting the cars in Beloit
I'm helping young Johnny learn geometry but the devil he cares about rescuing me
Though he probably knows that I'm trapped deep inside his computer..."

Pac-Man was released in Japan in May 1980 and was licensed to be sold in the USA later that year.

Answer: Chrysler

"When my creditors come screaming for their dough,
I'll be proud to tell them all where they can go.
They won't have to scream and holler,
They'll be paid to the last dollar,
Where the endless streams of money seem to flow...."

Paxton later updated the song: "I am changing my name to Fannie Mae
I am changing it to AIG
On this bail-out I am betting
Just a piece of what they're getting
Would be perfectly acceptable to me
I am changing my name to Freddy Mac
I am leaving for that great receiving line..."
Catch this version on Paxton's youtube site.

In 1980, the US Government handed over $1.5 billion in loans to prevent Chrysler from going bust. At the helm of Chrysler at the time was the enigmatic Lee Iacocca.