I’ve always wondered why this never caught on. Has it ever been attempted?
Take a good song, use the same music, or a variation of it, then introduce new words.
I’m not an artist but since they do it with movies, I figured songs would work too.
Peter Schilling did a sort of sequal to “Space Oddity” by David Bowie, called “Major Tom”.
U2 felt they could improve on Lennon with “God Part 2”
Would a cover version qualify as a “sequel”?
I am thinking of some of the reditions of other people’s songs that Annie Lennox or George Michael have done where they really re-interpret the piece, rather than Hear’Say doing “Bridge over Troubled Water”
Gp
“Judy’s Turn to Cry” by Leslie Gore was a sequel to “It’s My Party”.
This happened a few times in the 50s-early 60s, when people wrote “response” songs to hits of the time. For instance, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” had a response song “The Tiger’s Wide Awake.”
Which sums up the career of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap in the 60s.
Harry Chapin wrote a sequel to his song “Taxi”, I just can’t think of the name.
And the true sequel to “Space Oddity” was “Ashes to Ashes”, even if only remotely connected.
A little thing called copyright usually prevents this. Most musicians don’t care to have people use their tunes without their words. Kind of like someone taking your work and ripping it to pieces to make their own.
Some will not even permit gender changes to allow a female singer to sing a ‘male’ song or vice versa.
There’s nothing to stop you writing your own tune and words as a ‘reply’ song though. There’s been a number of successful hits that have been this. An example would be the one that was a reply to M. Jackson’s “Billy Jean” (of which, of course, I can neither remember title or artist).
Was the Boston thing a joke, because I’m laughing. If they really were ‘sequels’, then I had no idea.
I was thinking of the artists themselves doing it, not someone else.
Something along the lines of what Elton John did with “candle in the wind”.
Yeah. It was a joke. Your OP talked about using the same music with different words and for the life of me every Boston album sounded exactly the same. I mean they wait 8 years or so between their second and third releases and they still sound like they are locked in the 70s.
There is at least one case of an actual sequel. ‘Snoopy vs the Red Baron’ (sorry, can’t remember the group) had a follow up. Can’t remember the song name but it continued the Snoopy/Red Baron story.
The ‘Beatles’ , in Glass Onion, sing, “We told you about ‘Strawberry Fields’, you know the play where nothing is real”, etc.
They also recycled some of their melody lines.
The Moody Blues wrote “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” as a sequel to “Your Wildest Dreams”.
Meet Tori Amos. 
(Tori, Oblong. Oblong, Tori.)
Two nominations I would have from her are:
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Songs that continue into one another. Tori has said that the song “Horses” from “Boys for Pele” is a continuation of the song “Winter” from her first solo album, “Little Earthquakes.”
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Her new album, “Strange Little Girls,” is a concept album based on the idea of reinventing songs when you cover them, not just rerecording them. According to the press (the album won’t be released until next week), Tori took songs written and originally sung by men and, without substantial rewriting, created a female character for each.
Well, there have been numerous “answer” songs, which are similar to sequels.
After Neil Sedaka had a big hit with “Oh Carole,” inspired by Carole King, Carole wrote a song called “Oh Neil” (NOT a big hit!) dedicated to him.
I also recall that country star Jim Reeves’ hit “He’ll Have to Go” prompted a very big hit called “He’ll Have to Stay,” by a female country singer whose name escapes me.
But as for true “sequels,” songs in which a band or artist resurrected a character from a previous song…
The Kinks brought back Lola in the song “Destroyer.”
David Bowie brought back Major Tom in “Ashes to Ashes.”
J.P. Richardson made a series of singles based around his alter-ego, the Big Bopper. I think of them as sequels, of a sort.
Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages” is, in a sense, a sequel to (and disavowal of) his earlier political songs.
Heck, how could I mention the Big Bopper, while forgetting the most famopus sequel song of all- Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue Got Married.”
Oh, but the OP was talking about recycling songs.
Well, LOTS of bands have made records that sounded just like previous records they’d made. After the Knack had a #1 hit with “My Sharona,” they re-used the same tune, almost note for note, on “Baby Talks Dirty” and other tracks.
But when a band uses a tune it’s used before, MOST people take that as a sign of staleness and lack of inspiration.
In folk music and the blues, nobody minded if you set new lyrics to an old familiar melody (heck, dozens of popular Irish songs are sung to the tune of “The Wearing of the Green,” and nobody minds), but that’s frowned on in most circles, today.
And, interestingly, Blue Oyster Cult actually recycled LYRICS! One of my favorite tracks on their first album was “I’m On the Lamb, But I Ain’t No Sheep” (a song about the Royal Canadian Mounties, believe it or not). On a subsequent album, they recorded a NEW song with a completely new melody and riff, called “Heavy Metal: The Red and the Black”… but the "new " song used the exact same lyrics as “I’m on the Lamb.”
Mellencamp’s “Eden Is Burning” brings back the now-older and less happy “two American kids” Jack and Diane.
Different tune though.
Sir Rhosis
Not huge hits, but the Romantics reused the same tune with different lyrics for every song on their “What I Like About You” album.
I think the Snoopy vs. Red Baron songs were by the Royal Guardsmen.
Glass Onion also mentions the walrus, Lady Madonna, and the fool on the hill.
Just curious, where do you think the Beatles reused a melody line? I’m familiar with most of their stuff and can’t really think of an instance. I’m not saying they didn’t, I just can’t think of an example.
I know that Shep and the Limelights had a string of nine(?) songs in the late 50s/early 60s, beginning with Crazy for You, including A Thousand Miles Away and Daddy’s Home, and ending with One Million Years. The songs told the story of a romantic relationship.
The Four Tops sang I Can’t Help Myself in 1965 – I usually remember it as Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch. They recorded, in 1965 again, the same old song, and called it It’s the Same Old Song. It could be interpreted as a sequel.
Source: Dave Marsh’s book The Heart of Rock & Soul.
Didn’t Kingdome Come re-record a lot of Led Zeppelin songs?