Musical Satire & Parody
Why did I throw in these images? Well, obviously to catch your eye. But also to set the tone. They illustrate how musical satire is not new and can also lead to caricature.
In writing about my musical evolution recently, I completely overlooked one genre that grabbed my attention early on: musical satire and parody.
I’m not certain how I first encountered this genre. It may have been Gilbert & Sullivan. Locally, in Los Angeles, it may have been the Billy Barnes Review that I first saw at the Las Palmas Theater off Hollywood Boulevard. It definitely was Tom Lehrer.
Gilbert & Sullivan were a force to be reckoned with. They collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896. Sullivan created catchy melodies. But it was Sullivan’s sly lyrics that poked fun at the pompous British upper class. Some of his lyrics could stick a knife in the ribs without the victim realizing it. That’s why I’m including the following rendition of “When I Was a Lad” from H.M.S. Pinafore, which was first performed in May 1878. (Sing along if you like.) Listen carefully to lyric. It could describe a modern mediocre talent who rises to the executive suite or a modern politician who “always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.”
Billy Barnes and Tom Lehrer were contemporaries, and both wrote original songs. But that’s where the resemblance ends. Barnes’ songs were funny and usually part of a sketch. Lehrer’s songs stood on their own, were sometimes political and always biting.
Barnes went on to write original musical numbers for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, and The Carol Burnett Show.
Tom Lehrer is an interesting character (yes, he’s still alive — aged 96) and an impressive song writer in my estimation. Lehrer graduated with a BA in mathematics from Harvard University, magna cum laude; he then received his MA degree and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Lehrer remained in Harvard's doctoral program for several years. (He worked on his mathematics dissertation on modes in statistics intermittently for 15 years but never completed it.) He later taught mathematics and other classes at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He also worked as a researcher at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.
So how did he come to write satirical songs?
Well, Lehrer was considered a child prodigy, and he began writing tunes when he was still a kid. Then, at Harvard, he started to write comic songs to entertain his friends; one was titled "Fight Fiercely, Harvard.” So the die was cast.
I’m not certain anymore, but I think the first Lehrer satirical piece to catch my attention was a 1959 song titled “We Will All Go Together When We Go.” (I’ll explain why in a moment.) Here’s a clip.
A couple of years later, in 1964, Stanley Kubrick produced Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb; this was a satirical black comedy that starred Peter Sellers in three roles (including the titular Dr. Strangelove).
Preceding these two events, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device in August of 1949. And by the early 1950, schools across the U.S. were training students to dive under their desks and cover their heads. I was one of those students. It didn’t occur to me until much later in life that duck and cover was a really silly idea. Presumably it was suppose to protect me from a bomb blast. How was a wooden desk suppose to protect me? My hide would be fried if the bomb was that close.
It was for these convoluted reasons that “We Will All Go Together When We Go” resonated with me.
Moving on in no particular order, Lehrer churned out a number of satirical songs that I enjoyed. (I think I purchased more than a few of his albums.)
This one was a tip of the hat to Gilbert & Sullivan; it’s the only one where he didn’t create an original melody. The title is “The Elements.”
And for those of you who are fans of Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song,” Lehrer had this in 1990: “Chanukah in Santa Monica.”
I’ll throw in one more then move on to “Weird Al” Yankovich. The following Lehrer song had a perverse appeal to my sometimes weird sense of humor: “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.” (If you have ever lived where pigeons or gulls or other members of the avian family deposit their anal discharges on objects below, you may understand why it might be satisfying to poison a pigeon.)
I’m not sure when I first stumbled across “Weird Al” Yankovic. He’s a parodist in that he takes existing songs and rewrite the lyrics to comedic effect. He actually had one of his comedy songs air on The Dr. Demento Radio Show in 1976 when he was only sixteen. (Dr. Demento had spoken at Yankovic's school; Yankovic gave him a homemade cassette tape of parody songs.) I never bought any of Weird Al’s albums.
Here are two songs that I most strongly associate with his brand of humor. (There are lead-in commercials, so you have to launch YouTube.) The first is “Like a Surgeon” — a parody of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.
The other is a parody of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Weird Al repurposed the melody and came ups with “Eat It.”
Then there are also the spoofs and parodies of Broadway musicals. (I was surprised to learn that Avenue Q was a spoof of Sesame Street. I thought it was simply an imaginative use of puppets mixed in with live performers.)
There’s a list of 20+ such spoofs at TheatreTrip-Musical-Parodies, including Spamalot (a musical version of Monty Python and The Holy Grail).
And if you are really in the mood, there are video clips of specific parodies at Top 10 Broadway Musical Parody Videos. Here you will find another Sesame Street parody titled Les Mousserables; it’s about a French guy named Jon Bon-Bon (played by Cookie Monster) who’s down in the mouth because he has no cookies.
So now I come to a musical parodist with the alliterative name of Randy Rainbow. Sounds like a stage name, no? No. His real full name is Randy Stewart Rainbow. (Wonder what his parents were thinking. Must not have been fun for him in middle school.)
In an interview regarding his comedic bent, Rainbow said, “It was really my [Jewish] grandmother who was the biggest influence because she'd talk back to the celebrities and politicians on TV. She was a combination of Joan Rivers, Elaine Stritch, Betty White, and Bea Arthur rolled into one.” Rainbow’s father was a a musician, so that may have been the source for some of his talent.
Rainbow is best known for spoof interviews that he uploads to YouTube; these blend political satire and musical parodies from a liberal perspective. Since much of these parodies target a specific individual and event, they have a short shelf life. That being said, here are a couple that can still resonate. (You will have to launch YouTube because of the short, lead-in commercials.)
The first harkens back to the January 6th insurrection: “Clang, Clang, Clang Went Josh Hawley!” (If you’re too young to recognize the tune, it’s “The Trolley Song” from the 1944 movie Meet Me in St. Louis.)
But back in 2022, Randy took on DeSantis and Florida in “GAY!” (In case you don’t recognize this melody, it’s “Shy” from Once Upon a Mattress.)
In general, all political parodies have a short shelf life. But I came across Sandy and Richard Riccardi a few years ago and continue to follow them. They perform non-political songs and appear in public venues. (They live in the San Francisco Bay Area.) <sandyandrichardriccardi>
So even if this one is somewhat dated, I can’t resist including it because it still is germane: “Kiss My Rump, Donald Tr*mp.”
Then there’s their take on DeSantis and Florida: “Don't Say Gay.”
Finally, there’s this: “We Need A Little Xanax.”
On a side note, even the classical composers liked to play tricks on their audiences. Sometimes it was as simple as injecting a blast of horns in an otherwise slow movement just to wake up the audience. Other times, there was a joke embedded in the composition. Here are a couple of examples.
Souvenirs de Bayreuth — Sort of a parody of The Ride of the Valkyries performed as a quadrille.
Carnival of the Animals — Tortoises (Tortues) — Listen carefully: that’s the Can-Can in slow motion.
Mozart actually composed a parody of some less than brilliant contemporaries that he titled “A Musical Joke,” (K. 522 Ein musikalischer Spaß). The “joke” was the discords and wrong keys in which various instruments were played.
Before I move on to Steve Martin, there’s one more Tom Lehrer song that unfortunately still resonates today: I Wanna Go Back to Dixie.
And now just to demonstrate that satire is agnostic, Here is Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers performing an original piece of satire: “Atheists Don't Have No Songs.”
Finally if you are a glutton for punishment, this is the video of Tom Lehrer’s full Copenhagen performance in 1967.