In my last column I asked readers to send ideas for worthwhile cultural activities for students to get involved in on campus. The responses didn’t exactly flood my mailbox, so I think I’ll hold off on that one for a while. Until then, I’m just going to write more crap about musicians nobody has ever heard about. We do enjoy our esoteric ramblings here at the Pulse desk.
So what’s the question of the day? Ah, here we go: “Does humor belong in music?” Those of you who understand the reference inherent in that question already know the answer, but for the rest of you it’s time to sit back while pompous ol’ professor Nyburg begins the lecture.
Humor and recorded music go way back, but for me the show really gets on the road with Spike Jones. Through the 1940s and ’50s, he and his band created some of the best novelty songs around, performing a calculated deconstruction of popular songs of the era. Rather than just rewrite the song with funny lyrics, the band would instead recreate it from the ground up, mercilessly deflating it of all pomp and pretense. To this day it is no longer possible to take a wide array of classic pop songs seriously due to the damage Jones and Co. did to them. (“My Old Flame” done in a maniacal Peter Lorre voice, “You Always Hurt the One You Love” done with explanatory sound effects and “The William Tell Overture” done as a horse track announcer’s narrative.)
Jones’ work stands out because it remains fresh over repeated listenings. Most comedy music is good for a laugh or two the first
couple of times, but nobody except Dr. Demento sits around listening to it all day. Who out there still owns all of those “Weird” Al Yankovic albums they bought in middle school? You loser.
What Jones discovered is that comedic music could hold its own if the music itself were well executed. If you actually listen to the music itself, never mind the parody, it sounds tight and inventive. The rhythms are constructed out of the oddest percussion instruments ever recorded, with cowbells, gun shots, tin pans and a wide array of human and animal sounds all blasting out in time to the beat. Listening to the original songs alongside Jones’ take on them is remarkable. For anyone interested in picking up something by Jones, I would recommend Proper’s excellent “Strictly for Music Lovers” compilation. With four discs of about 24 songs apiece, it’s as close to comprehensive as anyone is likely to find. It also has a relatively low retail price for such a collection.
This isn’t the only route to quality comedy in music. Another performer from the same era as Jones laid out a good way to make humorous music with real lasting power. Tom Lehrer was an adept songwriter who wrote satirical vignettes about drug dealers and homicidal maniacs at a time when Marilyn Monroe’s chest was the most scandalous thing out there. Lehrer took classic folk and pop melodies and turned them inside out with his misogynist world view. While the shock of songs such as “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” and “The Masochism Tango,” they still retain their humor thanks to Lehrer’s skill at crafting ingeniously clever lyrics. Lehrer’s recordings have all been released on CD and are readily available just about anywhere.
Both of these styles have immediate followers. During the 1960s, there were two groups around that made truly excellent, and subsequently offensive, musical comedy. On the East coast there were the Fugs (pronounced like the expletive, only a little gruffer). Made up of a revolving list of New York City poets and musicians,
the band made some of the funniest protest music of its time, as well as a few other nice satirical jabs at the Man.
Songs such as “Kill for Peace” might have lost the context of
the Vietnam conflict, but they still seem remarkably relevant today. So much for the power of protest, but still some damn fine work. Some of the Fugs’ tunes still can’t be played on the radio between
6 a.m. and 10 p.m., which is some pretty good standing power. I
recommend “The Fugs Second
Album” as the must-have of
their catalog.
The other group is (bet you
saw this coming) Frank Zappa
and the Mothers of Invention. The Mothers took the Spike Jones approach to musical comedy, throwing out satirical jabs at modern society between passages of remarkably complex music. Even though the subjects of some of the satire might have long passed from memory, the music still contains one hell of a punch. Their third album, “We’re Only In It for the Money,” is one of the best comedy albums of any sort ever released.
These days there is some pretty good musical comedy out there, but much of this is in the area of song parody, which means it has the shelf life of a slab of pork left out in the sun. Some bands stick out though, specifically Ween. The group has also taken the Spike Jones route, crafting borderline-brilliant pop parodies that actually work on their own as music. Their most recent studio album, “Quebec,” has its share of gems. Personal favorite: The peppy lounge pop of “Zoloft,” a song about the title happy pill.
So it seems unlikely that humor and music will be separated anytime soon. Not while there
is still some pomp in need of
deflatin’.

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