Maybe I’m easily amused, but Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver” always cracked me up--in a cosmically conscious way, of course. I’ll try to restrain these more quirky impulses, but for your edification and entertainment, I’ve provided a compilation of lyrics or songs that I have found humorous or witty, snort-worthy or yuk-some. The listing reflects both whole songs and/or partial lyrics I find to my liking. Entries are subjective, unorganized, non-exhaustive, not definitive and not in any particular order. You are cordially invited, therefore, to fill in the many gaps--“Dream Weaver” included, should you so desire.
“Mystery Dance” by Elvis Costello.
Romeo is not only restless, as the song mentions, but he’s a little confused:
Well I was down under the covers in the middle of the night,
Tryin' to discover my left foot from my right.
You can see those pictures in any magazine.
But what's the use of looking when you don't know what they mean.
"Is It Really So Strange?" By the Smiths.
Romeo leaves home, continues to be confused:
I left the South
I travelled North
I got confused - I killed a horse
I can't help the way that I feel.
“I Wanna Get Married” by Nellie McKay.
Whoa, Nellie! The trouble with McKay is in choosing which of her many witty and wise lyrics to use--and I haven’t even heard the new CD yet. Here she is in a tongue-in-cheek Doris Day guise:
I wanna get married
yes, I need a spouse
I want a nice Leave it to Beaverish
Golden retriever and a little white house
I wanna get married
I need to cook meals
I wanna pack you cute little lunches
For my Brady bunches
Then read Danielle Steele …
…I will never tarry
I'm not even torn
I wanna get married
that's why I was born.
“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” by Tom Lehrer.
BYOC--Bring Your Own Cyanide:
So if Sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon.
It just takes a smidgin!
To poison a pigeon in the park.
“Frank’s Wild Years” by Tom Waits.
There’s a good life lesson in here somewhere, somehow, as Waits give form to dysfunction. But of course, Tom would always “rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy”:
Frank settled down in the Valley,
and he hung his wild years on a
nail that he drove through his
wife's forehead.
He sold used office furniture out
there on San Fernando Road and
assumed a $30,000 loan at
15 1/4 % and put a down payment
on a little two bedroom place.
His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
Made good bloody-marys, kept her mouth
shut most of the time, had a little Chihuahua
named Carlos that had some kind of skin
disease and was totally blind.
They had a thoroughly modern kitchen;
self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)
Frank drove a little sedan.
They were so happy.
One night Frank was on his way home
from work, stopped at the liquor store,
picked up a couple of Mickey's Big Mouth’s.
Drank 'em in the car on his way to the
Shell station; he got a gallon of gas in a can.
Drove home, doused everything in
the house, torched it.
Parked across the street laughing,
watching it burn, all Halloween
orange and chimney red.
Frank put on a top forty station,
got on the Hollywood Freeway
headed North.
Never could stand that dog.
Article comments
1 - J. P. Spencer
Great compendium. Isn't the Paul Westerberg song called "Mannequin Shop"?
How can any funny list exist without Jonathan Richman? "Abominible Snowman In The Market", "Dodge Veg-O-Matic", "I Was Dancing AT The Lesbian Bar". Great stuff.
I'll also add "Smiffy's Glass Eye" & "I'll Regret It All In The Morning" by Richard & Linda Thompson. I love the verse in "..Regret"
"The Years have left their mark
Your skin feels smooth as bark
As we shiver in the dark
I'll regret it all in the morning"
The hangover song to beat all hangover songs.
2 - Lisa Hoover
Great list, GoHah. And here I thought I was the only person alive who knew the skunk song. I used to listen to it on a compilation LP I had in the 70s. It played right after "It Never Rains in Southern California" and right before that damn someone-left-my-cake-out-in-the-rain song. Seriously.
3 - GoHah
JP--great suggestions, and yes I stand corrected: it is "Mannequin Shop."
Lisa: I've run into the same "wha??" reaction to Dead Skunk even though it was at least a mid-sized hit--unfortunately I don't think it gets much play on the oldies stations. The absurd "MacArthur Park," melting cake and all, is also a good candidate.
4 - Vern Halen
Dead Skunk unknown?!? I think even my parents knew that song, it was so big.
5 - larry
i cant convince my m gran grandkids this was was really a hit song! larry
6 - Vern Halen
Oh right - what about those Jim Stafford classics - My Girl Bill, Wildwood Weed, Swamp Witch, Spiders & Snakes?
7 - Baronius
Oh Billie it's fresh in my memory
The night that it had to be done
You with your pick axe and scissors
And you with your shovel and gun
And I liked your late husband Donald
But such torture his memory brings
All sliced up and sealed tight in baggies
Guess love makes you do funny things
- Alice Cooper, "Millie and Billie"
8 - Temple Stark
I used too loveher, but I had too kill her
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I had to put her
Six feet under
And I can still hear her complain
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I knew I miss her
So I had to keep her
She's buried right in my back yard
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
She bitched so much
She drove me nuts
And now I'm happier this way
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I had to put her
Six feet under
And I can still hear her complain
I always thought that Guns N Roses song was funny, with a dark undercurrent, of course.
