Frank Sinatra - Goodnight Irene
Ziggy Talent - Please Say Goodnight To The Guy Irene
Paul McCartney’s “Let Me Roll It” was, reportedly, in answer to Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep”.
“My Girl” answered “My Guy” (or vice-versa).
And my favorite: Miss Chuckleberry’s “My Pussycat” answered Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling”
mmm
ETA: There was supposedly, though I’ve never heard it, a response to Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady” called “Will the Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up?”
Cathy’s New Clown, by John Wesley Harding, must be an answer to Cathy’s Clown by the Everly Brothers. Some great lyrics:
I’m like a talking head with the sound turned down
Or Pavlov’s dog when he wasn’t around
While I’m not absolutely sure of it, it would seem that the writers of Be My Yoko Ono (Barenaked Ladies), and I Won’t Be Your Yoko Ono (Dar Williams) were likely aware of Be My Yoko by The Bobs. (Those are the performers in parentheses; I don’t know the specific writing credits for each one.)
There are also the Doug songs. They’re all written by Andrew Ratchin, but were performed with two different groups and solo. There are more than a dozen, including Doug Gets Married and Delilah Gets Married (two viewpoints on the same wedding) and Doug at Home, which is about spontaneous combustion) is followed in the cycle by Epilogue (Doug at the Gates of Hell) and Doug’s Resurrection Parts 1 and 2. There is also Dog at the Gates of Hell, from the point of view of Doug’s pet.
Ratchin also wrote I Awoke in Iowa, which prompted Iowa Apology Song, which further prompted I Owe You an Apology, in which he apologizes for pretty much everything he’s ever written.
Wow, No Vaseline is an angry angry song. I mean I know Ice Cube is The Wrong Nigga To Fuck With but damn! He manages to insult Jews, gays, whites and each individual member of N.W.A. and the song’s only, really, about four minutes long.
I guess this leads to another discussion question: is a diss track a subspecies of the answer song or is it a completely different animal?
And still no comments on whether I Ain’t Marching Anymore is an answer to Universal Soldier.
John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep?” was a reply to (mostly imagined) criticisms of him in songs on Paul McCartney’s Ram L.P.
The digs at John, and possibly the other Beatles, on Ram, when real at all, are mild and very oblique. An outsider would not have recognized them at all. By contrast, “How Do you Sleep?” is obvious and vicious. It is a much better song than anything on Ram, however.
:smack: How could I forget, **The Ramones **with Sheena is a Punk Rocker and The Cramps with Sheena’s in a Goth Gang!
An early example of an answer song was Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Feel So Bad, which was an answer to Bill Broonzy’s I Feel So Good. Hopkins’ recording of his song was in 1946, and Broonzy’s was in 1941.
Would Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue and Peggy Sue Got Married count? Maybe it is more of a sequel than an answer. Although less seminal, the latter is actually the better song IMHO.
If we are including rap, Tupcac’s “Hit 'Em Up” track inspired multiple answers from East coast rappers. Among them, “Brooklyn’s Finest” from Biggie and Jay-Z and “Drop a Gem on 'Em” by Mobb Deep. Probably a few others, too.
“Dawn of Correction” by The Spokesmen was the answer record to “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire
“Glass Onion” by the Beatles follows up many of their previous songs, including “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Fool on the Hill”, and “I Am the Walrus”
Sting claims to have written his solo hit “If You Love Somebody, Set them Free” to counteract the possessive lyrics in “Every Breath You Take”
There was that horrible 80s song “Boom Boom Boom Let’s Go Up to My Room”, and the equally horrible girl-band rejoinder “Bam Bam Bam, I Came Here to Jam”.
“Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson was answered by “Superstar” by Lydia Murdock.
(As someone who couldn’t name any Whitney Houston song and hadn’t heard of Natalie Portman, I was pleased to find an answer here others missed! Unfortunately, I’m afraid the explanation is that I was enjoying disco in Thailand when it was long-dead in U.S.A. :smack: )
ETA: To get an idea how out-of-touch I was, at the time I thought “Billie Jean” was the answer to “Superstar”
Another Neil Young song, Alabama, also served as motivation for Sweet Home Alabama.
At the risk of mentioning DBT twice in a day or so, Ronnie and Neil, while maybe not strictly an “Answer Song”, might interest the OP to the extent it recounts the Alabama/Southern Man/Sweet Home Alabama story.
I have it in my head that Jessie’s Girl was an answer song, but I cannot remember for which song… it could also be that I’ve reached my dotage.
Liz Phair put out a whole album, Exile in Guyville, that’s supposed to be a response to the Stones’ Exile on Main Street.
“Judy’s Turn to Cry” is more a sequel than an answer.
And of course Warren Zevon’s Play it All Night Long is an answer to Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama…
How does “What, What, In the Butt” fit in?
A bit off topic but I really like Jethro Tull’s musical answer to a bad review (quoting said review) in the song Only Solitaire.