The World-Famous Official ‘Spill 30-Day Musical Challenge
(Rules)
Day 21 topic: a song that makes you laugh
Please include song name & artist in your post for Chris
.
The World-Famous Official ‘Spill 30-Day Musical Challenge
(Rules)
Day 21 topic: a song that makes you laugh
Please include song name & artist in your post for Chris
.
Bonzo Dog – intro/outro
Love that one. Another Bonzos’ fave is their version of The Sound Of Music, which which I regularly surprise the unwary.
Me too. Can’t recommend Canyons of your Mind with its poised guitar break too highly, either.
with which
TP playing the southern redneck goading the unfortunate punk never fails to crack me up. Maybe I’m just horrid.
“Hey! Spike! You’re scaring my wife!”
Spike by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
The legendary boy with the dawg collar on.
“Here’s a song that people always want to hear. It might just be people out on bail, I don’t know.”
I don’t do comedy songs, but this one makes me hoot, may not be funny to non cricket fans, but the line about the cheese roll *wipes tear from eye*
The Duckworth Lewis Method Jiggery Pokery
I love this one. I had it as an earworm some time ago.
the whole album is worth a careful listen, isn’t it?
Indeed it is. My son (who is cricket barmy) gave it to me a couple of years ago.
Great stuff. I think the ‘cheese roll’ line was Graham Gooch’s.
and here’s the actual delivery…
the camera angle from the stumps, of Mike Gatting, does suggest a fondness for pastry and bread products…
Interesting that Richie Benaud doesn’t sound at all surprised. Just a simple “He’s done it.”
Donds from the boundary!
Brilliant – doosra donds!
This is difficult because if a song made me laugh to the same degree after thirty-five listenings I’d probably get carted off to the Big House. However, sometimes a joke maintains its comedic intensity through its Situasionism rather than its blah blah blather blibber . . .
Creativity by The Firesign Theatre.
I remember Firesign Theatre. Wouldn’t be surprised if Fintan does too.
PEP PILLS! PEP PILLS!
Eat it!
Eat it Raw!
Rah rah rah, that’s the old school spirit!
Ahh , I see you’ve been to Principal poop’s office.
Now excuse me it’s time for the Hour of the Wolf news. Tonight’s headline -OUR LORD IS A MIGHTY HOT DOG!
Whereas this wouldn’t get you carted off….? Most enjoyable though, thank you !
I suppose this would be cheating?
that has certainly made me laugh!
Here’s a proper recorded song – and a zedded one no less – which makes me laugh a lot.
These are brilliant ! My favourite is (or it was before Girlfriend In A Coma to the tune of Tiptoe Through The Tulips) Da Doo Ron Ron to the tune of Jerusalem.
now I’ll have to search youtube for that one too, I didn’t realise that Rob Brydon had such vocal talents!
Just to be a pedantic bore… what exactly is the song you’ve picked, severin? The Jake Thakray?
I’ve picked the Jake Thackray because the other link is to a series of songs being messed around with by comedians.
Wyngate is going to be spoiled for choice on this one. If i didn’t already put up a Test Tube Babies pick, i would have had a few to choose from.
Green Day – Longview
Your inventive use of the conditional tense has flummoxed me, amy. Would wyngate have picked this if you hadn’t chosen Test Tube Babies? Or have you picked it because the Test Tube Babies have eaten everything else? Or is it Christmas?
Chris – compare and contrast if you will this clip of the Test Tubes in 83….
..with this more recent clip…
Perhaps they have indeed eaten “everything else” ! (Although they must have left something over for Mensi of the Angelic Upstarts)
Though that is a “pot calling kettle black” situation coming from me.
Oh, me too. I was having a go at Ian Astbury, but i’ve ripped the ass right through 2 pairs of pants so far this month. Luckily the combination of unemployment and good weather means that my food intake has decreased while my exercise has increased, so hopefully i’ll be back up to speed in the not too distant future.
