Ironic (song)

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"Ironic"

Single by Alanis Morissette
from the album Jagged Little Pill
Released	1996
Format	CD single
Genre	Rock
Label	Maverick
Writer(s)	Alanis Morissette, Glen Ballard
Producer(s)	Glen Ballard
Chart positions
#1 (Latvia) #4 (U.S.) #8 (Germany) #11 (UK)
Alanis Morissette singles chronology
"You Learn" (1996)	"Ironic" (1996)	"Head over Feet" (1996)

"Ironic" is a song written by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard, and produced by Ballard for Morissette's third album Jagged Little Pill (1995). It was released as the album's third single (fourth in the United States) in 1996 (see 1996 in music).

1 Style and theme
2 Lyrics controversy
3 Commercial release
4 Charts
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Style and theme

Musically, the song is a glossy take on a basic grunge music format, with delicate, sparsely-instrumented verses alternating with loud, aggressive chorus sections. Lyrically, it comprises a series of vignettes describing situations, each ending in the question "Isn't it ironic?" For example:

"A traffic jam when you're already late

A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

It's meeting the man of my dreams

And then meeting his beautiful wife

And isn't it ironic... don't you think?"

In 2004 Morissette amended a lyric as a show of her support for gay marriage:^[1]

"It's meeting the man of my dreams

And then meeting his beautiful husband"

She first sang the line at the fifteenth annual GLAAD Media Awards in March 2004.^[2] She recorded an acoustic version of the song with the amended lyric for an exclusive iTunes Music Store release. Another acoustic version was recorded for the album Jagged Little Pill Acoustic (2005), and a live version without the altered lyric is included on the album Alanis Unplugged (1999).

"Ironic" was on the list of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks, apparently due to the reference to an ironic plane crash.

[edit] Lyrics controversy

The song's usage of the word "ironic" attracted attention from people concerned with the correct use of the English language. Some situations that Morissette describes in the song are arguably examples of cosmic irony: events that, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, appear "as if in mockery of the fitness or rightness of things", such as "a death row pardon/two minutes too late". Others appear to be merely unfortunate (not even improbable or coincidental), such as "a black fly/in your Chardonnay" (*Footnote-The joke here is that Chardonnay is a white wine.) or "A traffic jam/when you're already late".

If one discounts cosmic irony, however, it is arguable that the song is ironic in and of itself - there is a fundamental incongruity in a song titled "Ironic" which ultimately contains no irony. During an appearance on Sessions@AOL, Morissette discussed "Ironic" and recounted an incident where "a woman came up to me in a bookstore bathroom and asked 'Is the ironic thing about "Ironic" that it's not actually filled with ironies?' I nodded and smiled."

An analysis of the ironic lack of irony in "Ironic" by Irish comedian Ed Byrne includes:

"There's nothing ironic about being stuck in a traffic jam when you're late for something. Unless you're a town planner. If you were a town planner and you were on your way to a seminar of town planners at which you were giving a talk on how you solved the problem of traffic congestion in your area, couldn't get to it because you were stuck in a traffic jam, that'd be well ironic."

"Rain on your wedding day is ironic only if marrying a weatherman and he set the date."

"A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break, that's inconsiderate office management. A no-smoking sign in a cigarette factory - irony."

The song and video were discussed at length in VH1's I Love the 90s. Mo Rocca commented in the broadcast, "Irony is the disparity between what you expect will happen, and what does happen. So raining on your wedding day isn't ironic, it's just crappy. It would have been ironic if she had lived in a place like Seattle, and traveled to the desert of Mexico for a wedding and it ended up raining there, but not in Seattle. Alanis always gets the last laugh though. We all sit here, saying her song isn't ironic, but in fact, that's pretty ironic that she wrote a song called 'Ironic' that wasn't really ironic. Those Canadians are pretty crafty."

"Ironic" was parodied in an MTV television commercial featuring Donal Logue as a cab-driver with his quadruplicate counterparts spouting similarly un-ironic ideas. (One sample: "It's like meeting the girl of your dreams and finding out she's five.")

[edit] Commercial release

Because "Ironic" was Morissette's first single to be given a commercial release in the United States, it was eligible to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and reached the top five; as of 2006 it is her highest peaking single there. "Ironic" became Morissette's second number-one hit on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and her first on the Top 40 Mainstream chart, as well as receiving regular recurrent rotation on Adult Top 40 radio stations. It reached the top ten in Germany and peaked just outside the top ten in the United Kingdom, becoming Morissette's first top twenty hit there.

The single's video was released in early 1996 and received heavy rotation on MTV and VH1. It was directed by Stephane Sednaoui and features Morissette driving a car. As the first chorus begins, the first of her three passengers is revealed: Morissette in a green sweater, riding in the back seat. Morissette portrays the other two passengers: one in a yellow sweater with braided hair, also in the back seat; and the other in a red sweater in the front passenger seat. At the end of the video, Morissette (the driver) exits her car after it stalls, but her passengers are nowhere to be seen.

The video was nominated for six MTV Video Music Awards in 1996, and won three: "Best Female Video", "Best New Artist", and "Best Editing". It was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award in the "Best Music Video - Short Form" category, but lost to The Beatles' "Free as a Bird". "Ironic" was one of few videos released with multi-colored Closed Captioning, a rare practice in North America. The verses appeared in light blue, and the chorus appeared in green. The musical notes that usually accompany song lyrics or background music appeared in purple.

In late 1996 a parody version of the video was released, and starred a young girl (named Allison Rheaume) who mimicked Morissette's actions and wardrobe while lip syncing to the original song. At the end, a man sees her in the car and tells her to stop fooling around. This version of the video received mild airplay as a novelty on VH1 and was, for a time, the only video for "Ironic" available for viewing in Yahoo!'s LAUNCHcast music video library. It was included on the Morissette CD/DVD The Collection (2005).

[edit] Charts

Chart (1996)	Peak position
German Singles Chart	8
UK Singles Chart	11
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	4
U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary	28
U.S. Billboard Adult Top 40	5
U.S. Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks	18
U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks	1
U.S. Billboard Rhythmic Top 40	11
U.S. Billboard Top 40 Adult Recurrents	1
U.S. Billboard Top 40 Mainstream	1