Answer songs have a long, mostly inglorious history. There are some great answer songs, such as Kitty Wells’ ‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’, (an answer to Hank Thompson’s ‘Wild Side of Life’, and a rare case where both the original and the answer are of exceptional quality), but most are dreadful and veer dangerously close to song-poem dreck.

My friend Ryan Jerving once said that the key to a successful answer song is to willfully misunderstand the original. Ryan has the distinction of being the only person in history to write an answer song to Freakwater, the Kennett Brothers’ ‘One Big Union’, answering the Freakwater tune of the same name.

I was very pleased to see WFMU’s Beware of the Blog post this beautiful answer song today: Rainbo’s John, You Went Too Far This Time (MP3). In it, a teenage fan expresses outrage at John Lennon’s ‘Two Virgins’ record sleeve, featuring the former Beatle wearing nothing but Yoko Ono.

Rainbo, not to be confused with pint-size metal maven Ronnie James Dio’s ‘Rainbow’, is a very young Sissy Spacek, and she gives an appealing performance here. The production values are higher than your average answer song, and it’s a well-written tune (if you can get past the cringe-worthy lyrics). The switch to 6/8 for the chorus is a nice touch. Ed Burch first played this tune for me a couple years ago, and I’m glad to be able to snag it in MP3 form.

John, You Went Too Far This Time (MP3)
Courtesy of WFMU’s most excellent Beware of the Blog