Same to You, Mac

Q. Are we making money tonight?

Does your future look real bright?

Shall we answer Elvis one more time?

A. Yes, we're making money tonight And the future, it looks bright.

One more Lonesome will make number nine.

So far, there are only half a dozen versions of Are You Lonesome Tonight?, including the original by Elvis Presley, which is now the nation's No. 1 hit. But if Elvis stays up there, there may well be a dozen variations on the theme. The Lonesome craze is the most blatant example of pop music's latest fad: the "answer" record, which provides an answer to a question raised in an established hit.

Most of the answers to Elvis, recorded by girl singers, start out the same ("Yes, I'm lonesome tonight"), but they respond in different ways to what turns out to be the nub of Elvis' complaint: "Honey, you lied when you said you loved me." Not at all, bleats Songstress Thelma Carpenter, with the air of a forgiving wife: "Deep in your heart you know who lied." Songstress Jo Ann Perry is ready to meet Elvis halfway ("Elvis, darling, come back to me/ I swear faithfully/ The curtain will never come down"), but she tries to shift the blame for her defection to a "bad actor" who had "oh, such a good line."

Answer records are not new: the 1940s had Slipping Around and I'll Never Slip Around Again, and a novelty of 1931 was I Have to Laugh ("when I think how I danced with tears in my eyes over you"). They are a vogue now because of the success of Jim Reeves's He'll Have to Go and Jeanne Black's He'll Have to Stay, concerning a pair of lovers squabbling on the phone over an anonymous third party ("Should I hang up/ Or will you tell him/ He'll have to go?"). Before he had even gone, RCA Victor was out with Tell Laura I Love Her, a ballad gurgled out to his beloved by a dying stock-car racer. Laura herself (Songstress Marilyn Michaels) provided the inevitable followup: Tell Tommy I Miss Him. Dazzled at the prospects, the record companies have issued Save the Last Dance for Me and I'll Save the Last Dance for You; Please Help Me, I'm Falling and I Can't Help You, I'm Falling Too. A song titled You Talk Too Much set singers off in a frenzy of denial, confession and recrimination: I Don't Talk Too Much, I Talk Too Much, Who Talks Too Much? The craze has even provided an answer to what happened to the girl who lost the Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. Her name, according to 14-year-old Songstress Jeri Lynne Eraser, was Begonia, and out there in the water Poor Begonia Caught Pneumonia.

Answer songs may make songwriters obsolete. If they are enterprising, the record companies will milk all possible answers out of past hits: People Will Say We're in Love (People Should Mind Their Own Business), Is It True What They Say About Dixie? (Truer Every Day), I Can't Begin to Tell You (Why Try?). And eventually, all pop music will consist of a single hit, with variations, referred to as The Song. Its title: Huh?

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