[Skub]

I think we may be off on a tangent when speaking of poetry. Great poetry is like any great art,there are so many facets and aspects to bring the listener/reader back so they may further muse upon other layers.
Because poetry is deep,the fun isn't over in one shot,even if the underlying theme is humour. For this very reason it should work in song form,though the music and performance has some considerable boots to fill.

This is different from comedy or novelty songs.

Cool poem,GB.

[nooms]

so, i went to the web..
top ten british comedy songs

http://listverse.com/2007/08/31/top-10-british-comedy-songs/

1. The Fastest Milkman in the West – Benny Hill
2. ‘Ello John, Got a New Motor – Alexei Sayle
3. With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock – George Formby
4. Every Sperm is Sacred – Monty Python
5. The Chicken Song – Spitting Image
6. The Ying Tong Song – The Goons
7. Jilted John – Graham Fellows
8. Do the Funky Gibbon – The Goodies
9. Lily the Pink – Scaffold
10. Divorce – Billy Connelly

i reckon number 4 is a real gem id forgotten about

[Paulski]

Funny you should say that - this is the Ogden Nash poem that I recently set to music and performed.  Sadly I don't have a recording of it, but do you think it works as a comic song?

No. It's cute and clever, but not funny. There's the rub, isn't it? What is funny is subjective..

[PopTodd]

2 words:
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

[Viscount Cramer & His Orchestra]

Yes, the Bonzos.....they were good, but how many times do you want to listen to 'My Pink Half Of The Drainpipe'?

[tina m]

thank you skub for taking on board some of what i said in my rant & i was very flattered by how you described my music 

[PopTodd]

Yes, the Bonzos.....they were good, but how many times do you want to listen to 'My Pink Half Of The Drainpipe'?

I listen to them periodically. Still. And I love them.
Also... "The Sound of Music" STILL makes me laugh out lout each and every time that I hear it, just like it did the first time.

[Arkwright]

I don't really have anything constructive to add to this debate other than to say 'The Goodies - Nothing To Do With Us' album from 1976 is in my top ten albums of all time and I will fight anyone under the Queensbury rules who criticise it in any way  

Here's a track to rival Bohemian Rhapsody...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2_TpUbwxw1Q

[JonathanSmith]

This is such a great thread, well done Chickenfeet! I think there are loads of really valid points. I think there are levels within everything, and comedy is perhaps more unforgiving as a medium; I think those who do satire well - Tom Lehrer, Flanders and Swann, no one's mentioned Randy Newman or Jake Thackray yet! - that stuff bears repeat listening. Great writers like John Prine, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Queen, often drop humour in but are not really 'comedy'.

But maybe comedy songs are not always best represented by recordings, but rather by live performance, so they don't have to be listened to over and over again.  So often songs have turned up for one off performances on shows like TW3 or That's Life (or the Muppets), the equivalent of seeing Marie Lloyd in the music hall. Victoria Wood probably didn't sell many albums, I'm guessing? But people know her and love her for the stuff that they may have only been exposed to once or twice (apart from the immortal Freda and Barry, of course)! And I guess the best comedy songs do more than just make us laugh - possibly Benny Hill achieved this with the hard-done-by hero Ernie!

PS great first response by Skub!

PPS I think my next posting will be a children's song! Ay caramba!

[GuyBarry]

I think those who do satire well - Tom Lehrer, Flanders and Swann, no one's mentioned Randy Newman or Jake Thackray yet! - that stuff bears repeat listening.

"The purpose of satire, it has been rightly said, is to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cosy half-truth. And our job, as I see it, is to put it back again" - Michael Flanders from At the Drop of Another Hat

I agree entirely with what you say, though I have a problem with Jake Thackray.  He's a very good craftsman, but I grew up with his performances on "That's Life" and I always found him unspeakably gloomy.  Maybe I was too young to appreciate him as a child, but I've listened again more recently and he doesn't sound much better.  And some of his stuff is appallingly sexist - "On Again! On Again!" in particular.  You wouldn't get away with that now.

From that generation, let's not forget Richard Stilgoe, still with us at 73.  And from an earlier generation, Paddy Roberts - the name probably doesn't mean much to many people nowadays but my mother absolutely loved him.  Check out "L'Anglais Avec Son Sang-froid" if you don't know his work.

So often songs have turned up for one off performances on shows like TW3 or That's Life (or the Muppets), the equivalent of seeing Marie Lloyd in the music hall.

Indeed.  Mitch Benn's songs for "The Now Show" on Radio 4 are a case in point - written for one-off topical purposes and irrelevant the following week.  Jeremy Nicholas used to do some hilarious stuff on Radio 4's "Stop the Week" in the 70s and 80s, but does anyone remember any of it now?  (Does anyone even know who he is now?)

Victoria Wood probably didn't sell many albums, I'm guessing?

Did she even record any?  As far as I know all her stuff was on TV or video, or performed live.

[MartynRich]

Surely the title of this thread is an attempt at ironic comedy in itself?

[Sing4me88]

I think a more salient matter of semantics relating to the thread is what is meant by 'taken seriously' rather than 'comedy song' or 'satire'.

Comedy songs can indeed be 'taken seriously' if that refers to being acknowledged for their genius and being universally known. The Ballad of Barry and Freda and Ernie are perfect examples - there is no doubting the sheer genius - musical and lyrical - behind these songs and they are tracks that everyone has heard and seems to know. However if by 'taken serious' we mean will they make a load of money today will they top the Billboard 100 and are they what A&R are looking for then the answer is probably no. There is money to be made from them for sure, but it's very niche and probably restricted to acts like Kevin Bloody Wilson and Roy Chubby Brown rather than megastar artists like Rihanna or Bruno Mars.

But hey if the end goal of writing is just for the fun and joy of it rather than 'making it' as a songwriter then comedy songs seem like the perfect artistic expression of this - fill yer boots I say....

[Viscount Cramer & His Orchestra]

Absolutely Martyn.

[Boydie]

This is similar to the "when does rock become prog rock"

It is very hard to explain or categorise but in my mind I can very quickly identify a "comedy" song, a "novelty" song and a "fun" song - but would find it very difficult to explain exactly why, and I am sure my own way of categorising may be different from the next person

Here are some examples of where I am coming from....

Comedy
The fastest milman in the west - Benny Hill
Every sperm is sacred - Month Phthon
The ballad of Barry and Freda - Victoria Wood

Novelty
The Chicken Song
The Yong Tong Song
'Ello John got a new motor

Fun
Love Shack - B52s
Time warp - Rocky Horror
Superman Dance (Black Lace)

[The S]

For me it only works with any degree of longevity,if humorous lyric is used in a song,but the whole song isn't necessarily comedy. Some Leonard Cohen song lyrics make me laugh/smile.

Getting away with being relentlessly miserable in the context of a song is much easier than 3 minutes of 'now you must laugh'. Plus you can never tell the same joke to the same people twice,or they'll need to harm you physically and with great authority. 

This about sums it up!

For me, direct comedy/novelty songs don't work. I don't know why, it's just me I guess. I have never liked them and probably never will. I just don't look for laughter in music, I get that at other places. Not to say I don't appreciate a witty lyric because I absolutely do, but I believe that's an entirely different thing compared to a song written with the sole intent to make me laugh.

Oh, and to contradict myself immediately here's a song I DO like, being from Sweden I don't know the words or what it's about but it's very beautiful and I used to sing it to my oldest daughter when she was younger.