poptimists | name songs which are funny which AREN'T comedy songs

I love Flight Of The Conchords.

Though, see also the Stuff White People Like blog's take on music/comedy which makes me cringe a little in hideous self-recognition:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/77-musical-comedy/

Though FOTC is of course in the Comedy Songs bracket.

Funny songs which aren't comedy: anything by Stephin Merritt?

"Paperback Writer"

"It's a thousand pages give or take a few / I'll be writing more in a week or two"

- the line "this is for my peoples who lost they grandmothers" on Mariah Carey's 'Bye Bye'
- Mariah's Jamaican accent on 'Cruise Control' (she says "ting"! and "di gals pon di block"!)
- the line "you know just what it be / I'm like the lottery" on Mariah's 'I'm That Chick'
- YAHHH TRICK YAHHH and indeed the entire career of Soulja Boy
- Britney demanding "intoxicate me, I'm a lush" on 'Radar' (funny cuz it's true)
- Fergie Ferg's diction, generally

and many many more!

you can probably tell that I have listened to nothing except E=MC² on loop recently

Ashlee has some v funny moments on her new album. "...or I'll BITE YR HEAD OFF!" and the entirety of 'Rule Breaker' for two.

oh yeah Avril's "motherfucking princess" line obv.

YAHHH TRICK YAHHH is very funny.

Junior Spesh!

Wiley is often very funny.

About half of Nellie McKay's back catalogue esp 'It's A Pose' and 'Clonie' - but I think the key here is that while she obviously means to be funny, and the way she presents her witticisms isn't unlike stand-up (or more aptly musical theatre, which is clearly a huge part of her background), she doesn't present it is STUPID OBVIOUS COMEDY YOU MUST LAUGH, it's wry and dry and lighter than that.

Sway's material works in the same way too. And that terrific Doctor/Davinche track on Run The Road 2, it's not unlike a comedy sketch but it works in so many more ways.

So is it just comedy set to music than enrages you, or comedy in general - which arguably suffers from the same "YOU MUST LAUGH" aspect, I guess?

I hate all comedy! I unreservedly and without exception hate comics, who just seem like very sad people to me, and I absolutely loathe the concept of stand-up (why do you need to specially go somewhere to laugh?? I don't get it).

I can't think of very many TV comedies I've ever enjoyed. I guess the type I hate the least is the generic US human interest comedy eg Friends, Frasier, none of which I'd ever actually make the effort to watch.

I do really like the kind of films which get called "black comedies" eg Heathers, The Opposite Of Sex and so on. Oh and I laughed pretty much throughout Mean Girls ♥

I think I'm actually much more tolerant of comedy set to music, but not when it comes to bloody office party novelties like the Wurzels which is just grim and depressing.

why do you need to specially go somewhere to laugh?
Wouldn't the same apply to dancing or eating or whatever? Thing of enjoyment, enjoyed with others.

I think bad stand up is far worse than bad-almost-any-other-form-of-entertainment-you-care-to-name, but has the capacity to be great e.g. the rambling, character-driven efforts of Dylan Moran etc (as opposed to the "And now: JOKES!" thing that, I dunno, Jimmy Carr or someone might peddle, horror horror).

Peep Show, have you seen it? I honestly can't understand not finding that hilarious. Esp if you liked Heathers et al.

I have seen Peep Show! It took me ages to realise it was meant to be a comedy. I don't think I enjoyed it much. It's the one with the total loser guys in it, yeah?

I guess I see dancing and eating as EVENTS which can be aided with professional help and setting, hence going out to clubs or restaurants, but laughter is just...sort of an organic spontaneous motor to conversation, which can happen anywhere and doesn't need props or professionals.

Ah, so like the difference between spontaneous sex and hiring a hooker?

Haaaha I had never put it like that before but that's EXACTLY IT.

Haha. Well then, I suppose I regard sex as personal and laughter as public, thus while I would pay a professional to tickle my funnybone, I wouldn't pay a professional to - well, best curtail that right there, but you see what I'm saying...

c i just emailed you re that query of ages back -- i hope not too late tho i fear it is, in which case massive apologies, the slugs programme just ate up time and pushed everything else out of my mind :(

Pulp in general: "I said I'll see what I can do", This is Hardcore, I spy...

rap inc.grime: has a lot of skit comedy, stuff done with "voice", cartoony characters, also use of speed of gag (pleasure in shared swiftness) (also true of some punk, except for the skits)
singer-songwriter (inc.some indie): can have witty lines or narratives
bosh and metal (and mariah): have this omg awesome exuberance don't-care-if-you-think-it's-silly thing goin
country, some indie: has a wry, self-mocking thing

can be found anywhere: just an observation you never saw elsewhere which makes you LOL

Yes, but skits are NEVER FUNNY.

i was bein a bit handwavey there -- i actually mean more the structure of rap songs with several voices as a conversation between sensibilities, which is often used to funny effect, than the in-between skits

Ah right, like sketch comedy, or "Don't You Want Me" (er this last may involve my definition of things that reflect someone's sense of humour IE basically everything).

