NEM#241: Humor in Music w/ Don Rauf, David Heatley, and Dave Philpott

Mark is joined by returning NEM guest Don Rauf (singer/songwriter from Life In a Blender), singer/songwriter/cartoonist David Heatley (featured on Mark’s other show Pretty Much Pop), and writer/musician Dave “Diggy” Dawson aka Dave Philpott (featured talking about his letters-to-popstars books on Pretty Much Pop). Our topic is humor in music. Is funny music necessarily less sincerely emotional, and so a failure at what music is supposed to do?

People are used to hearing songs from the singer’s perspective and might not realize that you’re playing a satirical character. How seriously do rock stars take their various ridiculous personas? An extreme persona can enable you to express something more interesting than a straight emotional recitation. Homages to various nostalgic styles (e.g. disco, metal, ’80s syntho) can in effect be musical jokes of a sort, but don’t have to imply that you’re laughing at that style (pretending to display an aesthetic is identical to actually displaying that aesthetic, your ambivalent intentions notwithstanding).

You can choose to watch this whole discussion unedited on YouTube, though you will in that case miss out on the music. Hear all of Life in a Blender’s “My Heart Your Sweat Does Feed” (2024) that leads off the audio. To conclude, we hear all of David Heatley’s “Blowing Off the World” (2023).

Some of the artists we refer to during the discussion include Frank Zappa, They Might Be Giants, Weird Al, Spinal Tap, Ian Dury, King Missile, The B-52s, Camper van Beethoven, The Dead Milkmen, GWAR, The Waitresses, Mac Sabbath, and The Anti-Nowhere League.

Here’s Peter Stampfel singing “Haunted Heart.” Here’s Mo Tucker singing in the Velvet Underground (see also Ringo). Listen to Iron Maiden’s “Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter.” Listen to Jonathan Richman’s life “Ice Cream Man.” Listen to Jonathan Coulton’s “Baby Got Back.” Hear Richard Cheese sing “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The History of Punk on the Lower East Side. Genesis’ “Harold the Barrel.” The Fall’s “Oswald Defense Lawyer.”

Before Mark’s most famous, not-funny song “Things We Should Do” (2015) featured Lucy Lawless, there was an original-silly-lyric-version (though this mix was done afterwards, adding some weird effects and emphasizing parts of the backing that had been deleted or turned lower in the released version). Some other Mark novelty-ish songs include “Falsifiable,” “The Nipple Song,” “The Zoo Song,” “The Size of Luv,” “I Believe,” and “Minnesota Freak.”

Hear Mark’s NEM interview with DEVO’s Gerald V. Casale.

Follow @Heatley, @DonRauf, @derek_and_dave_philpott, and @MarkLinsenmayer.

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