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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Elvis - Presliad (Comprising sections Fanfare through The Rockabilly Moment).

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who wrote "We needed . . . to be violently stirred into life . . . intolerable social constraints grew daily upon us"?
(a) Sly Stone.
(b) Frank Kermode.
(c) Leslie Fiedler.
(d) Greil Marcus.

2. What does Marcus name the storyteller from The Band's lyrics?
(a) Big Pink.
(b) Bob.
(c) The knight.
(d) The worried man.

3. What single did Sly release that was the "most optimistic of all"?
(a) "Stand!"
(b) "Riot."
(c) "Dance to the Music."
(d) "Everybody is a Star."

4. What does Marcus think the performers discussed in the Prologue have in common?
(a) They see themselves as symbolic Americans.
(b) Everyone toured together.
(c) Each based his songs on personal experience.
(d) They all were ex-patriots.

5. What is the subject of Robert Johnson's song "Stones in My Passway"?
(a) The end of the world as we know it.
(b) A man seeking salvation.
(c) A woman the speaker misses.
(d) A man who wants power over other souls.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the Prologue, why are Harmonica Frank and Robert Johnson included in Mystery Train?

2. In the Prologue, Marcus says that the music he will discuss dramatizes what?

3. What literary figure does Marcus allude to in "Sly Stone" when identifying how Sly speaks in the music?

4. What Randy Newman song does Marcus claim suggests that the we are being laughed at and life is a joke?

5. According to Marcus in "Robert Johnson -1938," what is the only way to quiet Johnson's song "Stones in My Passway"?

(see the answer key)

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