Sorry, that explanation was a bit too zen. i would have picked a Test Tube Babies song but i already did. I learned about them from Wyngate. He posts a lot of punk songs that i think are very funny (you might file them under offensive).
I went for Green Day (that i didn’t get from Wyngate) because i like it, and i’m a juvenile so i think songs abut wanking are funny.
Interesting point – I guess a fair number of people would find Test Tubes offensive, and some have, but it’s probably less people than you might think. They walk a fine line sometimes, but usually in their songs the joke is on them in some way. They don’t seem to go all out to offend unlike say The Macc Lads.
Chris apologized to me on the mothership once for a (seriously benign, considering my usual playlist) lyric in a Dead tune. My sense of humor runs to the gallows variety, the Test Tubes crack me up. Only one of your songs i was slightly bothered by was the I Want to Fok Your Parrot one because i like animals. (Yes, i know that song was tongue in cheek).
Funny that because the guy behind the track is quite an infamous character. I met him once and he was a c*** although inflatable sheep seem to be his thing rather than live parrots. No time for him at all. But that track had tickled me slightly, and it was hard to resist during Songs About Birds.
He also used to turn up at gigs with blow up dolls which did inadvertantly produce one moment I’m glad I witnessed at a Joe Strummer gig. One of the blow up dolls landed on stage between songs and quick as a flash Strummer said “I didn’t know Mick Jones was here tonight”! At which point he suddenly seemed to realise 2,000 people had heard him say this, looked horrified and started apologising!
I’m cracking up now. Too bad you didn’t have one of those cell phone camera thingys for that one.
It has to be this one. Dr. Hook with Shel Silverstein and “Don’t Give A Dose To The One You Love Most”.
Wise advice.
Shel had a whole slew of ‘em but I think you’ve hit the big time there Mitch!
QMS- T.Love.
Some righteous hip hop with bad words just for Chris…
Misogyny in hard times takin’ a toll..
no scrotum, rhymes- I wrote em’..
My ageing ears couldn’t make out every word but I couldn’t hear much to cause offence there, nilpferd. Or much to make me laugh either, to be honest (something of an in-joke maybe).
It does concern me, though, that Quicksilver Messenger Service have shot off in such a wild, new direction in their latest incarnation.
I was only kidding about the bad words.. T.Love gets in a few nice digs at the opposite sex though.
I don’t find this song a laugh-fest myself, but I do always smile at the “scrotum” line for inventive rhyming, and I was due a Ninja Tune pick.
Otherwise I’d have gone for something by Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter, or Irving Berlin, I guess- they’d be the lyricists who most often make me laugh.
I could also have mentioned The Chills’ Party in my heart-
the dips and meringues and the pies have gone moldy,
the value of the whisky’s more than twice what it was sold at…
An aside- I do find a lot of the “comic” songs posted so far quite funny- nice memories of Stan Freberg and Peter Sellers LP’s drifting out of the depths- but I don’t actually own any of them and I’m trying to stick to things I actually listen to regularly, at least for the “positive” picks.
Well, I think it has to be a HMHB song. I’ll go for this one, not least coz there’s a video on YouTube re-enacting it in Lego:
Half Man Half Biscuit – 24 Hour Garage People
Hi Barbryn. Even the names of their albums crack me up – Back in the DHSS, Achtung Bono, Trouble over Bridgewater. Gems.
CSI:Ambleside
Die Antwoord – Enter The Ninja
South African Hip Hop is hilarious.
Damn, I had a killer tune lined up for “Songs No-One Would Ever Have Believed You Used To Dance To But Now You Only Tap Your Toe A Little If It Comes On The Radio”.
Not a comedy song, but this one makes me laugh because I can picture the scene – drunken man rambles on into the small hours about deep and meaningful relationship issues, and woman is thinking “Please let me go to sleep Otis, please..!”
<a href="name of link“>Otis Redding – Cigarettes and Coffee
Try again….
