The Week In Arts: Today they want a revolution...

IT'S ALWAYS fun when Radio 4's Today programme puts on a music item to show that there's more to the world than politics. It featured a report on "answer-records", the trend for songs that respond to another song, usually involving two singers who were once in a relationship.

But the first "answer-record", according to the Today programme, came in 1968. It was "Street Fighting Man" by The Rolling Stones, a response to The Beatles' ambivalent song "Revolution". Segments of both classic tracks were played on Today and a member of The Rolling Stones, Ron Wood, even came on the programme to say how much he loved performing "Street Fighting Man". Ron's very quotable, but he wasn't, of course, a Stone in 1968.

It's a fascinating thesis by Today. But Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, pictured, must have been blessed with psychic powers. "Street Fighting Man" was recorded in March/April 1968. "Revolution", John Lennon's response to the student uprising in Paris of May in that year, was recorded on 31 May.