Sir and Christopher Marlowe traded life philosophies on the battlefield of poetry, namely, "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love" (1599) and "The Nymph's Reply To The Shepherd" (1600).[5]
Walter Raleigh
The sentimental Irish ballad, "" (1875) by Thomas Westendorf was written as a reply to the earlier "Barney, Take Me Home Again" by George W. Persley.[6]
I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
"I Wonder Why Bill Bailey Don't Come Home" was written by and recorded by Arthur Collins in 1902[7] as an answer to "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home", published by Hughie Cannon and recorded by Collins earlier the same year.
William Jerome
"I Used to Be Afraid to Come Home in the Dark" was recorded by Billy Murray in 1909 as a response to his own 1908 hit, "I'm Afraid to Come Home in the Dark"[9]
[8]
The popularity of the 1923 song "" was answered that same year by "I've Got The Yes! We Have No Banana Blues" with lyrics by Lew Brown, composed by Robert King and James F. Hanley. The song referred to the ubiquity and nonsense lyrics of the original.[10] Eddie Cantor, Eva Taylor, Isabelle Patricola, and Belle Baker all sang on releases of this song.
Yes! We Have No Bananas
's "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" (written 1934, recorded 1935), the first million seller hit by a female country artist, was an answer to Stuart Hamblen's "Texas Plains".
Patsy Montana
's anthem "This Land Is Your Land" was written in 1940 as an answer to "God Bless America", written by Irving Berlin in 1918 (and revised in 1938). Guthrie originally called his response "God Blessed America for Me".[11]
Woody Guthrie
Diss track
Song cycle
list of Answer Songs from everyhit.com
"Answer Records / Sequels"
B. Lee Cooper and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950-1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990, 978-0810823426 (A comprehensive alphabetized list of over 2500 hit tunes that prompted the production of answer songs or other forms of response recordings)
ISBN
Spotify playlist of some of the answer songs on this page