Silly songs that are (probably) not joke songs

[Knowed_Out]

@hogarth

MacArthur Park’s metaphor about a cake left out in the rain is fairly silly.

I read that that verse refers to people who went out on a picnic. When they finished their meal and started to serve the cake, it all the sudden started raining so hard, they didn’t have time to pack it as they fled.

[Jophiel]

@Telemark

Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon

Likewise for “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”.

[DrDeth]

@Zyada

I know Melanie intended Brand New Key was meant to be serious, but it comes off as silly.

Kinda-
Brand New Key - Wikipedia >

I thought it was cute; a kind of old thirties tune. I guess a key and a lock have always been Freudian symbols, and pretty obvious ones at that. There was no deep serious expression behind the song, but people read things into it. They made up incredible stories as to what the lyrics said and what the song meant. In some places, it was even banned from the radio. My idea about songs is that once you write them, you have very little say in their life afterward. It’s a lot like having a baby. You conceive a song, deliver it, and then give it as good a start as you can. After that, it’s on its own. People will take it any way they want to take it.[4]

@Dung_Beetle

Undercover Angel, Alan O’Day

Lighthearted, not silly.

[SunUp]

There you go again.

[hogarth]

@Knowed_Out

When they finished their meal and started to serve the cake, it all the sudden started raining so hard, they didn’t have time to pack it as they fled.

And then the songwriter must have chased them down and asked them for the cake recipe, whereupon the picnickers replied that they’ll never have that recipe again (oh no).

[EinsteinsHund]

Bob Dylan had a lot of them. Most people think of him as the profound and eminently serious songwriter, but he had a lot of funny and silly songs, mostly absurdist, especially in the sixties. One of the silliest even was one of his rare single hits, “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35”, which was built on the double meaning of “to get stoned”. I think his funniest song was “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”, which was both silly and a great satire on America, just like “Motorpsycho Nightmare”, “Talking World War III Blues”, “Tombstone Blues” (“the sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken”) and maybe the best of the bunch, “Maggie’s Farm”.

[Telemark]

Alice’s Restaurant Massacree by Arlo Guthrie
Obviously meets the silly criteria but it’s not a joke.

[JohnT]

@Zyada

But while Kung Fu Fighting is silly, I don’t think it was meant to be a joke. I know Melanie intended Brand New Key was meant to be serious, but it comes off as silly.

Let’s add Midnight at the Oasis.

Any more?

In another thread, I made the argument that Silly Love Songs was anything but:

@JohnT

But you Silly Love Songs haters, while I can understand not liking the song, rock and roll’s absolute, all-time, number one “Fuck You”

[Just_Asking_Questions]

I love Silly Love Songs, but I still think that, in the film Yesterday when Ed Sheeran and Jack are competing to write the best song in a few minutes, the movie should have used Silly Love Songs, instead of The Long And Winding Road, because it sounds like it was written in ten minutes.

[SuntanLotion]

Achy Breaky Heart.

[Zyada]

I agree. I don’t think it a silly song. It’s about enjoying love songs.

[solost]

@EinsteinsHund

“Rainy Day Women #12 and 35”, which was built on the double meaning of “to get stoned”.

What is the double meaning? I’ve heard that the song, despite being silly, is not just a “let’s all get stoned” anthem-- it has a (slightly) serious point about how, every time you try to do the right thing and stay on the straight and narrow, somebody comes along to tempt you into falling back into bad habits.

But I wasn’t aware of a double meaning in the song behind “get stoned”. The only thing I can think besides the obvious first meaning, is maybe to be vilified in the press and among the older generation; in other words, to be metaphorically punished by stoning, as in the old-school biblical sense.

[EinsteinsHund]

@solost

But I wasn’t aware of a double meaning in the song behind “get stoned”. The only thing I can think besides the obvious first meaning, is maybe to be vilified in the press and among the older generation; in other words, to be metaphorically punished by stoning, as in the old-school biblical sense.

Yeah, that’s the meaning I meant, you figuratively get stoned by authorities and squares when you’re just doing your thing. That at least has always been my interpretation. So in the verses, getting stoned is in the Biblical, passive sense (“They stone you when you’re trying to be so good”), and in the chorus in the sense of getting high (“Everybody must get stoned”).

[solost]

@EinsteinsHund

Yeah, that’s the meaning I meant, you figuratively get stoned by authorities and squares when you’re just doing your thing. That at least has always been my interpretation.

That interpretation had not occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense. Anybody else pick up on that? Is it like a “well, duhh” kind of thing to everybody else?

That’s what I love about the Dope. Every day I learn something new, and / or learn new ways of looking at things.

[Mr.Greenjeans]

@Smapti

On the same note, “Short People” is another good example of the OP’s request; a serious song that sounds silly, because Newman is trying to point out how ridiculous racism and bigotry are by making up nonsensical stereotypes about a completely inoffensive group, but it just sounds like he’s really pissed off about short people for no good reason and that’s funny.

Yeah, as the short guy in my 8th grade class when this song came out, I can tell that my classmates did not pick up on the subtext.

[Ludovic]

@LurkMeister

Mac Davis wrote this song because someone told him that a song needed a “good hook” to be successful. So he wrote a song about being hooked.

@GESancMan

Back in 1998 Marillion released a song called “Costa del Slough/Under the Sun.”

Speaking of Marillion and hooks, in their liner notes regarding the song “Hooks in You”, they say that they got the idea for the song from hearing their guitarist play a hook from another room, so they thought they might as well make a song about someone who “has their hooks in you”.

[ftg]

There were a ton of silly/joke songs in the 50s. See You Later Alligator. Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb), etc.

But I wonder, for example, about things like How Much is That Doggie in the Window? Seems quite silly to me but possibly not intended to be an actual joke.

[thorny_locust]

@solost

@EinsteinsHund

Yeah, that’s the meaning I meant, you figuratively get stoned by authorities and squares when you’re just doing your thing. That at least has always been my interpretation.

That interpretation had not occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense. Anybody else pick up on that? Is it like a “well, duhh” kind of thing to everybody else?

Yup.

(However, there are lots of apparently utterly obvious references that other people get which I don’t get.)

[Treppenwitz]

@solost

@EinsteinsHund

Yeah, that’s the meaning I meant, you figuratively get stoned by authorities and squares when you’re just doing your thing. That at least has always been my interpretation.

That interpretation had not occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense. Anybody else pick up on that? Is it like a “well, duhh” kind of thing to everybody else?

I’ve seen it alleged (like here in the wikipedia article, Composition And Lyrical Interpretation, para 4) that “rainy day woman” was a then-current term for a spliff.

j

[EinsteinsHund]

@Treppenwitz

I’ve seen it alleged (like here in the wikipedia article, Composition And Lyrical Interpretation, para 4) that “rainy day woman” was a then-current term for a spliff.

j

Yeah, most definitely it was. (or rather, I don’t know if it really was a common term at the time and place, but it definitely was an allusion/code for it)