Ironic (song)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “Ironic” | |||||
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| Single by Alanis Morissette from the album Jagged Little Pill |
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| Released | 1996 | ||||
| Format | CD single | ||||
| Genre | Alternative Rock, post-grunge | ||||
| Length | 3:49 | ||||
| Label | Maverick | ||||
| Writer(s) | Alanis Morissette, Glen Ballard | ||||
| Producer | Glen Ballard | ||||
| Alternate cover | |||||
"Ironic" limited special-edition maxi-single
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| Alanis Morissette North America singles chronology | |||||
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| Alanis Morissette European singles chronology | |||||
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"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 fourth single in 1996 (see 1996 in music).
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[edit] Style and theme
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"Ironic" (1996) The chorus is much louder and more aggressive than the verses. - Problems playing the files? See media help.
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 another for the Cities 97 Sampler Volume 16 (2004). A live version without the altered lyric is included on the album Alanis Unplugged (1999).
"Ironic", which contains a reference to a plane crash, was on the list of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks, and subsequently left off of the set list during her 2002 tour.
[edit] Linguistic usage disputes
The song's usage of the word "ironic" attracted attention for what many feel is an improper application of the term. 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" 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, an interpretation that Morissette herself has supported.
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 late for 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 got 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."
- "Ten thousand spoons? How big is your sink, Alanis? What do you need this knife for - to stab the bloke who keeps leaving spoons all over your house?"
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] Alanis' thoughts on Ironic
Morissette herself does in fact acknowledge that "Ironic" is not filled with ironies and this in itself is what makes it (in her opinion) ironic. Additionally, she confirms that she is a self-dubbed "malapropism queen" and alleges that the song was lighthearted and not taken too seriously at the time it was written. It should be noted that the naming of the song 'Ironic' is not a malapropism, which is again, (perhaps) quite ironic.
| “ | For me the great debate on whether what I was saying in ‘Ironic’ was ironic wasn’t a traumatic debate. I’d always embraced the fact that every once in a while I’d be the malapropism queen. And when Glen and I were writing it, we definitely were not doggedly making sure that everything was technically ironic. It’s a testament to the fact that we didn’t think it was going to be put under the microscope by 30 million people. For me the sweetest moment came in New York when a woman came up to me in a record store and said, ‘So all those things in the “Ironic” aren’t ironic.’ And then she said, ‘And that’s the irony.’ I said, ‘Yup.’ To me it’s a real snapshot of a nineteen-year-old’s definition and version of how life worked at the time. All that ‘Ironic’ touches on spawned all my future inquiries into and current understandings of the mysteries of life. | ” |
[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 number four; as of 2008, it is her highest peaking single there. "Ironic" became Morissette's third 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 January 1996 and received heavy rotation on MTV and VH1. It was directed by Stéphane Sednaoui and features Morissette driving a black Lincoln Continental Mark V. As the first chorus begins, the first of her two 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. However, a man then comes and asks them a question wondering that they drove the car.
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 two 1997 Grammy Award in the "Best Music Video - Short Form" category, but lost to The Beatles' "Free as a Bird" and for "Record of the Year", losing to Eric Clapton's "Change The World." "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 notices 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).
Similarly, "Weird Al" Yankovic produced a parody version of the video for Canada's MuchMusic, in which he takes the place of the fourth version of Morissette in the front passenger seat.
[edit] Charts
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[edit] Notes
- ^ Vineyard, Jennifer. "Alanis Isn't Angry Anymore — She's In Love". MTV News. June 4, 2004. Retrieved August 23, 2006.
- ^ Keck, William. "Politics in play at gay awards". USA Today. March 28, 2004. Retrieved August 23, 2006.
- ^ "Ironic", in Swiss, French, Dutch, Belgian (Flanders and Wallonia), Swedish, Norwegian, Australian and New Zealander Singles Chart Lescharts.com (Retrieved January 28, 2008)
[edit] References
- "Alanis Morissette - Artist Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved August 23, 2006.
- "Alanis Morissette - Billboard Singles". Billboard and All Music Guide. Retrieved August 23, 2006.
- "Alanis Morissette". Mariah-charts.com. Retrieved August 23, 2006.
[edit] External links
- It Is Ironic, Isn't It?
- Irony and Ignorance
- Definition of irony
- Definition of and usage note for ironic
- "Morissette Single Reaches New Levels of Meta-Irony", Heuristic Squelch humour article, November 2002
| Preceded by "Wonderwall" by Oasis |
Billboard Modern Rock Tracks number-one single March 16, 1996 - March 30, 1996 |
Succeeded by "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis |
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