On Parody

Hey. All. Permit me to introduce myself.

Eric Schwartz here.

Welcome to “Ha Ha La La”, a brilliantly named blog about the art of humor in song. The blog is aimed first and foremost at those who’re seeking to inject some humor into their writing and/or their performance. I’ll be using songs and songwriters as examples to tease apart the ingredients of the funny song. There are hundreds of songwriters and thousands of songs to choose from, so for this first post I’ll start with my favorite:

Me.

See what I did there? I delivered a joke.

Setup: “I’ll start with my favorite.”

Punchine: “Me”.

The setup’s a normal statement. It creates a certain expectation. You’re expecting me to name, well, someone else. When I name ME, it takes you by surprise. Hence the humor. Stepping over a social boundary (self-adulation is uncool), saying what you’re not SUPPOSED to say, that adds to the humor.

But seriously, I’m going to use one of my own songs, posted above to demonstrate a common, basic, form of the funny song: Parody. The song is called “I don’t know you”, which parodies the classic ballad “You Don’t Know Me”. The camera is shaky but I like the performance, shot at the Kerrville Folk Festival.

The standard song parody consists of the music of a song already out there and new lyrics on top of it to comment on the original song. Usually the parody is based on the title of the original tune. (“Beat It” becomes “Eat It”,

In case you’re too lazy to scroll up or if you ignored it in the first place, here it is again:

Let’s break it down.

You give your hand to me, and then you say hello

And that we’ve met before, about three years ago

I claim to recognize, but it’s a pack of lies

Cuz I don’t know you

Note: the only thing really funny about that verse is the punchline. The entire rest of the verse is the setup. The writer’s job in a form like this is the same as for a “serious” song. Set the scene for the listener. And the punchline “I don’t know you” hits funny from two angles:

1. It’s a play on the original title “You don’t know me”. And
2. It crosses a boundary. It SAYS something the audience member may THINK but stop themselves from saying. The glorious thing about being a comedian is that you get to tell truths others spend their life hiding. And make a living (hopefully) doing it.

You say you got me stoned back at some festival

Then you fell down the hill and lost a testicle

Think I’d remember it, it must’ve been great shit

‘Cuz I don’t know you

1. Sex and drugs, profanity, properly invoked, are funny because they’re powerful. Again, crossed boundaries. Carla Ulbrich, Da Vinci’s Notebook, and Afroman (vids below) do it right. To rely on taboo can limit your audience (and airplay) but can be very effective.

2. Festival/Testicle. A surprising rhyme itself can be funny. Funny songs have the advantage of being able to make the most outlandish rhymes work, where “serious” songs don’t have such leeway.

3. Flashback to a very memorable scene that I don’t remember but SHOULD. Reinforces the punchline.

I meet I’d say Fifty folks a day

With all the singin’ and playin’ I do

Each year I’d guess Five thousand more or less

So no offense but…

Would you remember you?

Damn, that’s cold. Again the only funny thing about this verse is the last line. And it’s funny because, well, again, it’s a truth you’re supposed to keep to yourself. Last verse:

You give your hand to me And then you say goodbye

I slap you on the back And I say “love you guy”

And I reflect on how We’ll meet three years from now

And I won’t know you

1. “Love You, Guy” isn’t funny unless it’s well-performed. “Guy” is a punchline, “Love you”’s the setup. The confusion and resolution of the singer needs to be sold, hence the pause before “Guy”.
2. “And I won’t know you”. It moves the song forward into the future and creates another punchline out of the old one. If it were another verse in the present, it could still be funny, but just as another way of telling the same joke. Here, there is evolution.

Assignment: Come up with five parody titles. Then write the funniest one.

That’s it for this post. There’s so much more to say about parody than I can fit into one blog post. Hopefully this gives you some ideas to chew on.

Thanks for reading!

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Eric

PS: I can be reached at twitter.com/ericlschwartz. I give online lessons/consultations/coaching if you’ve got that song you think could be funnier, or if you’ve just got an idea you’d like to turn into an effective song. Or even if you’ve no idea where to start.

PS Here are links to some excellent parodies out there. We’ll start with the brilliant Randy Rainbow, a master parodist, below doing a sendup of “I Cain’t Say No” from Oklahoma!. “I Cain’t Say No” turns to “Quid Pro Quo” and lambastes, well, a very lambastable person:

and here’s one by the master himself, Weird Al Yankovic. “Bad” turns to “Fat”.

And as for the sex and drugs, artists, referenced above, see below.

Aww, hell, here’s another of mine. Combines Sex and Politics.