Self-Parodies

Morrissey springs to mind.

Always.

But especially here.

'Disappointed', for instance, is musically a parody, or at least a self-conscious rehash, of the non-overrated 'How Soon Is Now?', and lyrically among the most self-conscious things he's written (the groaning ending, etc). And there are lines in Morrissey solo stuff that seem so much just like rewrites of the basic Morrissey stance - 'And I just can't find my place in this world'; 'I don't get along with myself / And I'm not too keen on anyone else'.

Come to think of it, even late Smiths were self-parodic: I think it was Reynolds, in a 1989 MM booklet, who said that 'Stop Me' 'archly acknowledged the onset of self-parody' (he may just have had the title in mind, though?); and how about the reuse of the line 'You just haven't earned it yet, baby', on 'Paint A Vulgar Picture'?

If we're going to play that game with the Smiths, I should note that on the self-titled debut album, El Moz breathily sings "Hand in glove...the sun shines out of our behinds..." at the end of "Pretty Girls Make Graves." So maybe it was a parody from the beginning. ;-)

Why yes, I'm a completist fan, why did you ask?

Ned, obviously it was a reference to Deleuze and Guattari's discusion of Freud's "solar anus" patient.

stephen malkmus was a self-parody after wowee zowee. more like halfway through wowee zowee, even. brighten the corners has some of the most insufferable vocal inflection/lyric combinations that have ever been put to tape. cf blue hawaiian.

Bad self-parody: Pink Floyd's "High Hopes", B&S's "Family Tree", Tindersticks' "Ballad Of ...", the Manics' "SYMM".

Good self-parody: an example that springs to mind is SAW at their most deliberately over-the-top ("Respectable", "I'd Rather Jack").

surely you can't forget "late night, maudlin street," which seems designed to parody every lyrical morrissey-ism.

lou reed, anyone?

sonic youth's "renegade princess" from the last album seems self-parodic: the ridiculous gothy intro ("jet black hair/silent stare") flowing into the by-the-numbers punky verses ("midnight princess/ fight tonigh/she's gonna take your blood tonight) like they're trying to write a sonic youth song.

the last couple decades of philip glass.

actually, that's taking something away from smiths lyrics. "late night" almost parodies every stereotype of morrissey's lyrics.

I'm not sure that I see that. 'LNMS' is endearing, fascinating, clumsy and eloquent, but I don't quite see which bit is particularly parodic. A lot of things in there had never really appeared in the Morrissey imaginary before. No?

It picks up on that very late 80s kneejerk assumption that the 70s were all about endless strikes and powercuts (as opposed to, you know, The Brave New World Of Thatcherism). I don't think Morrissey had ever played on that before ...

Saint Etienne come pretty close to unconcious self-parody with this Turnpike House album. "Milk Bottle Symphony" is like a 10th generation photocopy of a Kinks song done in the style of Saint Etienne circa 1992. Yuk.

Tori Amos - "The Power Of Orange Knickers"

Barclay James Harvest calling a song (a very typical BHJ one) "Poor Man's Moody Blues" surely qualifies as a self-ironic self-parody at least.

How about Sting finishing "Love Is The Seventh Wave" with "Every cake you bake"?

Everything that Pavement ever recorded sounds like a self-parody, most of it in a good way, if that is possible.

The Turtles, "Elenore"

"Elenore" OTM.

On a recent Elvis Costello album, he sings a duet with Lucinda Williams. Lucinda's vocals are beyond self-parody, like she's doing a really really bad Lucinda Williams impression.

"Wohnce ah towld yew fairee taylez..."