Jokes In Music

Struck by Ned's review of Mark Mulcahy's new album, where he mentions that Mark uses traditional joke lines in his lyrics ("waiter, waiter" etc). This put me in mind of Scott Walker on Bish Bosch, with lines that are essentially Yo Mama jokes or similar - if shit were music, you'd be a brass band...

Can anyone think of any more? Do such lines work, or are they cringe-inducing? Or do they work *because* they're cringe-inducing?

Ned suggested Sparks as a band that do this a lot, too, which seems right to me but I can't actually think of specific examples.

Puns don't really count here, I guess, I'm thinking of jokes-qua-jokes rather than wordplay or witticism.

I don't think Mary Hopkins' "Knock Knock Who's There" is supposed to be a reference to the joke but it's a thing

How do I get to Carnegie hall?

"D'yer Mak'er" takes its title from the first "joke" i can remember being told

What's the joke?

"My wife's run off to the West Indies"

"Jamaica?"

"No, she went of her own accord"

Oh, haha, I love those jokes, I just somehow didn't connect the dots that it was pronounced like that. I think I was reading it as "do you make her" rather than "did you make her".

off topic but there's a variant on that gag in the Simpsons which on some days is the funniest joke ever

Lisa is watching Marge squeezing stolen sachets of ketchup into a big bottle as a money-saving exercise. Kind of shocked, she asks Marge "Do you do that with relish?" and Marge says "No I'm kind of embarrassed about it to be honest."

The joke in the US is how Americans pronounce it (dye-er make-er).

xp

idg "d'yer". why is there an r at the end?

just how they spelled it? i guess they heard a "yer" in "Jamaica"

certainly in the 70s "yer" wd've felt more Britishy than "ya"

Before hearing it, I always assumed that Dyer Maker would be some great proto-metal.

anyway to go back to the thread question, Half Man Half Biscuit must have done this but i can't think of an example yet

In the same vein as "zercon", some of the insults from john cooper Clarke's "twat" are old standbys I think. And britney's "hold it against me" is, not a joke exactly, but an old "funny" chat-up line. That almost counts.

And moby grape are named after a joke!

I had to look it up but I had heard the Moby Grape joke before. And I think the Britney line would count, if we allow insult one-liners then we can include chat-up one-liners.

get it, two pacs

The Bellamy Brothers beat Britney to the punchline with 'If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me'

There are a few in Bowie's meisterwerk, the Laughing Gnome:

Here, what's that clicking noise?
- That's Fred, he's a metrognome

Haven't you got an 'ome to go to?
- No, we're gnomads

Didn't they teach you to get your hair cut at school? You look like a rolling gnome
- No, not at the London School of Ecognomics

those are not good jokes

I quite like the 'gnomads' one.

Though I guess comedy records shouldn't count. Or should they? I don't know.

They're not just good - they're phe-gnome-enal

http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/50/cover_3758226112010.jpg

And moby grape are named after a joke!

As were this mob, who were originally called Mboza Richie after a Glaswegian joke about the name of Lionel Richie's African cousin

There's a When Is A door not a door? When it's ajar in one of the tracks on the s/t Birthday pArty lp or it's Hee Haw cd version. Think it may be Red Clock but haven't listened to the record in a while, which is a major oversight since I love that record.

Foetus is rife with jokes isn't he?

Think there may be actual instrumental musical jokes in some bebop improvisations and other similar interplay too.Which would indicate massively highspeed mental faculties.

Richie Powell (Bud's brother, and also a pianist) was insanely adept at quoting/jokes in his solos.

Scooter's "And No Matches" has the setup for a joke (or a riddle?) in it: "Three men in a boat, with four cigarettes, and no matches...how do they manage to smoke?", but the punchline isn't included in the song!

They have a lighter?

THink I read Dizzy Gillespie talking about it in his autobio To Be or Not To Bop years ago. & also Mingus talkig about people having conversations on a semantic level through what they were playing on the bandstand. Don't think I could give you an example offhand though.

Think there may be actual instrumental musical jokes in some bebop improvisations and other similar interplay too.Which would indicate massively highspeed mental faculties.

Think I read Dizzy Gillespie talking about it in his autobio To Be or Not To Bop years ago. & also Mingus talkig about people having conversations on a semantic level through what they were playing on the bandstand. Don't think I could give you an example offhand though.

― Stevolende, Friday, July 19, 2013 9:14 PM (1 second ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

& I think the quote above from Scooter is a Riddler thing from the 60s Batman show. Certainlyt remember something very close to that anyway.

throw one of the cigarettes off the boat to make it a cigarette lighter

and yes it's from the old batman series

& the Batman thing goes they throw a cigarette overboard and then they have a cigarette lighter.
>
Right just had that bit written

american music club, "how many six-packs does it take to screw in a light?"

biohazard, "black and white and red all over"