Songs that are responses to other songs

Geez, you guys are so high brow !

I'm going lower on the "good taste-o-meter"

I present you "Big Bad John "



Which was followed by..

 

Short People ~ Randy Newman

Tall People ~ The Short People

...more of a parody, but an answer
nonetheless !

 

"Little Red Riding Hood" - Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs

"(Hey There) Big Bad Wolf" - The Sham-ettes

 

Indeed, a goof there on my part, but it doesn't undercut my main point.

 

Isn't Jethro Tull's To Cry You a Song supposed to be a response to Had to Cry Today by Blind Faith?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNCEIGgyIS4

 

Judy's Turn to Cry by Lesley Gore resolved the situation that had arisen in It's My Party before it ...

 

This album helps cut through the fact & fiction of Skynyrd and Neil's relationship

 

Johnnie Taylor's Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone spawned answer songs in the early '7o's (there's a long tradition of "Jody" songs about the men who stayed behind in wartime and got all the girls):




Don't Talk About Jody · Jean Knight

Don't Talk About Jody

Big John Hamilton - Finally Caught Up With Jody 1971

Big John Hamilton - Finally Caught Up With Jody 1971

Bobby Newsome "Jody, Come Back And Get Your Shoes"

Bobby Newsome "Jody, Come Back And Get Your Shoes"

 

Which then lead to Warren Zevon's "Play It All Night Long": Sweet Home Alabama, play that dead band's song...

Proving that Master Zevon's sharp tongue was not always matched by good taste.

 

Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" was answered by Lydia Murdock's "Superstar" which contained a chorus with the line "I'm Billie Jean and I'm mad as hell".

 

A rare instance where both the original and the response were Top 20 singles:

"Stand By Me" by Ben E. King
and
"I'll Be There" by Damita Jo

 

"This Land is Your Land" was a response to "God Bless America".
"I Love Rock and Roll" was a response to "It's Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)".

 

I believe it does undercut your main point. "Sweet Home Alabama" is not a celebration of racism but a protest against Neil Young's blanket portrayal of "southern man".

"In Birmingham they love the Gov'nor, boo-hoo-hoo
Now we all did what we could do"

is a statement about the difficulty of reasonable white people in dealing with southern racism.

 

Tommy Roe - Sheila
Jo-Ann Campbell - Sheila
Starts the same, but keep listening.

Claude King - Wolverton Mountain
Jo-Ann Campbell - I'm The Girl From Wolverton Mountain

 

"Peggy Sue" > "Peggy Sue Got Married"

 

That would be a lot easier to swallow if not for Skynnyrd's history of embracing the Confederate battle flag (which, to their credit, they finally disavowed a couple of years ago).

 

Some of the earliest would be calypso singers Lord Melody & Mighty Sparrow's stream of response songs to each other.

Two examples are:

Lord Melody's Cowboy Sparrow vs Mighty Sparrow's Ten To One Is Murder (About a real life incident covered in media of the time, where Sparrow was cornered by a gang and they left once they saw he had a gun. First lampooned by Melody as Sparrow going on some kind of Wild West rampage, Sparrow clarifies what actually happened in his song).

Mighty Sparrow's Madame Dracula vs Lord Melody's Belmont Jackass (About each other's respective wedding days went terribly and that both their wives are ugly.)

 

I read from Shakey that Neil Young crashed with the Mitchells in Detroit when they were the Mitchells and that was the inspiration rather than the "Sugar Mountain" song.
I don't see Neil skipping rope or playing jacks in Winnipeg, so that was probably Joni's addition.
We had to sing that song for our eight grade graduation in 1974 (no middle schools in Cambridge then) and I have never warmed to that song .

 

They are the same song. "My Girl" is for the boy bands; "My Guy" is for the girl bands.

 

John could be a real jerk.

 

I still say "Some People Never Know" is a response to "How Do You Sleep?"!

 

"I Want My Baby Back" by Jimmy Cross

Shows what happened to the car that hit "The Leader Of The Pack."

 

"Ashes To Ashes" - David Bowie's response to David Bowie's "Space Oddity".

 

Linda had a big libido. I think she was connected with a number of major stars. I don't gossip though.