Looking at some old 15th/16th century manuscript songs these 'impossibilities' songs were fairly common then and were referred to as 'burlesques' which is of interest to me as the meaning and usage of the word 'burlesque' seems to have altered by about 1600 to mean a satire on a serious piece of work like a ballad, play, story or even a whole genre. This meaning persisted until the end of the nineteenth century when it was recycled again to also mean smutty performances in the Music Hall.