10 Songs That Got Their Own Sequels
Are Y'all Ready for Part 2?
When writing a song, you often have a few choices about where to bring things to a close. Although the realms of country music like to tie their stories together with a happy ending, it's sometimes more interesting to leave the end ambiguous for your audience to make the choice for themselves. Or...it could give you free wiggle room to play with the concept in the future like these guys.
While making a sequel song might seem like a cheap way to get fans excited for your new album, these artists have taken full advantage of having another crack at a song's concept, going so far as to surpass the original in some places. Sequel songs can also come in different shapes and sizes though, from being a carbon copy of the song that came before to generally alluding to previous characters from another song to give it more context.
That's not to say that you need to hear the original song first to get it, as most of these stand as solid entries in the band's catalog even if you ignore the Part 2 that comes right after the title. Even though it might help to do your homework with these entries, it just speaks to the songwriting that we're dealing with that you were able to squeeze out two kickass songs from one great idea.
10. Unforgiven - Metallica
Of all of Metallica's ballads to be released during their glory years, there's always been something special regarding the Unforgiven. While it might not have as many changes as something like Fade to Black, the idea of twisting the formula by making a soft chorus and heavy verse was one of the many genius things that brought the Black Album onto the charts. When you have something that big though, what choice do you have other than double down?
Although people had gotten used to Metallica's ballads since Ride the Lightning, they were quick to dismiss Unforgiven II as just coaxing on easy mode. After all, since the rest of Reload sucks, what makes this song any different? Aside from the Load era having a few crummy riffs, this is an interesting extension upon the original's lonely tone, as James talks about finding someone else walking alone beside himself and possibly given the chance to redeem himself.
Then again, going so far as to crib the entire melody of the original chorus for this next one tends to feel a little played out, as well as the cheeky pun of having the final line be "are you unforgiven too?" (Get it?). Ever since the days of St. Anger and Lulu though, metalheads should consider themselves lucky if they think that this is the worst Metallica has to offer.