Does Humour Belong in Music?

[chris_b]

There are many good humorous songs.

 

By Monty Python, Charlie Drake, Tommy Cooper, Bernard Cribbins, Paddy Roberts to name but a few.

[louisthebass]

This:

Jazz club - desolate shore - fast show - YouTube

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by louisthebass

[lowdown]

 

[BreadBin]

Leonard Cohen is hilarious. 

 

Edit - I should say was, really...

Edited March 11, 2022 by BreadBin

[Cosmo Valdemar]

I wonder if anybody on here thinks it doesn't. 

[Dankology]

I seem to have the same attitude to humour in music as I do in life: I much prefer listening to someone whose wit and intelligence shines through rather than someone reciting jokes, desperate to amuse.

 

Stuff like Tom Waits, the Fall, Leonard Cohen, the Hold Steady and Arctic Monkeys could never be mistaken for comedy acts but I reckon the humour bleeds into a lot of what they do. Having said that, a lot of my favourite stuff can be entirely humourless (Joy Division, Van Morrison)...

 

I'm just trying to visualize the Venn diagram of people who I find funny, smart and have similar taste in music to me - it looks more like a series of tightly concentric circles 🙃

[Nail Soup]

8 minutes ago, Dankology said:

Stuff like Tom Waits, the Fall, Leonard Cohen, the Hold Steady and Arctic Monkeys could never be mistaken for comedy acts but I reckon the humour bleeds into a lot of what they do. Having said that, a lot of my favourite stuff can be entirely humourless (Joy Division, Van Morrison)...

Yes, for me the wry humour snuck in is better than going for the belly laugh.

Like The Smiths.... supposedly miserable, but some dry humour in there.

[Nail Soup]

43 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

I wonder if anybody on here thinks it doesn't. 

I was wondering the same myself 😉

To be honest I thought some miserable so-and-so would have come out and admitted it by now !

[PaulWarning]

I (with my other half) do open mics, the most popular song by quite a distance is Jilted John, never seem to hear it on the Radio these days 😄

[steantval]

The Divine Comedy.

[Earbrass]

 

[Rich]

7 minutes ago, steantval said:

The Divine Comedy.

Yes. My favourite line in any song ever: "but it's hard to get by when your àrse is the size of a small country".

[redbandit599]

25 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

I (with my other half) do open mics, the most popular song by quite a distance is Jilted John, never seem to hear it on the Radio these days 😄

 I was coming on here just to post this, and just because you beat me to it, I can't see any reason not to 😁 Genius...

[EssentialTension]

 

[PaulWarning]

15 minutes ago, redbandit599 said:

 I was coming on here just to post this, and just because you beat me to it, I can't see any reason not to 😁 Genius...

 

I notice you didn't post the one with a certain DJ introducing it 😄

[Skinnyman]

Humour can also convey a message

 

 

[SteveXFR]

Of course humour belongs in music. I think there's a place for everything in music. Humour, politics, emotions, hate, love, religion, anti religion. Its all good as long as its done well.

On of my favourite bands for humour in music is NOFX.

 

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

Yes. My favourite line in any song ever: "but it's hard to get by when your àrse is the size of a small country".

I’ve always loved that one too, though my ultimate fave is from The Macc Lads

 

She said I were good lookin and I looked I bit like George Michael.

But she didn’t want a f*** cos she were on her menstrual cycle.

 

 

[MacDaddy]

NSFW

 

Another favourite

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheRev]

Yes.

It would be dead boring otherwise.

NSFW, etc.

 

 

[Norris]

XTC are/were fabulous wordsmiths, and many of their songs make me smile 

[pigface]

Indeed it does. Alice's Restaurant is a great example IMO.

[skankdelvar]

Personally, I'm hanging on for Billie Eilish's peppy cover of Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West).

 

"...a stale pork pie caught him in the eye and Ernie bit the dust"

 

 

[leschirons]

We wouldn't even ask if humour belonged in poetry, and that's all that lyrics are, poetry. 

 

Humour belongs everywhere and in everything. It's just an alternate view to the serious stuff.

 

If the OP really meant to ask "do humourous lyrics detract from the actual music?"  I think not, however, I  do think that to write music that works with, and compliments lyrical humour is damn clever.

[Oomo]

I couldn't imagine Primus without humour.