OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
You're listening to ASK ME ANOTHER from NPR and WNYC. I'm Ophira Eisenberg and with me is our house musician Jonathan Coulton and our puzzle guru John Chaneski. Our next game is called Musical Re-enactments, and here to play it are Leah Yudin and Cliff Fuller.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: I would like to know if either of you have gotten into a public fight of any kind - Cliff?
CLIFF FULLER: I had a Larry David moment at 8 o'clock in the morning at a Whole Foods...
EISENBERG: Oh, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
FULLER: ...'Cause somebody cut the line when there was no line.
EISENBERG: Oh, no.
FULLER: And so I actually quickly made my purchase and saw the guy three blocks away and chased him down Broadway...
(LAUGHTER)
FULLER: ...Just so I could tell him what he did wrong.
(LAUGHTER)
FULLER: And then it escalated.
(LAUGHTER)
FULLER: No punches were thrown. I just needed him to admit that he did what he did.
EISENBERG: And did he?
FULLER: Yes.
EISENBERG: Good.
FULLER: I won.
EISENBERG: Good.
(APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Leah, how about you?
LEAH YUDIN: Nothing like that, but...
(LAUGHTER)
YUDIN: No, I've been yelled at on the subway a fair amount of times.
EISENBERG: By random people.
YUDIN: Just by random people.
EISENBERG: Oh, so you were an innocent victim.
YUDIN: I mean, usually.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Yeah, what happened?
YUDIN: Once I didn't move my leg out of the way fast enough.
EISENBERG: Well, I'm with the other person on that one.
YUDIN: Yeah, really yelled at me.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Jonathan?
JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: Yeah?
EISENBERG: Pat Benatar said it when she said love is a battlefield. I mean...
COULTON: Oh, she said it all sister.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
COULTON: It's true. In this game, we've rewritten the lyrics to "Love Is A Battlefield" to describe historic battles and battlefields. You have to tell us which ones we're talking about, and for full credit, I would like you to sing it like this - (singing) Valley Forge is a battlefield.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Although substitute the correct answer instead of Valley Forge. Are you ready?
FULLER: Sure.
YUDIN: Sure.
COULTON: Here we go. (Singing) Napoleon, get off the field 'cause you're done. This war has been 23 years long. Let's make it an ABBA song.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Leah.
YUDIN: (Singing) Waterloo is a battlefield.
COULTON: That's correct.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Did you know it the whole way through or was it the ABBA line?
YUDIN: The ABBA line helped.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
COULTON: That's the clincher right there.
EISENBERG: It's the song that ended the war, right?
COULTON: I think - I'm pretty sure, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Yeah, they were, like, this song is so beautiful, let's stop fighting. (Singing) Pickett's Charge, high watermark for the grave. Our battle has lasted three days. I hope Lincoln makes a speech.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Leah.
YUDIN: (Singing) Gettysburg is a battlefield.
COULTON: Yes.
(APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER)
COULTON: I'm sure Abraham Lincoln would be very proud.
EISENBERG: He would love it.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: OK, back to this dumb song. (Singing) Come on, Cornwallis, man. Just wave the white flag because you know that you're through. The French are on our side. We don't mean to brag, but George Washington's better than you.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Yeah, could be anything.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
COULTON: Any hints from our puzzle guru John Chaneski?
JOHN CHANESKI: Well, this is a place in Virginia, and the first syllable of it is very similar to the town that we're in now - New...
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
CHANESKI: Yeah?
YUDIN: Yorktown?
FULLER: Yorktown?
(LAUGHTER)
FULLER: I forgot I was two, sorry.
EISENBERG: That's OK.
CHANESKI: I heard one bell. That was Leah, correct?
EISENBERG: Yeah.
FULLER: Yeah, it was.
CHANESKI: Leah.
YUDIN: Yorktown?
CHANESKI: Yorktown's correct.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: I will say, though, it was perfectly in unison.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Yeah. It was quite beautiful actually.
FULLER: We are singing a song so...
EISENBERG: It was beautiful. It was beautiful.
COULTON: (Singing) Find me a flag. Take a photo of us raising one for a statue some day in Arlington. Clint Eastwood will make a film.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Leah.
YUDIN: (Singing) Iwo Jima is a battlefield.
COULTON: Yeah, there you go.
(APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: That one just rolls off the tongue.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Yeah, really. Pat Benatar made a big mistake when she didn't actually write this song about battlefields.
EISENBERG: I know.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: Wasted time with a metaphor - should've been more clear and direct. (Singing) Please don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes. We're saving Boston, you guys. But the British will win this one.
Dead silence.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Leah.
YUDIN: Lexington and Concord?
COULTON: That's the right war.
(LAUGHTER, SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Cliff.
FULLER: (Singing) Bunker Hill is a battlefield.
COULTON: Yeah, you got it.
(APPLAUSE)
FULLER: Moral victory.
COULTON: Jon Chaneski, how did our contestants do?
CHANESKI: It was a hard-fought battle, but Leah we will see at the Ask Me One More final round at the end of the show.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Do you think you can lead a charge against puzzles, trivia and wordplay? Then go to amatickets.org to take our contestant quiz and we'll see whether you can conquer our crafty clues.
(APPLAUSE)
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