Maybe not laugh-out-loud funny, but with a tinge of humor. I say “from otherwise serious” bands to exclude stuff from people like Weird Al Yankovic, who are as much comedians as musicians.
I’m thinking of stuff like the J. Geil’s Band’s “Love Stinks”. Oftentimes it’s the delivery as much as the material that makes it funny. Sample lyric from that song:
*You love her
But she loves him
And he loves somebody else
You just can’t win
And so it goes
Till the day you die
This thing they call love
It’s gonna make you cry
I’ve had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure
Love stinks!*
Similar in style is Puddle of Mudd’s “She Hates Me”:
Met a girl, thought she was grand
fell in love, found out first hand
went well for a week or two
then it all came unglued
. . . .
She fucking hates me
she fucking hates me
la la la love
Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good” is also on my list.
Well, here are a few “serious” bands that had hits with silly songs:
Focus was a serious Dutch “art-rock” band, but the only thing anyone remembers them for is the silly instrumental “Hocus Pocus” (which the band regarded as a jokey novelty).
King Crimson is best known for 20 minute, mellotron-heavy songs about the meaning of life and the end of the world… but they had a novelty hit (in Europe, at least) in 1970 with the silly “Cat Food.”
Hmm… well, it’s hard to call Frank Zappa “serious,” but his music was usually complex, showing a host of avant-garde influences (from Stravinsky to Varese). And yet his ONLY top 40 hit was “Valley Girl,” a frivolous, comic song with guest vocals from his daughter Moon Unit.
Lazy Sunday Afternoon by the Small Faces was actually a condemnation of hippy values but was seen as a comedic song and severly damaged the groups reputation as a serious band.
Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana” is a very fun song (especially the last verse), that’s nothing like anything else he wrote (for one thing, it doesn’t sound like mewling cats).
Tuco, the first track of the Marshall Mathers LP is “Kill You,” which is most definitely not a joke song. The Real Slim Shady is later in the album.
Not that they’re a “serious” band, Guns ‘N Roses’ song “I Used to Love Her, But I Had to Kill Her” was supposed to be a joke song (although considering Axl Rose’s propensity for violence, it doesn’t seem that funny in retrospect).
How about Peaches: it may not be a hit, but when she sings “IUD, SIS, stay in school, cuz it’s the best” to a grinding electro beat in Fuck The Pain Away, I think it’s pretty funny. Don’t think it was meant that way, though.