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| Ween (photo by Danny Clinch) |
This is the fourth and final post in our initial, two-week foray into Murder Ballad Comedy. Today’s post refers back to the earlier three, which you can read here:
“The Irish Ballad” (Ken)
“Lizzie Borden” (Ken)
“Fertile Liza” (Pat)
This topic, Murder Ballad Comedy, may be too close to home. For me, it gets all muddled up with comedy theory in general, and I fall into a rage spiral–sputtering sentence fragments and making gross generalizations.
I know dissecting comedy kills the joke. But some jokes (
like Earl) need to die. Pat, Iām glad you talked about all this already because Iām sick of explaining myself. I donāt think that anyone should be
made to shut up. I just think they should think about the words coming out of their mouth. They should consider who has the position of power. Who is the butt of the joke? Who is being victimized? Who are you supposed to be laughing with or at? Are you being an a-hole?
When there are patterns of what is offensive, and who is finding them offensive and who is not, I think these patterns are important to pay attention to. When rape jokes are popular, and football-star-loving towns protect rapists, and young women kill themselves because they have been relentlessly harassed, I think it is an artist’s responsibility at least to have an opinion or answer beyond āit’s funny, stop censoring me,ā if they are going to use the victimization of women as their comedy subject.
That being said, Iām a saint, of course, who has never done anything wrong or said anything offensive, so thereās that…
I agree with John Cleese’s theory, how could I not? He’s a god to my people. Additionally for me, if humor through awful is our āanxiety being liberated,ā we should recognize that some people donāt have the liberty of lifting particular anxieties.
Personally, I think itās funny to relieve anxiety by subverting power. I donāt think my anxiety is released by someone trying to make killing/raping/beating a woman funny. But I DO think it is funny, or maybe just cathartic, to write a song about killing that someone.
Now that that is off my chest, I want to do three more things in this post: offer some responses to the other parts of this series, talk about how it feels to write/perform a murder ballad relative to the horror/hilarity dynamic, and add a couple of songs I like to the mix of the past few weeks.
I remember listening to Tom Lehrer when I was a kid. āPoisoning Pigeons in the Parkā was one of my favorites. And it was titillating to feel naughty for laughing. I knew it was wrong. I wouldnāt DO it. But I was laughing, and feeling guilt at the same time. At once admitting and relieving the dark side. Then I went out and killed small animals. NO BIGGIE!!! Oh and we laughed, me and the animals.
āLizzie cut it out! And thatās exactly what she did. ā
I have come to terms with the fact that sometimes I have the sense of humor of an uncle that you see on holidays. I like puns and I like wordplay…fart jokes, too. I think you can stumble into writing a funny murder ballad because word play can get silly pretty easily. The evil becomes almost too obvious and the audience can see where you are going. But, in most murder ballads that works to the song’s benefit, and may even be a horror or macabre genreās great tool. It is so satisfying when an artist can toe the perfect line.
Here is just one example that in less adept hands would just sound like a bad joke.
One of my favorite examples of poignant wordplay, which could just be considered good writing I guess, is this line from Neko Case’s “Make Your Bed the River”
“I know you can’t swim, but I’ll tuck you in.
Make your bed the river young girl.”
Overkill
Ā
Who the crowd is and what they are there to do obviously plays a big role in if the song is seen as funny or not. Ken mentioned this dynamic in the first post and Iād like to share my experience.
I noticed in writing a song about Andrea Yates (“
Let You Go“) that if I mentioned separately all of her victims, sang a verse for all of the 5 children, it went from haunting to hilarious very quickly. Not because Iām so funny, but because it’s just too much. It went from a haunting song to a sort of game of how far can I go. And I just didnāt want this one to be funny.
Performing “Omie Wise” in different venues, comedy and not, has been particularly interesting. If we (my band Eileen) sing it in a comedy venue it will get a laugh; in a storytelling event or salon it might and on a regular music nights, it really doesnāt. One night at a variety show with mostly comedians and improvisors, with every new verse people laughed. With the addition of each violent stanza, more and more horrific, people laughed. But, it made total sense, we were at a comedy show. If you are in the mood or environment to laugh each additional unbelievable act will be ridiculous. It is ridiculous to keep on going, more gore and more tragedy. Storytelling-wise you want to tell the whole awful truth, and seen with a comedy lens that can come across as just, overkill.
“Curse of Millhaven” is a good example of overkill and comedy, I think. Why donāt I feel that way about Nick Cave’s “Stagger Lee”? I still laugh but it is different. More uncomfortable. It is musically just scarier I suppose. But, what if it is because a woman is doing the killing in Millhaven and a man in Stagger Lee, the tables are turned on a power dynamic. So then, am I just laughing at the ridiculous idea that women or a little girl could possibly āwinā in a violent situation? But I don’t think so, it could have to do with the fact that the Millhaven appears to be fiction and Stagger Lee comes from a long
history.Ā UGH, KEN! PAT! I have too many still-to-bake thoughts for this post. But I like eating raw cookie dough so, onward.
That is Funny, Right?
I tend to like the murder ballads where Iām not sure if Iām supposed to laugh.
“Object,” from Weenās last album,Ā
La Cucaracha,Ā is one of my favorite recent comedy murder ballads. Even if they wouldn’t call it that. Ween is a band that I always assume has their tongues jammed inside of their cheeks for every song. I donāt care if they donāt, I wouldn’t want to know. Iām keeping my faith. Hail Boognish. I only FEEL bad about some Ween lyrics when Iām at a show and an audience of other people are screaming along with their favorite lines about bitches and dicks. When I listen to Ween for Ween’s sake I always feel like they get me and I get them. And now since they are
not together anymore, I don’t have to worry about sharing them with a backwards white hat wearing frat boy singing “on your knees you big booty bitch start sucking” without even GETTING THE IRONY. Although, it was always worth it.
The thing that attracted me to murder ballads in the first place might be the same as what attracted me to comedy. Where is the power? How can it be subverted? And hopefully using whatever tools (music, wordplay, storytelling) it will be funny, cathartic, or at least interesting to listen to.
