Parody music

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Parody of Star Wars: Episode 1
Parody of Star Wars: Episode 1

Parody music, or musical parody, involves changing or recycling existing musical ideas or lyrics - or copying the peculiar style of a composer or artist, or even a general style of music. Although the result is often very funny, and this is the usual intent - the term "parody" in musical terms has a slightly different meaning from the general term, as it includes some kinds of quite serious (or at least not intentionally humorous) re-use of music. Parody of music has probably existed as long as music itself, but in the 20th century it has emerged as a category of music in itself.

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[edit] History

[edit] Pre-20th century

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, parody masses were written using tunes from folk music and other sources. Later popular song returned the complement, borrowing hymn tunes and other church music and substituting secular (sometimes obscene) words. John Brown's Body - the great marching song of the American Civil War, was based on the tune to a hymn - and was in turn "borrowed back" for a new hymn. This continued into the first world war, with many of the soldiers' songs being based on hymn tunes (for instance When this bloody war is over - to the tune of What a friend we have in Jesus).

Folk song is as often as not written to existing tunes, or slight modifications of them. This is another very old (and usually non-humorous) kind of musical parody that still continues - for instance Bob Dylan took the tune of the old slave song No more auction block for me as the basis for Blowing in the wind. Some folk tunes have been recycled many times - for instance the melody of Auld Lang Syne.

Classical composers often borrowed folk and popular tunes, as well as making fun of each other's musical styles. Bach and his contemporaries were very fond of the quodlibet - taking popular tunes and playing them in grotesque ways - often combining several of them at once. Haydn (who had a very strong sense of musical humour) was notorious for taking popular melodies and giving them mock serious treatment. Sir Arthur Sullivan was a master of parody of other composers' styles - in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas he parodies at different times the styles of Mendelssohn, Wagner, and even Handel, although (usually) avoiding the stealing of actual musical ideas. As might have been expected, his own music has been parodied ever since.

The 18th century ballad opera - which included satirical songs set to popular melodies of the time, involved some of the broadest (and funniest) musical parody of all time.

[edit] 1900-1959

In the 1940s, Spike Jones and his City Slickers parodied popular music in their own unique way, not by changing lyrics, but adding wild sound effects and comedic stylings to formerly staid old songs such as "Cocktails for Two" and "April Showers."

The 1957 musical Jamaica amusingly parodies the then very fashionable commercial variety of Calypso music. Another musical using a heavy dose of parody was the 1959 show Little Mary Sunshine, which poked merciless fun at old-fashioned operetta.

[edit] 1960-1980

Stan Freberg created parodies of popular songs in the 1950s and 1960s, mocking the musical conventions of the day, such as Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" in which the vocalist rips his jeans from too much hip-swiveling and drowns in reverberative sound effects at the end. Another major parodist was Allan Sherman, who began making hit records with parodies such as the now-classic "Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp)" (to the tune of Amilcare Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" from the opera La Gioconda) and "When I Was A Lad" (after Gilbert & Sullivan's "Ruler of the Queen's Navee" from "HMS Pinafore"). Yet another parodist was the self-described "piano-wielding fugitive from Harvard", Tom Lehrer. A group of current and former U.S. Congress staff members based in Washington, DC created a group known as the Capitol Steps which began recording and performing song parodies ridiculing politicians, public figures, fads and current events, and still do so today, performing on National Public Radio and at concert halls and other venues nationwide.

[edit] 1980-Present

The most successful parodist of popular music is probably "Weird Al" Yankovic, who is now in his third decade of writing song parodies. He got his start sending tapes to be played by Barret Hansen, AKA Dr. Demento, on his nationally syndicated radio show. Seattle, WA-based disc jockey and longtime parodist Bob Rivers also records parodies of hit songs from a variety of genres and periods satirizing current events. Also dabbling in topical parodies is Buffalo, New York-based humorist Mark Russell, who appears several times a year on PBS television. The New York, NY performing troupe Forbidden Broadway annually parodies the Great White Way's most popular current musicals and their songs on stage and recordings.

And in the science fiction fan community of today, filk music thrives as a source of both parodies and original music, as it has since at least the 1930s, with artists such as Leslie Fish, Tom Smith and Frank Hayes gleefully adapting tunes from many genres to their own varied interests.

Even original artists of the caliber of Tom Lehrer have been known to dip a toe in the waters of musical parody; Lehrer's famous song "The Elements" adapts a tune from Gilbert & Sullivan to the periodic table, and more recently he turned "That's Entertainment" into a précis on his real vocation, "That's Mathematics" (carefully altering the melody to avoid litigation). Other well-known parody artists include Sheb Wooley, Tim Cavanagh, Flanders and Swann, Richard Stilgoe, Da Yoopers, Pinkard & Bowden, Carla Ulbrich and Chris Moyles.

One unusual form of recent musical parody can be found in the works of Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. What is unusual about these works is that they are parodies not in the traditional sense of someone like Yankovic, but rather derive their humor from exactly the opposite means. While traditional parody puts new lyrics to largely unchanged music, Cheese keeps the lyrics intact but alters the musical style, thus altering the intent of the song. The humor comes from the juxtaposition of very familiar lyrics from popular Rap, Metal, and Rock songs (particularly those that are particularly profane, violent, or sexually explicit) with Cheese's exceedingly clean, "white bread", campy, lounge style. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes does likewise in a complete opposite manner: they perform hard, sped-up punk renditions of folk songs, soft rock, showtunes, R&B, and other genres not usually associated with punk. Even Weird Al Yankovic has ventured into this practice; all but two of his albums feature medleys of either classic rock or then-current hit songs done as fast polkas.

The current (2005) musical Altar Boyz brilliantly parodies both Christian rock and the "boy band" style of pop, in a highly amusing but basically friendly, good-natured manner.

"That Christian Parody Band" Apologetix takes mainstream songs from the fifties to today and changes them to Christian lyrics. An example is Fountains of Wayne's hit Stacy's Mom transformed into JC's Mom, talking about the early life of Jesus and his parents' reaction. The band has been playing since the early 90's and their most recent album is titled Wordplay

[edit] Legal issues

Musical parodists were briefly an endangered species in the mid-1990s when a case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court by country music legend Roy Acuff's music publishing company against the lead singer of the rap music group 2 Live Crew for recording a lewd version of one of Acuff's songs without his permission. But the justices ruled in favor of the rappers, protecting the fair use doctrine and creating a legal standard for parody as protected derivative work.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Musical Parody Websites

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