Otis Redding – Cigarettes and Coffee
Tough one, this – my choice could have come from one of HMHB, Python or Tom Lehrer (Vatican Rag would have been my call with him) and I hestitated with Bret and Jermaine because often I’m not actually laughing but enjoying the fact that they manage to wrench something close to actual soulfulness out of their whimsy. But this one’s just funny throughout:
Flight Of The Conchords – Jenny
Yes! Flight of the Conchords. I was thinking of them too!
How this one didn’t get zedded for Songs About Mistaken Identity, I don’t know.
It has to be Numa Numa Rockmonster, which I’ve posted before:
The original was called “Dragostea din tei” by O-Zone (I think). According to Wikipeia it means “Love from the linden trees”.
I considered HMHB too (National Shite Day was the one that sprang to mind). Bobby McFerrin & Robin Williams’ Beverly Hills Blues, and – sadly – Rodney Carrington’s Dear Penis were other high profile options, but in the end I’ve gone for the old fave:
Otway & Barrett – Headbutts
Studio version first:
but once you’re familiar with that, the live version on the B-side is even funnier, or at least it is when I can convince myself that Wild Willy isn’t actually bullying an unwilling Otway here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQOAjMlzCUc
Shattered: off to bed.
DsD!!
You’ve just triggered some deep dark repressed childhood memory! I must have heard this at some point in time in early childhood, because the moment I played the video, a switch flicked inside that told me I had heard it before, but I can’t imagine when and where!
thanks for solving a mystery I never knew was a mystery if you know what I mean!
Excellent! Saw them live many moons ago, supporting Squeeze of all people!
Comedy songs are clearly aimed at making people laugh but I think that there are other ways of getting a giggle out of people., clever wordplay maybe, or dazzling verbal imagery.
However, this used to make me laugh when I was little and it still does.
The Laughing Policeman by Charles Penrose
I love the whole thing.
OK, I am really sorry about this. I fully appreciate that it is horrifically offensive. But it does make me chuckle.
Fannypack: “Cameltoe”
Ok, that was funny!
Dond!
Isn’t this off that K-Tel album, Perfect Gurrl? You know, the one with all those other feminist anthems, such as:
Muffin Top
Pimple Tits
Thunder Thighs
That’s No Place To Have Dimples
Big Fat Ass
You Gotta Keep It Tidy
Make It Sparkle
(Was the pioneering work of the Spice Girls completely in vain?)
Well I had two immediate ideas & couldn’t decide so I went shopping. All I did was come up with more tunes. So I’ll go with the first two & ask for a judge’s ruling. The one needs ruling on is God’s Own Drunk ’cause it’s a monologue set to music. The Monologue comes from Lord Buckley whose genius with words & jazz patter always cracks me up. For Jimmy Buffet to attempt was, I thought, a stretch. Not only does he pull it off but the Coral Reefer Band provides some righteous riffs for background & pulls a small joke on Jimmy at the end. I’ve rationed this for near 40 years & still crack up.
God’s Own Drunk – Jimmy Buffet
And if it’s a song song you want Country Joe & The Fish’s Superbird came to mind and would work but the first to enter my noggin was this little gem so I’ll go with that.
The Acid Commercial – Country Joe & The Fish
I await the judge’s decision. Speaking of which where is that rascal Tin? Gets us all hooked on this musical palaver & disappears. I smell a plot.
I’g going to cheat ‘cos I missed a couple of episodes earlier.
Not just one song, the whole bloody album,
Monty Python Sings, which contains amongst many more the following that are guaranteed to have me giggling at least or laughing hysterically.
1. Every Sperm is sacred.
2. Bruce’s philosophy song.
3. The Meaning of Life.
4. All things dull and ugly.
Here’s one.
