OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Our next game is called Take Me to This River, and here to play it are Jon Schwartz and Kevin Donahoe.
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EISENBERG: Jon, you have a very interesting job - writer for the New York Yankees.
JON SCHWARTZ: Yes.
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SCHWARTZ: Yes.
EISENBERG: What was the subject of your most recent piece?
SCHWARTZ: Ivan Nova, the pitcher...
EISENBERG: OK, yeah.
SCHWARTZ: ...coming back from surgery so...
EISENBERG: Sure.
SCHWARTZ: Yeah.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
SCHWARTZ: Yeah, absolutely.
EISENBERG: So it was about potential and hope and excitement?
SCHWARTZ: He made it back.
EISENBERG: He made it back.
SCHWARTZ: Yeah.
EISENBERG: All right, that's a good story.
SCHWARTZ: I hope so.
EISENBERG: OK, very good. Kevin is a protection engineer. I don't even know what that is.
KEVIN DONAHOE: Very exciting, yes.
EISENBERG: What is it?
DONAHOE: I design protection and control systems for electric substations. Yay.
EISENBERG: Yay.
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DONAHOE: Very glamorous.
EISENBERG: That's - but I like that you're also a gambler.
DONAHOE: (Laughter) I have played the games.
EISENBERG: OK, what's your - what is your game of choice?
DONAHOE: I, no - it's slot machines. I'm not big time - you won't see me on a big riverboat with the little hat on or anything.
EISENBERG: OK.
DONAHOE: No, it's just - I like to push the button, watch the lights, you know.
EISENBERG: All right, so this is a music game. And so I'm going to hand it over to our house musician, Jonathan Coulton.
JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: So we all know Al Green's classic song, "Take Me To The River," which has, of course, been covered multiple times, most famously by Talking Heads and, of course, Big Mouth Billy Bass.
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COULTON: So it is our turn to cover this song. I'm going to sing you a verse about a famous river somewhere on this planet, and you have to tell me which river it is. The winner will move on to our final round at the end of the show. You ready?
DONAHOE: Oh, yeah.
COULTON: Here we go. (Singing) Don't know why I love her like I do. To see this river, I'd wait in a queue. Starts in the Cotswolds, ends in the North Sea, gives all of London water for tea.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Kevin.
DONAHOE: That must be the Thames.
COULTON: It must be the Thames, you're correct.
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COULTON: I don't think they really make tea out of it. (Singing) From Himalayas to Bay of Bengal, bath tub for millions, redemption for all. There's more pollution than you've ever seen, but it's so holy it washes you clean.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Kevin.
DONAHOE: Ganges?
COULTON: Ganges is correct.
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EISENBERG: The name sounds like the disease you would get from being in it.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: I got Ganges.
EISENBERG: A case of the Ganges.
COULTON: I got Ganges. (Singing) 4,000 miles, one country, the Three Gorges Dam. The source is in the mountains. Starts its flow in Shanghai then Sichuan and Hunan, heading out to Shanghai.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Kevin?
DONAHOE: Yellow River?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Oh.
EISENBERG: Wow.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: I think you physically injured someone here in the room by saying the incorrect answer. No.
EISENBERG: I don't think we...
DONAHOE: Embarrassed myself.
EISENBERG: No.
COULTON: It was a good guess. It's not the Yellow River. Jon, do you know the answer?
SCHWARTZ: Yangtze?
COULTON: Yangtze is correct.
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EISENBERG: No, Kevin, we just didn't anticipate anyone would know another river...
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EISENBERG: ...That would possibly...
COULTON: Who was it out there who went, oh?
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Yeah, you knew it. You knew it.
EISENBERG: It hurt.
COULTON: You were like, don't say Yellow River, don't say Yellow River.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: (Laughter) I knew it could come up.
COULTON: All right this is - here's a not funny joke. This part of the song is the bridge.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: I just thought of that joke right now.
EISENBERG: It's pretty good.
COULTON: And I decided to say it out loud.
EISENBERG: Yeah, no, it was good.
COULTON: You know what? I'm glad I did.
EISENBERG: I'm glad you did too.
COULTON: (Singing) Sloths and piranhas, frogs, anacondas and the plants - and the plants. Started in the Andes, it's H2O in motion - like all rivers. (Singing) Flowing through Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Jon?
SCHWARTZ: The Amazon?
COULTON: The Amazon, you got it.
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EISENBERG: It's the river that puts all those bookstores out of business.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: We're almost out of rivers, everybody.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) Yeah, there's only one left.
COULTON: There are only four or five rivers in the world. You've been crossing them off your list. You know exactly what's coming next. This is your last clue. (Singing) Don't know why they call it the old man. Where the golden age of steamboats began. From Minnesota to the Gulf Coast Basin - makes we want to reread "Huck Finn."
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Jon.
SCHWARTZ: The Mississippi?
COULTON: That's correct.
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COULTON: Well, Art Chung, how did our contestants do?
ART CHUNG, BYLINE: Jon is our winner and he's moving on to the final round. Congratulations.
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EISENBERG: We did it. We cleverly disguised a river game as fun.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Just barely, just barely.
EISENBERG: Coming up, we'll cook the books, and guess what? They taste better than kale. And we'll sentence our VIP, "Orange Is The New Black's" Uzo Aduba, to the puzzle hot seat, so don't go anywhere. I'm Ophira Eisenberg and this is ASK ME ANOTHER from NPR.
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