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Best Call and Answer Songs

Nov 28, 2010
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I don't know if that's the right terminology, so feel free to correct me, but I'm thinking of songs where someone calls out a phrase and others i the group take it up. Here's a particularly nice example from the Indigo Girls that I've cued up at the point when Michael Stipe (REM) joins in:



And here's another from The Mamas and the Papas

 
I have no idea what were talking about here, but I've been wanting to link this video I blundered upon after the Superbowl with the ELO song " Showdown " featured on the Manning/Williams bowling commercial. I can't say I was a big ELO fan at the time but I came to appreciate Jeff Lind after the Traveling Willburys. Anyhow I think this is one of the most visually and audibly perfectly produced live concert takes I've come across, but then I love full strings backing most any song...

 
I don't know if that's the right terminology, so feel free to correct me, but I'm thinking of songs where someone calls out a phrase and others i the group take it up. Here's a particularly nice example from the Indigo Girls that I've cued up at the point when Michael Stipe (REM) joins in:



And here's another from The Mamas and the Papas


I love that Indigo Girls song. Such brilliant harmonies.
 
I have no idea what were talking about here, but I've been wanting to link this video I blundered upon after the Superbowl with the ELO song " Showdown " featured on the Manning/Williams bowling commercial. I can't say I was a big ELO fan at the time but I came to appreciate Jeff Lind after the Traveling Willburys. Anyhow I think this is one of the most visually and audibly perfectly produced live concert takes I've come across, but then I love full strings backing most any song...


I've viewed and posted this video on HROT. Jeff and ELO are amazing. Forget about him, ELO, and Willburys. Check out of who else he produced/wrote for
 
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I think the term OP is looking for is "call and response".

"My Generation" by The Who is a great example.
 
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Still relevant to this thread...

One of the cool things about moving to the DC area was learning about Go-go music and Chuck Brown, and then finding out that DJ Kool (who I already liked) is a part of that unique genre and culture.

 
There’s also answer songs. For instance, Elvis had a song called ‘Little Sister’. LaVerne Baker answered back with ‘Hey Memphis’.
 
Beat me to it. Best one, IMHO. Call in English, echo in Spanish. Strummer’s espanol really seals it. Brilliant.

IIRC, they did it in an Equadoran dialect because the sound engineer's mother was from Equador and he sent her the lyrics after Joe Strummer said he wanted the background in Spanish.
 
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There’s also answer songs. For instance, Elvis had a song called ‘Little Sister’. LaVerne Baker answered back with ‘Hey Memphis’.

Best answer song in history -

In The Wild Side of Life, [Hank] Thompson expresses regret his bride-to-be has left him for another man whom she met in a roadhouse, stating, "I didn't know that God made honky tonk angels." That song and its appeal to people who "thought the world was going to hell and that faithless women deserved a good deal of the blame...just begged for an answer from a woman".

The rebuttal song . . .

 
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