As amylee suggested there’s been some tough decisions to be made here. Chineapple Punx and their alter egos Thingy were frontrunners but their funniest songs weren’t on youtube , or in fact anywhere in cyberspace. Likewise the Test Tubes and Eastfield songs that amuse me the most (Penis On My Shoulder, Second Fastest Cycle Courier In London). Perhaps no one else finds them funny. I’ve already named Bus Station Loonies’ Temple Of Love cover a few days ago. It was a two horse race in the end between Splodge and these
The Dickies – Stuck In A Condo (With Marlon Brando)
I think I”d go with Spinal Tap, probably Stonehenge. Why can’t I find a video?
Is this one OK, steen?
(I expect you were spelling it properly)
Thanks, Debby!
With apologies to just about everyone apart from Nilpferd – to my surprise, it’s a song in German that I find funny (well, it was either that or just about anything by UOGB). This a song about couples in their 30s, living in the trendiest neighbourhood and getting together for dinner parties, sat at a table from IKEA [but which doesn't look like it came from IKEA!] eating the sushi Klaus has made using erotic kitchen utensils. They don’t want to be like their parents. And they are NOT like their parents, who are older and quite provincial
[Wait for it, here comes my favourite bit!]
Rainald Grebe – 30 jährige Pärchen
Ah, yes- I remember this from an RR theme, very amusing.
I like Bill Bailey. This just made me laugh:
The ultimate song about loneliness, love and loss
This did, too
This is the only U2 I enjoy!
Donded. Bill Bailey is brilliant. Some may even say genius.
It could have been the song I mentioned for the ones we know all the words too, but I’ll have to for Les Inconnus – Vice Et Versa, an almost perfect parody. I’m not so sure of what though:
Now I think about it, Fatal Bazooka’s Fous ta Cagoule would have been a good shout..
Yep, forgot about that one.
National Lampoon’s Deteriorata still gets me everytime.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggIQpmUhu10&w=480&h=390%5D
Fall not in love therefore, it will stick to your face.
Hi there, welcome! (aka RTJ)
Thanks. Still trying to figure out the HTML to post YouTube links.
Lucky you, Steenbeck did a post just a few days ago.
http://thespillblog.co.uk/2011/04/13/youtube-links/
There’s also a “Manual” tab at the top of the blog that may help for other things.
If you want to catch up on the challenge from the beginning, Chris (who had kindly volunteered to be our tabulator) requests that you post all of your answers to previous challenges in a list on one post in the most recent blog to make life easier for him. You can find the earlier topics by clicking on the “30 day music challenge” tag at the bottom of the post.
Sylvia’s Mother – Dr Hook and the Medicine Show
For me it’s in the same category as the death of Little Nell (Oscar Wilde quote, “one must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.”)
Donds for this, and for the reasoning behind it. It’s one of a clutch of songs I’ve come genuinely to love but primarily because it made me laugh in the first instance. Others include I’ve Been To Paradise, Escape (The Pina Colada Song), most Manilow and (sorry TB) Lucky Stars. Part of the joy is singing along and trying to keep a straight face.
May – Dean Friedman’s Lucky Stars has its tongue firmly in its cheek. One thing I’ve learned from listening to Dean over many, many years is that he doesn’t expect to be taken too seriously. With the possible exception of Song For My Mother which is one of the darkest and most troubling songs I know. Not much laughter there …
So what we’re saying is that Nigel from HMHB kind of sort of is his bastard son in the tempestuous dynasty of tongue in cheek songsmithery. One day, we must get together to produce a definitive taxonomy of artists who are sincere but funny with it (J.Richman, I.Dury, C.Porter, S.Dogg?); whose sincerity is appealing but hilarious (B.Manilow, R.Kelly?); who are primarily funny but with bursts of sincerity (D.Friedman, R.Newman, V.Wood, Conchords?) and artists who are Tom Waits or Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. I’m sure there are many more examples and sub-groups.
The Portsmouth Sinphonia – ‘Also sprach zaratustra’.
Delightful.
