Songs that are responses to other songs

I'm not talking about hiphop songs where DJ Booty says he bad and DJ Phat say Booty no bad, I bad. I'm talking about songs like Carole King's Brother Brother which was supposedly a response to Marvin's What's Goin' On? Any similar type situations?

 

"Oh, Neil!" by Carole King. An answer song to "Oh, Carol!" by Neil Sedaka.

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That diss track DJ Phat dropped on DJ Booty was fiyaaaaa

Obvious one is "Let Me Roll It" responding to "How Do You Sleep"

 

Another obvious one: "Southern Man" and "Sweet Home Alabama"

 

Lenny Kravitz’ “Rock and Roll is Dead”

Response by Prince: “Rock and Roll is Alive! (And it Lives in Minneapolis)”

 

Queen Of The House by Jody Miller was a response to Roger Miller's King Of The Road

 

Skeeter Davis did a whole album of them, entitled Here's The Answer.

Skeeter:

He'll Have To Stay
My Last Date (With You)
Tell Tommy I Miss Him
(I Can't Help You) I'm Falling Too
I Really Want You To Know
I Want To See You Too (Just One Last Time)

The Originals:

He'll Have To Go (Jim Reeves)
Last Date (Floyd Kramer)
Tell Laura I Love Her (Ray Peterson)
Please Help Me, I'm Falling (Hank Locklin)
I Really Don't Want To Know (Eddy Arnold)
Just One More Time (Don Gibson)

 

Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" in response to McCartney's "Too Many People".

 

Is My Girl a response to My Guy? They're both written by Smokey, but they sound like they could be that sort of a pair. Both from 1964.

 

I once saw "Sweet Home Alabama" on a list of the all-time greatest answer songs. It may be "great" in terms of its undeniable commercial success, but it's not much of an "answer." Young's song was a cutting social commentary; Skynyrd's response was to thumb its nose at Young, without any substantive response to his lyrics, and throw in "we love the governor." I won't get into the political details - I know that's taboo on SHMF - but Google "George Wallace" sometime.

Catchy song, though.

 

Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" followed up by "The Dawn of Correction" by The Spokesmen

 

After the Posies broke up, Ken Stringfellow put out a solo album called "This Sounds Like Goodbye." Later, Jon Auer recorded a song called "You Used To Drive Me Around," with the lyric "and if this sounds like goodbye / then you hear the same as me."

 

Chris Murphy wrote a Sloan song called "Ready for You." Jay Ferguson responded with a Sloan song called "I Thought That I Was Ready for You."

 

Shel Silverstein wrote "A Boy Named Sue" and its answer/sequel, "The Father of a Boy Named Sue."

 

Kitty Wells "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" in response to Hank Thompson's "Wild Side of Life"

 

Wasn't Jackson Browne's For Everyman a response to Crosby, Stills & Nash's Wooden Ships?

 

My Girl-My Baby[Temptations]...Come Round Here-Baby,Baby Don't Cry[The Miracles]...I'll Always Love You-Truly Yours[The Spinners].

 

Etta James "The Wallflower (Roll With Me Henry)" in response to "W0rk With Me Annie" by Hank Ballard.

 

“Roxanne, Roxanne” by old school hip hop combo UTFO spawned a bunch of answer records back in 1984, starting with “Roxanne’s Revenge” by Roxanne Shanté, which was quickly followed by a self-titled song by a gal calling herself The Real Roxanne. All three were hits, which led to dozens of follow ups from all sorts of chancers.

 

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?
Camera Obscura Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken

Does that qualify?

 

I was just going to mention that one!
What a great pair of songs. It took me a while to get the Camera Obscura out of my CD player, where it remained stuck for I don't know how long.

 

The "Daddy's Home" saga...

Wikipedia:

 

Wasn't 'Dear Friend' from Wings Wild Life the response?

 

Johnny Thunders' "London Boys" in response to the Sex Pistols' "New York."

 

While not entirely a match on 1 song, John Lennon wrote How do you sleep as a response to what he felt were digs at him made by Paul on Ram (some were direct digs by Macca some maybe were stretches).

I’ve read the following were deemed attacks made by Paul to John (from what I recall):

1. Too many people going underground/preaching practices (seems legit attack, fantastic song too)

2. I believe I saw a Macca interview where he said the opening lines to Too Many People were Piss Off and that was directed to John (not sure if that was an after the fact Macca stretch as I don’t know what Piss off Cake means...

3. 3 legs - my dog it has 3 legs, your dog he got none....John’s the one with none....the other 3 Paul thought were on his side (not 4 long).

4. Well I thought you was my friend...John dig

5. ‘We believe that we can’t be wrong’ coda to the backseat of my car. Apparently Lennon was pissed at this particularly but it sounds like a stretch...

6. Dear Boy...John met Linda first, she was chasing him. He thought this was in reference to that but Paul said it was to Limda’s First husband....that makes more sense.

7. The 2 beetles F-ing in the picture/inserts obviously was an F-U Beatles...


Johns classic response on How do you sleep kind of showed Paul that for all his amazing melodic gifts, Lennon was the wordsmith. The only thing you’ve done was yesterday and since you’ve gone you’re just another day...that’s classic...