Wednesday and Townies Trade Names in a Reciprocal Song Exchange

The North Carolina band Wednesday put a song called “Townies” on their 2025 album Bleeds. It is one of the record’s sharper moments. Karly Hartzman writes about looking back at a difficult past: “You were 16 and bored and drunk, and they’re just townies.” It is a specific image, tied to memory and place.

Then the Boston band Townies responded in the most literal way possible. On Aug. 12, a Wednesday, they released a song called “Wednesday.” The band had been teasing it on social media since last year. The result is a kind of musical palindrome: Wednesday recorded “Townies,” so Townies recorded “Wednesday,” on a Wednesday.

The new track does not sound like Wednesday or like “Townies.” That is not the point. The point is the long tradition of response songs, from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” answering Neil Young, to Rise Against and Architects trading titles on their records. It can produce a strange, self-aware exchange that works as both tribute and retort.

Here, the exchange is small and precise. It does not rewrite either band. It just makes the names collide. That is enough.