Kitty Wells’ “It wasn’t god who made honky tonk angels” was an answer to Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life”
This is a pretty important one, esp for feminists.
Tori Amos take a sideswipe at the breeziness of the Eagles in “Springtime of his Voodoo”:
The song Everything You Did by Steely Dan has the line, “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening,” inspired by an argument Walter Becker had with his girlfriend. The girlfriend loved the Eagles and he grew tired of listening to them all of the time. The Eagles returned the mention with, “They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast,” in Hotel California.
Stephin Merritt wrote a song for the Magnetic Fields called “A Pretty Girl is Like.”
lyrics
youtube
It’s a subtle but biting satire of Irving Berlin’s “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody” in particular, and insipid pop-songwriting similes in general:
I remember hearing that “Silly Love Songs” was a response back. If so, I think Paul got the last word: “How do I sleep? I sleep by coming up with my response, the #1 song of 1976. YOUR TURN, JOHN!!!”
With all of the mentions about Skynyrd ragging on Neil Young, nobody mentioned Molly Hatchet’s Gator Country, which has mild rebuffs of several other southern rock songs.
I think this falls short of dissing the other bands/songs, as it is more like bragging about Hatchet’s home turf. But close enough to include.
Ben Folds’ song “Brainwascht” is a rant against his pal John Mark Painter, of Fleming & John (a band Painter is in with his wife, Fleming McWilliams) because F&J put out a single on their MySpace page that seemed to be dissing Folds (dude is a great songwriter but he’s a bit of a prick as a person).
Brainwascht lyrics:
“If you want to write a letter, write a letter
If you’d rather make a phone call, pick the phone up
Call me
But if you had to say it all with a pop song
Couldn’t you at least have made me a good one?”
A question: were all the self-references in “Glass Onion” tributes or disses? I’m pretty sure “Fool On the Hill” is Paul having a go at John. “Helter Skelter” I’d consider less of a diss and more of an angry rebuttal when Paul heard Pete Townshend bragging in a radio interview about the wild and crazy song The Who had just put out (“I Can See For Miles”), saying it was the noisiest, craziest, most raucous number out there. Paul’s “wot?” response to this was quite, well, TROUNCING, I thought.
Cheap Trick has fun with Kiss by mentioning in “Surrender”:
Whatever happened to all the season’s losers of the year?
When every time I got to thinking - when they’d disappear?
Then I woke up - mom and dad were rolling on the cooooouuuch,
Rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records oooouuuut.
More of a nod than a diss? > Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, we all know Major Tom’s a junkie.
In 1950, Goodnight Irene was a big hit. Several singers and bands released versions of the song. First a version by The weavers, then a version by Frank Sinatra, and then several others. Various versions played on the radio ad nauseam.
Then came this song
The earliest version I know, and my favorite is Hoochie Coochie Man vs. I am A Man vs. I’m a Man (Mannish Boy). All of them are gorgeous, and the rivalry just enhances 'em.
All Men Are Liars–Nick Lowe
Tradition requires I let you find out for yourself.
I’ve heard that Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe with it’s chorus of “no, no, no it ain’t me babe” was aimed at the Beatles’ She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
Since I can’t find the thread in question, I’ll say here that I totally agree. That whole album was crap. “Precious Angel” was an OK song, in a kind of Planet Waves-y sort of way, but the rest of the album was totally unlistenable. It’s the only Dylan album I’ve owned that I’ve ever given away. And “Gotta Serve Somebody” itself just kind of plods wearily along. Terrible, terrible song.
Don’t know if this counts, but I think the Traveling Wilburys wrote ‘Tweeter and the Monkeyman’ as a sort of affectionate send-up of Springsteen.
“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” (recorded most notably by Kenny Rogers) was answered with “Billy, I’ve Got to Go to Town” by Geraldine Stevens.
Jackson Browne, actually, unless she was unaware of who wrote that.
Hasa Diga Eebowai from The Book of Mormon is clearly a diss of Hakuna Matada from you know where.
We’re talking about a type of “answer song” - a song written in response to another song. There’s a list of them here.
Here are a couple:
“Basketball Jones featuring Tyrone Shoelaces” by Cheech and Chong in answer to “Love Jones” by Brighter Side of Darkness
“Hippie from Olema” by The Youngbloods in answer to “Okie from Muskogee” by Merle Haggard
Well, I was, even if she wasn’t
Roy Wood left ELO pretty early on to form Wizzard. One of Wizzard’s early B-sides was a number called “Bend Over Beethoven”