9 - GoHah
Baronius & Temple: both of your great contributions reminded me of "Happy Boy" by the Beat Farmers (dark humor could and should be a category of its own--hmmm...). Anyway, a little of "Happy Boy":
My little dog spot got hit by a car
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
Put his guts in a box and put him in a drawer
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
CHORUS
Well I'm a happy boy (happy boy)
Well I'm a happy boy (happy boy)
Oh ain't it good when things are going your way, hey hey?
I forgot all about it for a month and a half
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
I looked in the drawer and started to laugh
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
CHORUS
10 - gonzo marx
from the album "Rock and Roll" by Motorhead, there is a spoken word bit done by Michael Palin...
"oh Lord,who has made the blades of grass, and the little tiny things that creep therein...
who has made the cricket bats, and hanky's...
who has made....
......
......
ALL things...
bless thou these people from Motorhead,
so they may verily endow the people of this world with such Pleasure and Enjoyment that they may increase fourfold their already large sums of loot,
and thus enable them, in this lifetime, to buy at least one other pair of trousers each...
oh Lord, who has looked upon the trouserless, and had compassion...
thank you"
Excelsior!
11 - Temple Stark
OMG - never heard that one.
Gee-whiz as they say LOL.
Life, Sex Death from CD "The Silent Majority" (which I still own)Some fuckin' shit ass stole my money
Some fuckin' shit ass
It ain't funny
Well they'll take your soul if you let them and they'll take your money too
Don't you go, don't you let 'em
Cause they'll split your pride in two
So help me
What will it take to feel love instead of hate/pain
What will it take to make peace the word for today
Some fuckin' shit ass
Thinks he's godly
Some fuckin' shit ass
Crashed my party
'Cause there are no morals or ethics and there's just no getting through
Don't engage in their methods
'Cause they'll split your pride in two
So help me.
12 - Temple Stark
11 referring to #9
Course there's all the Spinal Tap songs, funnier than Dr. Domento andf Weird Al (!) combined.
13 - Matthew T. Sussman
So we're going down the "funny song" route?
Henry Phillips, help me out!
14 - GoHah
gonzo & Temple: interesting twists on sanctimonious sources--I can see Palin assuming reverent tone, and I like the "Life, Sex, Death" use of the Carole King lyrics from "You've Got a Friend" ("They'll hurt you and desert you/Well they'll take your soul if you let them")altered and used for a more skewed purpose.
15 - GoHah
Matthew: major oversight on my part. I feel culturally deprived.
16 - Scott Butki
Good list. Thanks for pointing me to it.
I saw Nellie McKay live at South by Southwest two years ago and she is just as deadpan brilliantly funny in person.
It was a live show in a record store and she had a sing along then intentionally had everyone move out of harmony - sort of orchstrated chaos. Very cool.
Did you hear the controversy about her album - the label doesn't want to put it out?
17 - GoHah
Scott--about Nellie McKay, I read something about the issue being the length of the album. But I thought that the record company won out and is releasing it at about ten minutes shorter than Nellie desired (turn around fair play?: she's the one who won out on her first release and persuaded the company to put it out on two discs even though it probably could've been packed on one CD). Sorry I can't remember the details, but, being too cheap on a particular day, I hastily scanned the story in a music mag at the newstand without buying it. But there is a review of the new CD--with a "great" four-star review--in the new Blender, if that's any indication of its release status.
18 - Rodney Welch
Well, I went to the doctor
I said, "I'm feeling kind of rough"
"Let me break it to you, son --
Your shit's fucked up."
I said, "My shit's fucked up?
Well, I don't see how--"
He said, "The shit that used to work--
It won't work now."
I had a dream
Ah, shucks, oh, well
Now it's all fucked up
It's shot to hell
Yeah, yeah, my shit's fucked up
It has to happen to the best of us
The rich folks suffer like the rest of us
It'll happen to you
That amazing grace
Sort of passed you by
You wake up every day
And you start to cry
Yeah, you want to die
But you just can't quit
Let me break it on down:
It's the fucked up shit
--Warren Zevon, circa 2000, accurately predicting his demise three years later.
19 - GoHah
Rodney--and from 2002:
I was staying at the Westin
I was playing to a draw
When in walked Charlton Heston
With the Tablets of the Law
He said, "It's still the Greatest Story"
I said, "Man, I'd like to stay
But I'm bound for glory
I'm on my way
My ride's here..."
20 - Scott Butki
There was a story in the New York Times this week with McKay saying that while there are copies avaialble already to the media (i.e. Blender) the label was balking on the album's full release.
Apparently she had just about had her way with
getting it released to the satisfaction of her and the label.. then there was label reshuffling and the result was they said we're not gonna play games with you anymore, little girl.
So it's back in doubt.
I'll try to find a link for more details if you are interested.
21 - Sara
wtf?
22 - Scott Butki
Ah,
I think this could be like the Fiona Apple thing where there's two versions resulting - one on the
web and one official.
Personally that makes me want to hear both copies and compare - something I've been meaning to do with Apple's.
23 - GoHah
Scott, thanks for the startling update--I think Columbia will regret their decision. To be continued...
24 - diana hartman
tom lehrer is the best...glad to see he got mention...
my favs are the "irish ballad" and "the vatican rag"...
25 - Scott Butki
you're welcome. I just hope we get to hear the full thing