Great songs that were made as a joke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDjI015s044

Starting off with this example. The Turtles had recently had a hit with "Happy Together", and the people around them expected them to come up with something similar. They were apparently not too interested in that, but decided to do a parody of themselves and their own style as part of the "Battle Of The Bands" album that was generally a bunch of very tongue-in-cheek pastiches.

The lyrics to "Elenore" are indeed very obviously tongue-in-cheek, but musically it is still the best thing they ever did. A really great pop song from the beginning to the end, and IMO one of the best pop moments of the entire 60s.

So kicking off this thread with "Elenore" then. Mind you, the thread is not about funny parodies, it is about parodies or novelty songs that actually work as songs on their own right even when disregarding the novelty.

Dukes of Stratosphear catalog to thread

much of the white album comes to mind

Cocksucker Blues - Rolling Stones

“It came to me one night in the studio when I was just goofing around with a Johnny Cash & The Tennessee Three rhythm,” Springsteen said of “I’m On Fire”.

sweet child o mine started off as slash making goofy faces and playing "circus music".

wow great question!

first thing i thought of was this which is freaking amazing for what started out as being part of a pisstake album/ tv sketch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qin4o5TXfzw

"Pour Some Sugar on Me," but that's not really a great song

mark mothersbaugh was jealous that weird al and not devo had made "dare to be stupid"

^^^ came in here to post

"It's The Same Old Song" sort of counts i think

"Pour Some Sugar on Me," but that's not really a great song

Was within an ace of FPing you for this but felt a stern lecture from WmC coming on so i left it

that's ok, i gotcha

i can't tell with queen if they're being serious, but 'theme to flash gordon'

nv otm

Written solely to guarantee a good review from pinball-obsessed critic Nik Cohn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2aIsj8lcik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ9EWcaS7II
So many Rutles songs, but this one comes to mind. Also 'Cheese and Onions'.

Regarding The Rutles, I feel like the tracks on the first album were a bit too obviously parodies of actual Beatles songs to work as great songs in their own right. However, the second album contains some really great songs, like this one, for instance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWl7WqEjJx8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI9zMAptHcU

There's the often-told story of how "Le Freak" by Chic started out as a joke. "Fuck Off!" instead of "Freak Out!" I suppose at some point in the formulation of the song it stopped being a joke.

yeah, they were mad at Steve Rubell for not letting them into Studio 54.

Dude doesn't really stutter like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7miRCLeFSJo

I think Blue Monday fits. It wasn't necessarily made as a haha funny joke but rather a way for the band to get out of encores and leave the stage with the instruments playing the last song. more of a joke on the audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVdfTtEMqL4

ha the first thought that popped up when i read the title was elenore

Chumbawamba - Tubthumping, allegedly written after a night out at the pub as a contest to see who could write the most stereotypical hit song.

Mud did "Lonely This Christmas" as an Elvis pisstake and an OTT schmaltzy thing, but they had so many people thanking them for the sentiment that they felt suitably shamed..

Dr Hook's "Sylvia's Mother" was originally meant as a funny song iirc but people took it as a sad song.

Pet Shop Boys' 'Let's Make Lots of Money' was written as a joke. Similarly, Heaven 17's 'Let's All Make A Bomb'.

Wasn't "We don't need the fascist groove thing" meant to be pure comedy at the time? Juxtaposing a political message with fake funk lingo?

6 great songs that were supposed to be jokes at Cracked.com. Their list:

Beck, "Loser"
Beastie Boys, "Fight For Your Right to Party"
Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Quiet Riot, "Cum On Feel The Noize"
Stealer's Wheel, "Stuck In The Middle With You"
G'n'R, "Sweet Child O' Mine"

hate the music articles on Cracked

believe this was intended as a Beastie Boys parody? regardless, it's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai0cGldK8Xw

Underworld wrote Born Slippy Nuxx as a throwaway experiment to see if they could write a track where the melody and the beats were completely separate. Darren Emerson: "Taking the piss. When we did the track two or three years ago, it was quite hard. We thought, 'Let's put some cheesy strings on it'. One minute it was cheesy and the next minute it was really slamming. It was a bit of a piss-take then, but we listen to it now and it ain't."

