5 Times Rock Artists Released Sequels To Their Most Famous Songs

Sequels are common in most every storytelling medium, like books and movies. It's rare in music, where rock stars introduce indelible and unforgettable characters, only for the artists who made them to come back years later and tell the world what happened next in the form of a sequel song. While musicians often revisit the same themes, it's not often they tackle the same exact subject twice. But some songs are so personally important, or they become such massive and undeniable hits, that the artist must acknowledge the nagging questions posed and revisit the characters and events they so winningly introduced. 

Some major artists brought the complex stories introduced in their short and well-known songs to a conclusion, or at least brought on new chapters in the tale. Here are some sequels rock musicians wrote to address their previous hits, by the likes of Buddy Holly, David Bowie, the Kinks, the Moody Blues, and R.E.M.

Buddy Holly was one of the first-ever rock stars, his career and life cut short by a 1959 plane crash known as "The Day the Music Died." Among the many singles Holly churned out in his brief lifetime was "Peggy Sue," which peaked at No. 3 in 1957. Well matched to Holly's hiccupped, stuttering vocal technique, "Peggy Sue" is a paean to a young woman with whom the narrator is in love, finds to be quite beautiful, and is not actually in a relationship with, for reasons not divulged.

A lot of the recordings Holly had finished and banked before his death were released throughout 1959, including "Peggy Sue Got Married," which picks up on the continuing adventures of the captivating Peggy Sue. Not a hit in the U.S., "Peggy Sue Got Married" made it to a respectable No. 13 on the U.K. pop chart and later lent its title to the partially 1960-set 1986 movie of the same name. 

In the lyrics, it would seem that Peggy Sue, whom Holly refers to as the "girl that's been in nearly every song," has quietly and even secretly gone off and gotten married. It's not clear if Peggy Sue married the male narrator of the song or not, but it would seem that Holly's character is once again on the outside looking in.

David Bowie's first hit anywhere was the genre-blending 1969 folk-psychedelic single "Space Oddity." It's told from the point of view of Major Tom, an astronaut hurtling through the cosmos in a space capsule who eventually loses contact with Ground Control and drifts into oblivion. Bowie alone wrote "Space Oddity," inspired by the famous film "2001: A Space Odyssey," but the song isn't just a surface-level tale about an astronaut lost in space. He also pulled from his personal life, nursing a broken heart and feeling isolated following the end of his relationship with Hermione Farthingale.

But the meaning of songs can change over time, even for the people who write them. Just about a decade after the first release of "Space Oddity," Bowie issued the 1980 album "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" and the single "Ashes to Ashes." The spooky and unsettling song missed the U.S. pop chart but reached No. 1 in the U.K., mirroring an achievement by a 1975 "Space Oddity" re-release. "Ashes to Ashes" was a direct sequel to that earlier hit. 

"Do you remember a guy that's been / in such an early song?" Bowie asks, referring to Major Tom. It would seem that the astronaut was never really a space casualty. "Ashes to Ashes" is a reflection on Bowie's personal struggles, and he explains that Major Tom was addicted to drugs. "We know Major Tom's a junkie," Bowie sings. "Strung out in heaven's high / Hitting an all-time low."

"Destroyer," a 1981 minor hit by the British Invasion band the Kinks, makes callbacks to a couple of the group's best-known songs. The riff from 1964's "All Day and All of the Night" plays throughout the song, which quickly turns into a revisiting of the characters introduced in "Lola." 

A No. 9 smash in 1970, "Lola" tells the story of a man, as portrayed by singer Ray Davies, who meets an enchanting woman in a London bar and just about falls in love and is about to go to bed with her, when he realizes that while Lola presents as a woman, she was assigned male at birth. Lola's gender identity is left ambiguous in the lyrics — with modern interpretations believing her to be a transgender woman, drag queen, or gender-nonconforming individual — and the song's protagonist ultimately loves and accepts Lola for who she is, with Davies singing, "Girls will be boys and boys will be girls / It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world / Except for Lola."

In "Destroyer," Davies' narrator confidently and assertively pursues a physical encounter with Lola, overcome with lust and trying to "hold on, stay in control" after they retire to his home. However, this night ends in a lack of contact due to the main character's struggle with general anxiety and paranoia.

The Moody Blues weren't at Woodstock, but unlike most other bands that broke through in the late 1960s, they endured for decades. In 1986, the progressive rock act had evolved into a soft-rock group and scored its first Top 10 hit in 14 years with "Your Wildest Dreams." Moody Blues leader Justin Hayward wrote the song, in which he considers whatever happened to an important and fondly remembered lover from his past and is curious if she still thinks about him, too. 

"I just stumble through my life into songs," Hayward told Vulture about the real-life inspiration for "Your Wildest Dreams," adding, "I got swept along with that." And then Hayward actually tried to track down the woman behind the song, an unidentified figure he said was the first he ever loved and then upset when he dumped her. "I would advise against it," Hayward said of trying to capture the past. 

Nevertheless, the emotional quest for a reunion led to another song, "I Know You're Out There Somewhere," a No. 30 hit in 1988 and the last Moody Blues single to grace the Hot 100. It continues the story set forth in "Your Wildest Dreams," with Hayward once more emotionally asking the universe what became of that person from his past, confident they can be together again.

An innovative comedian and performance artist who found fame and notoriety for his boundary-pushing stunts and deep character work, Andy Kaufman alternately delighted and baffled the masses in the 1970s and 1980s. The ironic entertainer's legend only grew with his sudden and tragic death at age 35 in 1984. Among Kaufman's fans were the members of alternative rock superstar band R.E.M., who included the Kaufman tribute "Man on the Moon" on their 1992 album "Automatic for the People." The folk-rock, mid-tempo ballad was a Top 30 hit, and in addition to mentioning Kaufman by name, it references many of his greatest bits, including his 1983 film "My Breakfast with Blassie," his stint as a professional wrestler, and his recurrent Elvis Presley impersonation. 

"Man on the Moon" became so publicly associated with Kaufman that it was used as the title for a 1999 biopic starring Jim Carrey as the comedian. Bringing things full circle, R.E.M. contributed an original song to the "Man on the Moon" soundtrack called "The Great Beyond." 

A minor hit when issued as a single around the release of the movie, the follow-up to "Man on the Moon" lyrically nods to its predecessor, tossing off several lines from the original. "The Great Beyond" also takes note of Kaufman's late-in-life spiritualism while R.E.M. makes peace with the comic's death, dismissing theories that he didn't really die and went into hiding.