You’ve probably heard her song; “Brand New Key” - you know; “I’ve got a brand new pair of rollerskates, you’ve got a brand new key…” That was probably her most mainstream thing. As cheeky as that song may be, she typically crowns herself with an oh-so-painfully-earnest gem like her song I Don’t Eat Animals:
I don’t eat animals, and they don’t eat me
I don’t eat animals, 'cause I love ‘em, you see,
I don’t eat animals, don’t want nothin’ dead in me…
Yeah, but it’s got a beat you can move to.
wow. melanie’s music was almost ALL full of irony.
Pete Seeger comes to mind. Holly Near.
Sorry guys, but Neil Diamond OWNS this thread.
There are different levels of irony. I can think of one person whose material is so relentlessly, horribly saccharine that if he had one shred of ironic consciousness in his being he would tear out his own larynx with a salad fork rather than spit out the word “puppy” ever again.
His work itself has accumulated irony in the years since he (thankyoulord) stopped putting it out, but he himself was apparently oblivious to its cloying, treacly stench, like a woman whose perfume is papper-gassing everyone within 1000 yards but who can’t smell it herself.
You’ve probably already guessed that I speak of…
Rod McKuen.