I can believe that - the original Nuxx was tucked away on some single or EP, right?

I wonder if the Chems "Hey Boy Hey Girl" was meant as a joke. It certainly sounds like one.

It's my understanding that "Le Freak" would qualify for this list, though that understanding is based on a long ago seen VH1 special so it's possible I'm misremembering.

re that cracked list: I mean, Beck's whole career is built off of joke songs!

And Quiet Riot didn't write that song

Speaking of Ben Folds, this is a great song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szAJ3J44Zug

And Quiet Riot didn't write that song

The piece doesn't claim that they did.

To wit:

"Cum On Feel the Noize" was originally released by the glam rock band Slade in 1973, but the version everyone knows is the one done by Quiet Riot in 1983, which reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and propelled their album Metal Health to the #1 spot. This is truly an amazing accomplishment, because the band tried their best to make sure it was the worst song they'd ever recorded.

When their producer took the idea of doing a cover of "Noize" to them, the band was less than thrilled. Lead singer Kevin DuBrow hated the song outright, to the point where he and drummer Frankie Banali conspired to sabotage the recording and make it impossible to release. The band didn't rehearse the song at all and let their production engineer, Duane Baron, in on what they were planning to do. When the time came, he really only hit the record button for shits and giggles.

Banali tooled around on the drums, making things up as he went along, and when it came time for DuBrow to sing the lyrics, he tried his best to make it sound terrible. He screamed loud and off-key, doing his best not to give a fuck while ironically forgetting that rock music is all about not giving a fuck.

So DuBrow's vocals just ended up sounding like raw, hard rock awesomeness to everyone else, especially once backing vocals were added to smooth things out a bit, and the track went on to enjoy massive success. Years later, he admitted that covering "Noize" had been good move for the band.

Dukes of Stratosphear OTM. A sad truth for XTC -- one of their all time great records (certainly overshadowing anything after Skylarking by a mile) was a gag.

Little Richard, "Tutti Frutti"

Dukes album outsold "Mummer."

well Mummer sold like 500 copies so

Blur, "Song 2"

Mummer was held back for about a year (a friend of mine was close to the band, he had an advance tape for about a year)..

Anyways, the next XTC one was "Oranges and Lemons", etc.

Damn, came to post the BTO song, one of my favorites.

> Blur, "Song 2"

and also "Girls and Boys"

I'm pretty sure the Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park" was intended as a parody of hippiedom, throwing in every hippy-dippy cliche imaginable, but it was taken at face value by many listeners. And "Lazy Sunday" was definitely a joke.

^ Yeah I feel with Lazy Sunday the jokeyness comes through in the finished product more strongly than with Itchycoo Park, most obviously with those OTT mockney vocals on the first few verses.

BOC has to have some of these. "Godzilla", "Cities on Flame", i dont know if they were made as a joke, but they're pretty fucking hilarious and pretty fucking great

Richard Meltzer claimed that he wrote "She's As Beautiful As A Foot" for the Soft White Underbelly's original singer (Les Braunstein) because he hated him and wanted him to look stupid while singing something so ridiculous.

Not really sure if Utopia's "Deface The Music" album was made as a joke or rather out of love for The Beatles. Pastiche it was anyway, and this is one out of several fantastic songs on that album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGvq7CxCQ9s

Otherwise, Dukes of Stratosfear OTM of course.

I'm pretty sure the Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park" was intended as a parody of hippiedom, throwing in every hippy-dippy cliche imaginable, but it was taken at face value by many listeners. And "Lazy Sunday" was definitely a joke.

Steve Marriott was pissed that "Lazy Sunday" was released as a single/became a huge hit. It made the Small Faces seem "pop" when he wanted them to be seen as heavier. That's pretty much why he quit and formed Humble Pie (in fact, quitting in the middle of playing "Lazy Sunday" at their last show).

i think a lot of Dylan's Basement Tapes fits here. A lot of the lyrics seem designed just to make Richard Manuel laugh. But, great songs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEPCsQ4608