This week, a very old tradition in the music industry took center stage. We are talking, of course, about the response song.
Response records are songs that “respond” to a previous recording by a different artist, sometimes directly addressing a specific incident, other times reproducing their themes. The novelty has existed for decades, moving from blues to R&B, from country to hip-hop, and is often a response from one genre to another.
The trick was originally designed to capture the sales momentum of the original song. He has rarely had the same success, but it certainly gave fans and the industry something to hang on to after a success.
For example, Andrea Carroll’s 1963 song, It hurts to be sixteen, was the response record for Neil Sedaka Happy birthday, sweet sixteen. In this case, Sedaka, a sales expert, wrote the melody for both, using different lyricists to convey different perspectives.
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Most popular was Back to the USSR., a 1968 track by The Beatles that responded to Chuck Berry’s music Back to the USA There’s also Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama, the answer to Neil Young’s Southern Man. He represented Young like this:
Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard that old Neil put it on the floor
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man doesn’t need him around anyway
More recently, Sia’s music from 2014 Crying big girls was the answer to Fergie’s Big Girls Do not Cry, while Katy Perry’s California Gurls with Snoop Dogg replied Jay-Z and Alicia Keys with their tribute to New York, Empire State of Mind. It was the first time that both the original songs and the hit response. No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
In this last round, Sabrina Carpenter Skin is, according to widespread fan speculation, the song-response to Olivia Rodrigo’s song Driver’s license.
Rodrigo, who starred in Disney’s High School Musical: The Series, debuted her song about a lost love and reached number 1. The lyrics speak of how she saw her ex move on. But it also contained a perception of who he was moving on to: “And you probably have that blonde girl / Who always made me doubt / She’s a lot older than me / She’s all I’m insecure about.”
Fans identified “the blonde girl” as Carpenter (known for the Disney show Girl Meets World and Netflix Work) Carpenter is blond and four years older than Rodrigo.
Carpenter’s response was quick. Two weeks after Rodrigo’s release, she responded with Skin, referring to someone who is trying to piss me off.
“You have been counting your side / so I will count mine” and “Maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme,” wrote Carpenter. She added: “You can try / Tuck it under mine, under mine, under my skin / As long as it’s in mine / Yes, everything in mine, everything in mine, everything in my skin / I wish you knew that / I can ‘no I get under my skin if I don’t let you in. “
So far, none of the singers commented. If the tradition of recording responses continues, it is probably where it remains.