Merry Melodies

The idea of humorous so “novelty” songs is a fairly old one. Not too surprising considering the important role both music and humor have played in human culture since time immemorial. Rather than being seen as stupid or inferior, musical comedy stylists like Alfred “Weird Al” Yankovic, are doing something both interesting and difficult. Combining melody and humor in a hybrid that works on both levels. As with many things, there are different ways to go about this combination of hilarity and harmony. Many choose the route of Parody, creating works that mimic and poke fun at existing culture. Others go for over laughs, often using irony such as The Arrogant Worms. Tracks such as "The Mounted Animal Nature Trail", "Canada Is Really Big", "History Is Made By Stupid People" and "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" being far too overtly silly to ever be taken seriously. Others like to be more subtle about it such as Tom Lehrer. A Mathematician by training, Lehrer is also an accomplished pianist and song-writer, most famous for ditties like "We’ll All Go Together We Go", the must upbeat song about nuclear annihilation aside from "99 Red Balloons", as well as pre-dating it by a good twenty years. While most people don’t recognize him as such, the Hippie-Era Troubadour, and thorn in Bob Dylan’s side, Phil Ochs could be very droll indeed. Many of his songs featured the "peace and love" themes of his contemporaries, though in slightly inverted, ironic forms. A prime example of this is "Love Me I’m A Liberal", a vicious attack on the complacency and hypocrisy among so-called "Liberals" of the era. Choice lines include: "I cried when they shot Medgar Evers/Tears ran down my spine/And I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy, as though I’d lost a father of mind/But Malcolm X got what was coming, he got what he asked for this time/So love me, love me, love me, I’m a Liberal."

In the modern context, musical comedy performers tends to combine these elements and adding their own twist to them. 
An example of the old-style parody is Australian funny-man Tim Minchin. Known for his well crafted, funny songs, Minchin is a bit subtler than some, the main joke of his act being Minchin’s persona himself, riffing on the image of the over the top rock star.
Something epitomized by tracks such as "Dark Side" which pokes fun at "intense" bands like Korn, "Cheese" which is an epic Rock Anthem about lactose intolerance and "Canvas Bags", a clever and spot-on parody of "issue" songs for which the likes of Bob Geldof an Bono are infamous. He is also not afraid to make fun of himself, as in songs such as "Three Mintue Song" and  "Rock & Roll Nerd", the thin veil coming down when he says near the end: “he writes in third-person/In an attempt to sound more Rock & Roll but he suspects it’s not workin’”. He also changes it up, tracks such as "Perfect", "Fat Children" and "The Fence", while somewhat funny also carrying some heartfelt messages.

Somewhat less heartfelt is the output of the British band Half Man Half Biscuit. Founded in 1984 by Nigel Blackwell, HMHB are one of the longest lasting novelty acts going. True to their name, the band’s songs tend towards the goofy but not in the way one might think. Supremely talented for a band of their type, the band have shown great versatility over their 20-plus year career, veering form what they call “Death Folk” to straight Punk to a fascinating hybrid of Rock & Roll that sounds half way between the Beatles and The Smiths. The secret of their humor lies in the song titles and lyrics, not in terms of obvious jocularity but in seeming randomness. Song titles include "Mr. Cave’s A Window Cleaner Now", "Joy Division Oven Gloves", "Tending the Wrong Grave For 23 Years" and "Irk the Purists". There have also been adventures into the deep dark with songs like "The Coroner’s Footnote" and "RSVP". Though they have also been known to go into the realms of the surreal with tracks such as "Fix it so she dreams of me" and "What Is Chatteris". "Fix It So She Dreams of Me" comes across as a sort of fever dream, involving Fantasy and British History. The very first lines are: "There’s a girl I know who rolls her eyes, at the Gak-Won Acolytes/Underneath her bed their lies, a collection of Amorites/She lives somewhere you wouldn’t wanna get stuck/It can’t be found in the Doomsday Book/Cromwell’s troops never billeted there/Dick Turpin never had Bess shoed where, this girl I know rolls her eyes at the Gak-Won Acolytes". A bit more earth-bound, "What is Chatteris" combines a heart-broken, anti-love song and a sort of promotion brochure for the real-life market town of Chatteris England. The second verse expresses this most clearly: "Car crime’s low, gun-crime’s lower, the Town Hall band C.D. it’s a grower/You never hear of folk gettin’ knocked on the bonce, though there was a drive-by shouting once/But there’s a brass band everywhere and I don’t drive so I don’t care, as the nightingale sang in Barkley Square, what is Chatteris if you’re not there?"

On the more traditional side is Comedian and Musician Bill Bailey. A classically trained musician with perfect-pitch as well as a renowned Comedy actor best known for his roles as book store employee Manny Bianco in Black Books and comic-book store manager Bilbo in Spaced, he regularly combines the two both on his cancelled-too-soon series Is It Bill Bailey? and his critically acclaimed stage-shows such as Part Troll, Dandelion Mind and Tinselworm. While his shows are chest-achingly funny, Bailey maintains that he does not really tell jokes, going so far as to claim at one show that there were only three jokes in the entire thing. Technically this is true, as a "joke" is a fairly specific mode of humor. It is perfectly possible to be funny without actually telling a joke in the strictest sense. Andy Kaufman would be so proud.