Busted, McFly, Son O' Dork, Matt Willis On His Own etc. are often intentionally funny in quite a clever way.

Also of course Blink 182, Offspring and various wombs out of which the above developed. And their other offspring, Fall Out Boy etc. are (when they're not just being HORRIBLY WORDY) often funny. There's a Brand New song off 'Your+Favourite+Weapon' that has this really witty put-down I can't remember right now but which makes me laugh almost every time I hear it.

There's OutKast, too, although I don't know whether people would classify them as straight-out comedy. I personally wouldn't but I have heard it said.

And all the ones everyone else has mentioned. IMO, it shows a decent grasp of self to be able to be funny about something, lyrically, even if it's only an occasional line and the actual subject matter is very not-funny.

The Reverend Elder Beck's "Rock 'n' Roll Sermon" which is an old sermon about R&R being the devil's music and a great evil facing today's youth. It's backed with an electric guitar which gradually gets wilder and wilder until it is playing thrilling R&R.

Willie Tee's "Walking Up A One-Way Street", for two reasons:
1. "I'm all alone and blue as can be and I'm walking, walking, walking up a one-way street." There is no difference between a one-way street and any other kind if you are walking.
2. It's a sad heartbreak song, with a horn backing that bounces along exactly as cheerily (yes I've measured it) as the Archers theme.

with the exception of my very muffled point on bosh and jel-style dragonforce metal, martin's the first to raise the issue of humour in the non-vocal part of the music (as opposed to the lyric writing or vocal delivery or use of performance)

sorry i mean "use of persona"

I was going to suggest some house & techno actually - where a particularly cutesy or wobbly sound/riff comes in to rupture the straight 4/4 line; often in clubs I'll be bobbing around and this utterly ridiculous crazy sound will come in, and it'll make everyone present grin and giggle.

"Comedy song" (e.g. "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport") seems rare in modern day popular music, while funny song is quite common, Ashlee's "Outta My Head" being the obvious recent example. And it's on a theme that's a truly serious one for Ashlee (and presumably for a lot of people her age, where social role is still relatively unsettled, and finding one's true voice is still an issue)(not to say it's no issue for writers in their 50s).

What about Electric Six? Their first album is presented as if it is comedy, but the music definitely has a virulence that says "You can't just laugh this off."

But it's the MUSIC that's funny too.

I put 'Gay Bar' firmly in the category of "comedy songs which are awful, and make me scowl".

I feel like

dickmalone might be a good person to ask this of...

I'm a huge sucker for straight-up novelty songs, and most of the best ones that I've heard lately are coming from hip-hop, which can kind of have it both ways (e.g. YAHHHH not necessarily being considered a novelty/comedy song!).

I'd make an inclusion of Fiery Furnaces here, actually, just because their relationship to humor is very strange to me. It's maybe the only band I can think of where a sporadic connection to their music seems to be based mostly in different senses of humor. (Rare because it's hard enough to find ANY sense of humor, let alone one that I can't understand or click with -- I'm pretty open to hearing music as funny when it wants to be, provided it isn't trying way too hard [and failing].)

Not sure what series of typos produced that last parenthetical, but what I mean is that if a sense of humor is evident, I usually won't be put off by it being unlike my own sense of humor...

Laughter has been an important idea in much classical music, although its v self-consciously done -- you're never laughing but you're meant to twig that this section of a piece is meant to be funny.

Not explaining too well: its a particular idea of humour.

'Racy Lacey' by The Aloud is pretty funny.

'Sucka Mofo' by Northern State is hilarious, but since they're kind of a parody band anyway, I don't know if it falls into the "comedy songs" bracket...

Also 'Hey Boy' by Daphne and Celeste is funny by virtue of being their only non-comedy song, but also by including the line "talk to the hand 'cos the face ain't listenin'" in a ballad.

name songs which are funny which AREN'T comedy songs

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Funny songs which possibly are comedy

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o/t

In a sense, there is nothing that is not comedy.

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MUSIC which is funny

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