Song Parodies

People have liked taking songs and making them their own, whether by changing the tempo or by changing the actual words, for a long time. It's been easier in the past few decades to see this because of our mass media in particular radio and television. Let us not forgot our faithful friend, the Internet, as well. The Internet has given us a virtual explosion of parodies especially related to games.

My daughter plays Minecraft, a game which I find hard to credit as being a game and instead term it an artistic challenge. So she likes looking for parodies of popular songs and has found a couple of people who do the parodies extremely well. Even I like them and I know very little about the game.

Like everyone else who writes, I've tried my hand at song writing, particularly parodies. Mostly because then I don't need to worry about the music. But I have written some original poems that I feel could be set to music quite well and even managed a few with a chorus. However, parodies remain my favorite fare.

In particular, I like to make them into food parodies.

I can't say it that was inspired by Weird Al's parodies of Michael Jackson's songs but I suspect that his concepts worked their way into the back of my brain and eventually influenced me. I generally do these just for my own fun but a while ago I posted one on one of my sites and had a friend help me a bit with the lyrics. I highly recommend collaborating when possible. One mind can work well and in a way be a genius but two minds are absolute brilliance together. We're able to see flaws in the other person's work that we'll ignore in our own. :P

So the one we did was 50 Ways to Bake Your Brownies based on 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon. Another one that I thought over was Carry Out Takeout Son for Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas.

Some songs lend themselves very easily, in my opinion, to parodies while others take a lot of thought. Both of the above came to me while I was listening to them and also thinking about cooking. Obviously I was thinking about making brownies and trying to figure a way to make them different from the usual mix. The other song I was semi listening to and the line "There'll be peace when you are done" got changed to "There'll be pizza when you are done". Hehe. My mind can be funny.

Thinking up parodies got me to thinking about why people like to do them. In one way I think it's because it's easier to take something someone has already done and modify it. Every year I post in my journal a Christmas poem and I like taking the rhythm of The Night Before Christmas and using that as my base. I could do up a new poem completely from scratch and create a new rhythm every year. But it's easier and has become a tradition to use the same rhythm. The words are always new but by using a familiar beat it's easier to form the sentences.

But in another way it's harder because you have to stay true to the beat. An original poem or song or recipe means you can experiment and try different combinations without trying to make them fit any pattern. But by using an established form - a well-known song or poem - you have to stay within the boundaries created by the original artist or writer.

In a way it's a tribute to the original creator, a way of saying you like their work so much that you want to keep it while still making it distinctly yours as well. As long as you aren't taking commercial advantage of that and are crediting the original composer, group, or writer then I don't see anything wrong with creating parodies. It's like copying a person's fashion sense or way of speaking or walking. Imitation is still the greatest form of flattery and parodies are imitations in one way.

But there's always the flip side. Parodies can become more popular than the original work. And when that happens knowing that the work is a parody is important. Parodies are usually done to be humorous but sometimes they are done respectfully and with a seriousness of their own (which technically means they are no longer parodies but instead a homage or tribute). A good example would be the song "Every Breath You Take" originally done by The Police that had it's main beat and chorus used in the song "I'll Be Missing You" by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans. Despite the fact that about 20 years lay between the two songs and The Police were no longer recording as a group, many people thought that The Police had taken the song and modified it. No folks, it was written by Sting but even he says it was inspired by another song.

Creativity tends to build upon previous work.

Probably best known for his parodies, Weird Al has a long history of taking the work of contemporary artists and making them as funny as possible. He always makes sure he has approval for his parodies because he does make them into his albums. However there are a lot of parodies out on the Internet that are done without approval. Some will still credit the original artist but some won't. I think credit should be given where due but I'm not going to go around reporting anyone who doesn't credit the original source. At least as long as no one is getting money for it. I do believe in copyrights and monetary rights for creative work but that's another post.

Parodies are meant to be fun and they usually are. I think they should be encouraged as exercises in schools' creative writing classes. I think adults should sit down once a month or more and see who can come up with the best ideas for a parody. I think we need more fun in our lives.

But that's just my opinion.