Answer Song: Difference between revisions

The tradition of poetry written in the form of a song contest or struggle, in which one speaker answers the other, dates back to the very beginnings of recorded literature, back to Sumerian times, and was a popular form in Classical pastoral poetry (as in the ''Idylls'' of Theocritus and [[The Aeneid|Vergil's]] ''Eclogues''). Since little distinction was made between poems and songs in those early days, the [['''Answer Song]]''' can presumably be similarly dated to Antiquity. It was certainly in use by the time of the Middle Ages, when the [[wikipedia:Medieval debate poetry|debate poem]] was a popular genre among the troubadors, the exchange being denoted as a ''tensó, tenson,'' or ''tençó'' in Occitan, a ''tenzone'' in Italian, and a "flyting" in Scots English; many of these were definitely set to music (''e.g.'', the opposed ''sirventes'' by [[Richard the Lion Heart]] and the Count of Artois that their men sang against each other).

In modern times, the [['''Answer Song]]''' became widespread almost as soon as recorded music became available, generally losing much of its combative character and with the answering song often imitating the original very closely. The convention became extremely common in R&B and Country music, where it generally took the form of a reply to a song made by a member of the opposite sex. It's also common as dirt in [[Filk]], where one singer makes a commentary on another's song, ranging from sarcastic to sad. Modern Hip-hop has returned to the scurrilous character of the medieval ''tensó'', deploying songs of a distinctly angry nature in which artists denounce each other.

* In 2009 the band [[They Might Be Giants]] released an answer song -- "Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)" -- to—to their popular 1993 cover of Tom Glazer's 1965 song "Why Does the Sun Shine?." Both the original 1965 song and the 1993 cover state that the Sun was "a mass of incandescent gas." The Sun is more accurately described as being made of plasma, not gas.

* Kitty Wells' "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" is equal parts [['''Answer Song]]''' and [[Take That]] to Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side Of Life".