The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #165963   Message #3986701
Posted By: BobL
10-Apr-19 - 03:51 AM
Thread Name: Songs of bad taste
Subject: RE: Songs of bad taste
I think I've said this elsewhere but it bears repeating. There are comic songs about industrial accidents, unwanted pregnancies, matrimonial infidelity, alcohol abuse and more, situations which in real life are not in the least bit funny. However, the audience aren't being invited to laugh at real-life sufferings, but at the imagined misfortunes of fictional people invented purely for that purpose. At the heart of all these songs is the world's oldest joke: man slips on banana skin. This is only funny because it's the victim's own fault for not looking where he was going: a blind man so slipping wouldn't be funny, nor would a banana skin deliberately thrown under the victim's feet (although that one has possibilities...)

When singing such songs I'm well aware that anyone who has suffered from the core situation may not find the song funny. But I'm not a people person so that's never stopped me yet.