When I was a kid I thought \u201cDo It Again\u201d was a sequel to \u201cHit the Road, Jack.\u201d They were both about Jack, after all.<\/p>\n
Whether Jack stayed or left must have been a big deal if it warranted two songs.<\/p>\n
It turns out I had the right idea, but the wrong song.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnswer records\u201d are responses to other popular songs, and they fall into two basic categories: rhetorical, presenting a philosophy; and narrative, giving voice to minor characters, usually a wife or girlfriend.<\/p>\n
Sometimes musicians answered their own songs. Harry Chapin\u2019s \u201cSequel\u201d from 1980 was an answer to his 1972 hit \u201cTaxi,\u201d and about the same characters. That\u2019s different from Ann LeSears\u2019 song \u201cTake Him Back (Taxi)\u201d from 1984, which was a response to J. Blackfoot\u2019s R&B song \u201cTaxi\u201d from the year before. Confused?<\/p>\n
Honestly, most answer records aren\u2019t worth listening to. They were made to exploit hit singles, and very few equal the originals they copied. Those that surpassed the original in quality \u2014 like The Beach Boys\u2019 \u201cDon\u2019t Worry, Baby\u201d \u2014 are rare indeed.<\/p>\n
Here are 10 answer records worth listening to \u2014the good, the bad and the thought-provoking.<\/p>\n
10. \u201cHoney (I Miss You Too)\u201d (1968) Margaret Lewis<\/h3>\n
Bobby Goldsboro\u2019s loss of his mentally disabled wife is told from her perspective, looking down from heaven, apparently. Unfortunately, she says the same things he does: the snow, the puppy, crying over everything.<\/p>\n
My mother hated \u201cHoney,\u201d and would change the station when it came on. Honey didn\u2019t have a personality of her own, she\u2019d say. I guess she was right. Goldsboro didn\u2019t mention Honey could sing, though. Worth a listen for Lewis\u2019 silky voice.<\/p>\n
9. \u201cDawn of Correction\u201d (1965) The Spokesmen<\/h3>\n
My father didn\u2019t like Barry McGuire\u2019s peacenik ballad \u201cEve of Destruction,\u201d but he never heard this constipated CIA response. Nuclear deterrence good, peace bad. Did teens ever dance to this?<\/p>\n
8. \u201cPlay it All Night Long\u201d (1980) Warren Zevon<\/h3>\n
Zevon\u2019s clever answer to Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s \u201cSweet Home Alabama\u201d (1976) \u2014 itself a response to Neil Young\u2019s \u201cSouthern Man\u201d (1970) and \u201cAlabama\u201d (1972) \u2014 defines the term \u2018acidic.\u2019 Did Warren ever hate the south. Yikes.<\/p>\n
Laurel Canyon liberals, 3; southern good ole\u2019 boys, 1.<\/p>\n
7. \u201cSuperstar\u201d (1984) Lydia Murdock<\/h3>\n
Not the Carpenters song, which was really a Bonnie Bramlett song. No, this is the answer to \u201cBillie Jean\u201d from her point of view, and apparently Michael does owe her child support. The only paternity suit you can dance to.<\/p>\n
6. \u201cMannish Boy\u201d (1955) Muddy Waters<\/h3>\n
Muddy\u2019s blues standard is so famous it was parodied as \u201cHoochie Koochie Man\u201d in director Allan Arkush\u2019s \u201cLast Waltz\u201d spoof, \u201cGet Crazy\u201d (1983). What most listeners don\u2019t know is that it\u2019s an insult of Bo Diddley\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m a Man\u201d from earlier that year.<\/p>\n
5. \u201cClothes Line Saga\u201d (1967) Bob Dylan & The Band<\/h3>\n
Rock critic Greil Marcus called this a sly answer to Bobbie Gentry\u2019s \u201cOde to Billie Joe\u201d in his 1997 book \u201cThat Old Weird America.\u201d It\u2019s more like a variation on the same theme: Stupid is bad enough, but stupid and selfish is the worst.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s subtle and humorous, which cannot be said for \u201cMystery of Tallahatchie Bridge\u201d (1969) by Rodd Keith, aka Rodney Eskelin. I would change my name, too.<\/p>\n
4. \u201cCome Back, Jack\u201d (1961) Nina Simone<\/h3>\n
The true sequel to \u201cHit the Road, Jack\u201d written by pros Mort Shuman and Leon Carr, and performed by the queen of sultry piano blues.<\/p>\n
3. \u201cMajor Tom Coming Home\u201d (1984) Peter Schilling<\/h3>\n
Schilling, who\u2019s German, waited 15 years to answer Bowie\u2019s \u201cSpace Oddity.\u201d Here, Major Tom either fixes his capsule or broadcasts the final moments of his decaying orbit. Either way, he\u2019s coming home. This is musical fan fiction that\u2019s as haunting as the original.<\/p>\n
2. \u201cRun From Me\u201d (2014) Timber Timbre<\/h3>\n
This creepy murder ballad sounds like an answer to Roy Orbison\u2019s \u201cRunning Scared\u201d (1961) from the perspective of the cuckolded husband. It\u2019s not explicit, but it\u2019s there. The first time I heard this I thought it was an old folk tune by the Rooftop Singers. Hard to forget.<\/p>\n
1. \u201cQueen of the House\u201d (1965) Jody Miller<\/strong> Clever sound-alike to Roger Miller\u2019s \u201cKing of the Road\u201d asserts Jody wears the pants when the king\u2019s not home. That\u2019s strange, since his song is about a train-hopping hobo.<\/p>\n I guess she always wears the pants since he abandoned his wife and kids.<\/p>\n \u201cQueen\u201d won a Grammy, and probably influenced Glen Campbell\u2019s similar hit, \u201cDreams of the Everyday Housewife\u201d (1968). Roger Miller actually suggested Jody Miller, known as \u201cthe little girl with the big voice,\u201d for the tune, when songwriter Mary Taylor played it for him. The two Millers weren\u2019t married, although having the same surname didn\u2019t hurt sales.<\/p>\n Brian Hess<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.journal-news.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was a kid I thought \u201cDo It Again\u201d was a sequel to \u201cHit the Road, Jack.\u201d They were both about Jack, after all. Whether Jack stayed or left must have been a big deal if it warranted two songs. It turns out I had the right idea, but the wrong song. \u201cAnswer records\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2417597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2417596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Forgotten-record-review-Answer-Records-Entertainment.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2417596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2417598,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417596\/revisions\/2417598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2417597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2417596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2417596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2417596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}