|
Bob Kanefsky interview cont'dBy Rand BellaviaParody Writing What makes a good parody, you ask? First, to be a parody at all, it has to follow the structure of the original lyrics: the rhyming scheme and scansion, at a minimum. To be a parody and not an adaptation, it has to twist the meaning of the original lyrics in some way, usually for humorous purposes. A technically good parody will reproduce all the internal rhymes and have at least as much alliteration and assonance as the original. (There's a difference between a parody and writing "to the tune of". For example, the classic filk song "Ronald Reagan Carl Sagan San Diegan Pagan" is a funny song to the tune of "Richter Scale", but it's not a parody of "Richter Scale" the way my "Kinsey Scale" is.) It should also parallel the original in some subtle and usually unexpected way, so that it sounds the same, but at the same time completely different. It's generally good when some of the individual words rhyme with the corresponding words in the original, or otherwise sound similar to them, e.g. Jordin Kare's "Fool to Feed the Drive", aside from the title itself, changes "this void between the stars" to "avoiding all the stars". Other kinds of parallels also work, like antonyms, e.g. changing "prayers" to "curses" (ibid). One source of humor in a funny song is to push against taboos, but still having something that makes it inoffensive. (All of that is relative to the culture and to the individual listener, of course.) For example, slightly obscene songs are often funny for adults, and slightly scatological songs work well too, especially for children right out of toilet training. For parodies employing that particular type of humor, it's especially funny if the original is about some really serious or lofty or sweet and innocent topic, and twisting a few words turns it on its head. But I think there's another reason that parodies work well for that type of humor, which I'll get to in a minute. The thing that defuses the offensiveness is sometimes inherent in the content of the song, e.g. Eric Bogle's “He’s Nobody’s Moggy Now” (the original song that inspired “Nobody’s Moggy Lands” ) purports to be sympathetic to the poor cat that had recently been going about its innocent business of butchering birds and mice, and ends with a cautionary verse addressed to cat owners. But sometimes the song is structured so that the taboo violations are implied by the rhyming scheme or the logic of the song, so that the listener fills in the gaps. The simplest way of doing that is a missing rhyme, as in "Fie on Goodness" from the stage version of "Camelot": "My heart is still in Scotland, where the lasses woo the best / On some bonnie hill in Scotland, stroking someone's bonnie-- (interrupted)". (I guess the word was considered obscene in the 50's. I also wonder about the rhyming properties of "woo".) A variation is an obviously substituted rhyme, like Julia Ecklar's "still has a gorgeous... rank" or Joey Shoji's "When I say that you're the best / From your ankles to your... wrist". I prefer substituting an actual rhyme, as in “always hope I'll pass” or “I feel a sudden urge to step outside and try to miss” and “maggot” and “on the grass” Even when the taboo violation is explicit, if it's set up well enough by innocent, acceptable lines beforehand, the listeners feel delightfully trapped into accepting something they would otherwise feel they had to object to. That's why a parody is a particularly good vehicle for that type of humor -- by the time you see it coming, it's too late to stop. Take my own “Nobody’s Moggy Lands” . (Please.) It contains the lines You've been squashed like a butterfly pressed between glass. Were you hit by a truck that was moving too fast? Did he slam on the brake as he saw you go past?Given that the song has already established that we're talking to a dead cat -- and I didn't bring up the subject; the original author, Eric Bogle, introduced the dead cat in another of his songs, “He’s Nobody’s Moggy Now” , and the idea of talking to the dead in “No Man’s Land” -- all three of those lines seem perfectly reasonable. If you had not-so-recently been squashed flat by a car, you'd probably find the comparison with a pressed butterfly rather flattering. The second line seems sympathetic, just the sort of thing you might say if you found yourself sitting on a bench next to roadkill and having to make small-talk. The third line describes one of the two actions any reasonable driver would take if an animal appears in front of them (either you brake for animals or you don't). Gotcha! Parodist to move and checkmate in one line. Because at this point the audience will be starting to figure out in the back of their minds, not quite fast enough, that the three lines rhyme (more or less) so the fourth line has to be the same rhyme; in fact, that's the original rhyme scheme and the parody has to follow the original rhyme scheme, doesn't it? Furthermore, the parody will tend to mirror the content of the original. The original lines are
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916. I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean. Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene? Notice that the third line sets up an obvious parallel with the fourth line: "quick" is the opposite of "slow", and "obscene" suggests the opposite extreme from a clean death, the unthinkable details of which are left to the audience's unwilling imagination. So if you've let the first three lines of the parody go past without objection, you're forced to accept that the last word in the fourth line has to rhyme (sort of) with "glass" or "fast" and ought to be the opposite of "brake". A car has two large pedals, known in American English as the brake and the gas pedal, or "the gas". So (with apologies for using an imperfect rhyme and mistaking "moggy" for a proper name), the fourth line has to be the unthinkable: Or, Moggy the cat, did he step on the gas?Again, by the time the listener realizes the line is coming, it's too late to stop.
Comments? Please post them here. |