Ouch! As Les Dawson proved many times, it takes great skill to play badly.
I was initially tempted to join barbryn in the HMHB corner (I think that Fucking Hell! It’s Fred Titmus – probably the best song ever written about the cult of minor celebrity! – would have been my song of choice but I think, for the sake of variety, I’ll go with Dean Friedman‘s The Deli Song (Corned Beef On Wry) – clever, rather than LMAO funny but it always makes me smile.
… and getting it on the B-List (for Songs About Meat) was one of my proudest RR moments …
https://jmttp.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/ned-calls-a-cable-company-about-the-gay-channel/
Jack “Raspberry” Hodges- Everything is fresh today.
Covered by the Goons and Spin Millington in later years, this is the original “eat more fruit” song.
Hodges was the greatest exponent of the ancient art of “raspberry” blowing, a tradition I try to keep up every summer.
So far, at least once a year my daughter has been caught out by the question
“Do you like raspberries ?”
I like my comedy stood up, and unsung. But back in the day I did find Victor Borge a laugh (check him out on UTube). The funniest song I’ve ever seen was John Hegley and the Popticians murdering ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, playing it on a vacuum cleaner sucking the mike, but regrettably there’s no vid of that. I’ve also previously spilled Lee Evans’ take on the same song (to deathly silence – you Queen haters take things too far sometimes). But my pick for today is Madness, Night Boat to Cairo, as much for the vid as the song. Another sand dance to add to the collection!
@ ghe – there’s nothing funny about this song. I once broke my ankle dancing to it.
Point of order, before Chris tells you off, I think I nominated it for ‘songs that make you happy’.
which I suppose rather undoes my first point. Ah well …
I think I’m going to have to tell you off instead, TB, for spreading fear and panic among the troops. You picked One Step Beyond for ‘songs that make you happy’.
Sigh …
Mention of U2 above reminds me of a completely fictional story I’ve made up, that Bono and The Edge once popped out to the supermarket for a few bits and bobs, only to find that they’d had a redesign and changed all the shelves around. Two hours later they were still wandering around in search of essential groceries. That’s what ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ is really about you know.
I’m so sorry, amy, but I have to post this, in the take-the-piss-out-of-U2 category:
Hey, no need to apologize to me. Just because i like a lot of their songs doesn’t mean i don’t think they’re a bunch of asswipes. And feel free to have a go at Mick and Keith any time without offending my not-so-delicate sensibilities.
Around the time War came out we rented out rooms to university students to help with the mortgage and this came on one night when we were all sat around playing cards. We told the lads it was about the subways running late, and every time the chorus came on would sing along Subway Bloody Subway loud enough to drown out Bono.
It worked for one play, but there’s one sceptic in every crowd who just HAD to hear it again because he didn’t trust ME.
Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
(hee hee hee!)
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
(! ha ha ha )
So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
Im very sorry, baby, doesnt look like me at all
(too right mister – guffaw)
Laughing Lenny – Tower of Song
pure genius – funny as feck – or just me? I find things amusing if they are as black as the night – and his chuckle, brings a smile to my face .. feel great now…
(and even if you might be turning 51 tomorrow you can look at this Canadian and say: “well, I can still be ripped off by women until I’m 76″ – what more can you want in life to cheer you up!)
I’ve always found that a very amusing song too, it’s not just you.
Lenny the clown. Ace.
Not got much time today, but have got to pop in with this one before I dash out again.
Spike Jones and the City Slickers…..”Cocktails for Two”
As this is my mother-in-law’s maiden name, there is always something to laugh about when listening to this :
Peter Cook – The Ballad Of Spotty Muldoon
My Boomerang Won’t Come Back by Charlie Drake
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_prtbj4MtDU&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0%5D
You nominated that for Day 8, a song you know all the words to, Marconius. Anything else tickle your funny bone?
Mine would be a Cook and Moore tune too but slightly more ribald……
Jump – Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (Derek and Clive)