Sunday, February 3, 2008

Song Sequels

Okay, folks - need your help with this fascination of mine:

Song Sequels.

I mean, what a cool concept! For whatever reason, the original artist, or even another artist, decides to continue the storyline of the first song. I am thinking of a few right off the bat:

Metallica - "Unforgiven" and "Unforgiven II"
This one might be obvious, particularly due to those roman numerals at the end of the second song. There are even some lyrics repeated in the second song that were from the original.

Lesley Gore - "It's My Party" and "It's Judy's Turn to Cry"
This is one of my most favorite examples - the story from the first song, in which Judy steals her boyfriend, thus causing Lesley to cry at her own party, continues in the second song. Now, it's Judy's turn to cry! So there! Interesting Trivia - Lesley Gore was originally Lesley Sue Goldstein, and she came out as a lesbian in 2005. Thanks, Wikipedia!

David Bowie - "Space Oddity," and Peter Schilling, "Major Tom"
Well, this one just blew me away. I thought that these were the only two songs that dealt with Major Tom, but, boy, I thought wrong! It turns out that there is a whole world of songs that further along the mythology of the Major Tom character. David Bowie added the song "Ashes to Ashes," and then other people from all over the world have written other songs. What a phenomenon! Check out the Major Tom article on Wikipedia for the whole list of songs and artists, and examples of the lyrics.

So, what Sequel Songs are you aware of? They can be by the same artist, or a response from another artist.

5 comments:

SMLP said...

A great "song sequel" is U2's "God Part II." While not exactly a "sequel" to John Lennon's tune "God," U2's version follows the same structure and attitude. John Lennon recounts all of the idols he doesn't believe in, while Bono takes it one step further by talking about all of the dark contradictions he's faced with on a daily basis.

John Lennon: "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me."

Bono: "I don't believe in riches but you should see where I live. I...I believe in love."

Shan said...

Great post! I hadn't thought about this before.

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The Egel Nest said...

I once read that "Killing Me Softly" is Roberta Flack's song about listening to Don McLean's "American Pie" in concert.

Plausible :)

Bradley
The Egel Nest

Barb said...

Hmmm... was Meat Loaf's "I Will Do Anything For Love" a sequel to "Paradise By The Dashboard Light"?

tripleZmom said...

The only sequels I know about have already been mentioned. Okay, and I only knew about two of those. I am clearly pretty ignorant.