A Song Answering a Song

I recently heard two songs that were in a conversation with earlier songs. 

There are plenty of self-referential songs. Many love songs lament the fact that despite the deeply felt emotion of the singer, which feels original and new, the singer is aware of how difficult it is to say, "I love you," in an original way. 

But I'm taking about something different.

I'm talking about a song that puts new words to an older version to directly answer that version.

I think the first one I was aware of was "I can buy myself flowers" riposte to the breakup song in which the dude regrets not buying his lady love more shrubbery, which clearly would have had a deciding weight in their relationship's length. In the new version, the lady insists on doing her own gardening. 

Then there is another "yes, but have you heard my side of the story," song, in which a male lead replies, point for point, to Taylor Swift's ten minute version of "ALL TOO WELL." Frankly, that was the other side of the story I'd long been curious about...

But I think my favorite reply was by the singer/songwriter herself. "If I Die Young" was a pretty yet morbid song about a teenage girl having a morbid yet pretty funeral. She imagined it a bit too much detail to be healthy, in my honest opinion.

Yet I never expected the songwriter herself to agree with me! 

Kimberly Perry revised the words of her own song, answering her younger self that there is so much more to life to experience, much better than a funeral with satin a pearls. 

I’ve had time to bloom

Plantin’ them roses instead and

I’m changing my tune since I said

If I die young, bury me in satin / Lay me down on a bed of roses

Sink me in the river at dawn

Send me away with the words of a love song. 

Every song tells a story, but by replying to themselves, some songs form an entire story arc.