I recently picked up Tom Petty’s Playback set and it included the usual hits, misses, and unreleased stuff. Amongst all that were two humorous ditties: “Heartbreakers’ Beach Party” (originally the B-side of “Change of Heart”) and “Moon Pie” (a weird tune the guys threw together in the studio between takes). If you haven’t heard these, you should. Hilarious!
A few years ago, U2 did “Dancing Queen” in concert. Definitely against type, but funny.
Can you name any other artists who are normally not known for being funny who have recorded stuff like this?
Acts like “Weird Al” don’t count since being funny is their act.
R.E.M. used to do this stuff all the time as B-sides for their singles. Examples:[ul][li]“Voice of Harold” - Wherein Michael Stipe grabs a gospel album cover and reads it to the tune of “Seven Chinese Brothers.”[]“King of the Road” a (drunken?) R.E.M. cover of the old Roger Miller tune.[/li][]“I Will Survive” -Yes, R.E.M. may have been the first out of the gate with an ironic cover of this song.[/ul]
Supercool sixties supergroup Cream gave us Mother’s Lament on Disraeli Gears and Pressed Rat And Warthog on Wheels Of Fire.
The former relates an unfortunate incident concerning a baby going down a plughole, while the latter concerns the adventures of a Rat (Pressed) and a Warthog.
All in all, quite different from Spoonful and Toad.
though not as well-known as the other artists listed here, Nick Cave and the Badseeds did a cover of Tower of Song for a Leonard Cohen tribute album. Their approach to the cover was to go to a bar, get terribly drunk, and then hammer the song out in one long take. On the tribute album, the song is cut down to about five minutes. However, on certain bootlegs one can find the full thirty-two-minute-long unedited recording. It’s absolutely hilarious; Nick continually screws up the lines, sings in an absolutely awful voice, and the Badseeds vamp about with different arrangements of the song, including a truly-bizarre seventies disco version. Absolutely hilarious.
…And NONE of you Dopers have mentioned Frank Zappa?
…His music is threaded with humor.Sort of like the Musiacal alternative to Gary Treudau.
…There is no way to describe Frank, but if you remember his last tune that got Radio play which included the voice of his daughter Moon Unit"VALLEY GIRL" you can just begin to touch on his humor.
Some of my Favorites include:
We’re Returning Again…Stink Foot
Jewish Princess…Evelyn; A Modified Dog
I Am The Slime…Greggory Peccary
.I suggest you go and find a copy of the Album "OVERNITE SENSATION"it is probly the best listener.
.BE WARNED: If you are easily offened please don’t try Frank…You won’t like him.
They would play this live too. They’d switch instruments; the singer played drums, the drummer played bass and the bass player sang. I was there to see Rob Zombie, so this was the only song Korn played that I recognized.
Let’s not forget the Dead Kennedy’s version of Viva Las Vegas. I also have a bootleg CD where they play Take This Job And Shove It, though I don’t know if there is an official release of it.
Speaking of Rob Zombie, he recorded a surf tune a few years back with the Ghastly Ones called “Halloween (She Get So Mean)”. Words cannot express how hilarious it is to hear Rob Zombie singing campy halloween lyrics in his death metal voice over “spooky”-ish surf music.
Zappa is awesome. I am a huge Zappa fan (as you can tell from my UserName).
On the 1971 tour Zappa did a version of I Want To Hold Your Hand and Happy Together. Zappa also frequently did his own versions 50’s doo wop songs on his tours.
For fans of XTC and 60’s psychedelia in general, check out their Dukes of Stratosphear stuff.
Echo and the Bunnymen were reknowned for going off on tangents during their live shows. I recall snippets of many songs from the likes of Abba, James Brown and others but most bizarrely, one time McCulloch launched into “Over the Rainbow”. Sounded great though.
I always thought Van Halen had a good sense of humor. Back when David Lee Roth was with them, I mean.
On their first album they did “Ice Cream Man”, which was sort of silly, but rocked all the same!
Then on Diver Down, they did “Big Bad Bill” and closed the album with an a capella version of “Happy Trails”. If that doesn’t qualify, I don’t know what does.
I think I’ll also mention George Clinton here. He has a wacky sense of humor, and a lot of his stuff is very funny. It’s not by accident that the Onion uses him in their stories every so often.
