Does humor belong in music?

Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm a musicologist in eight Sloan. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. In 1986, the year of my birth, Frank Zappa released a live album with a title that posed a question.

Does humor belong in music? [LAUGH] Forty years later, I feel like the question is still relevant. Right, we don't think of pop music as being funny, necessarily. We listen to music to dance, to cry, to sing along, but not necessarily to laugh.

Yeah, this is serious stuff, Nate. It's not a laughing matter. At the same time, who would deny that music can crack us up all the way from, you know, a light chuckle to a butt-gusting gaffa. Like just recently on the pod, we were discussing Sabrina Carpenter and the importance that

humor plays in her music.

Like, I don't know, the second verse of Man Child, perhaps.

[MUSIC] Not just the lyrics, it's also the delivery, it's that caveman speaks. She commits to the bet she's an actor as well. So if humor in fact does belong in music, I'd like to better understand how and why artists deploy it in their songs.

“And to do that, I think we need to bring in an expert, a humor expert.”

And when you know there's one staring at me right now, the host of the TED podcast, how to be a better human, the author of the new book, humor me, how laughing can make you more present, creative, and happy. And as of now, a three-time guest on Switched On Pop, let's welcome Chris Duffy. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for having me, guys. And I love that my intro made it sound like I was leering outside your window before you're excited to be in. [LAUGHTER] I'm glad to be here.

So Chris, to give this conversation a little framing, you literally wrote a book all about why humor matters. Why don't you summarize all, I don't know, 300 pages of that in a 50 sentence or two for us. All right, great.

I'll give it a shot. Humor matters because it is a fun, easy way to connect with other people and to acknowledge the absurdity of the world.

“And I actually think that music is a very similar function for many people, right?”

Like this is a way to connect with other people. This is a way to experience joy. It's not necessarily solving the problems of the world, but it's letting us relax and release them for a second so that then we can go back and deal with them later on. So if we return to Frank Zappa's question, does humor belong in music?

What's your answer, Chris? Well, I think Frank Zappa answered this question himself because one of the funniest lyrics in music of all time is watch out where the Husky's go, do not eat the yellow snow. That's a Frank Zappa lyric. I mean, the guy is he's churning out punchlines.

I think that for me, the answer is the most delightful songs are ones where the music

is catchy, the lyrics are amazing, but then also, when you think about it, it triggers this like, like you said, a gafob because it's so clever and funny and smart. And so I don't think humor necessarily has to play a role in music of like everything should be aiming to be like a silly goofy punchline.

“But I think that kind of cleverness and that waitingness is a lot of what makes great songs”

great. May I pause at the opposite, Nate? Please. Which is that I think part of when a song or maybe a whole project suffers is when it's humorless. I feel this so frequently in film where an incredibly dramatic film just stays in the tension

and the drama all the way through. And in reality, humans naturally, I think find that pleasure in the absurdity even amongst terror, fear, horror, whatever.

There's always humor that tries to get us through hard moments.

And so I feel like a musical project, which is just like serious all the way through is missing some fundamental human component. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm also supposed to be the humor guy, but I will say, I think you can have a great album.

That's not funny. I'd certainly not like, oh, that album was terrible because I didn't laugh. But I think that often, humor is this kind of added magical sprinkle that we don't give credit to in making a good album become a great album or a good song become a great song. Yeah, I don't need to have a gut-busting laugh as Nate proposes, but like a subtle smile

when a lyrics sort of presents the opposite of the dark thing that I've been presenting before. That's what I'm thinking about.

So we have some consensus that humor does indeed belong in music. Let's try and better understand how artists use humor in different ways and how it affects us as listeners by listening to some different examples from different genres, different time periods, different styles. And see if we can't come up with some sort of taxonomy or schema of the species of humor

in music. Now, Chris, you texted me prior to our recording that you have some categories that you'd like to propose for how we can proceed through this analysis. Absolutely.

“Yeah, I think when I was thinking about what are really funny, genuinely funny lyrics,”

not unintentionally funny, because I think obviously you've done a whole episode about this of lyrics that are so bad they become funny. But I think when we're thinking about intentionally humorous lyrics, to me, there's a couple of categories that immediately come to mind.

So the first one is, and I think this is what a lot of people think of when they think

of humorous music is a parody, right? So like we're down, you're either changing the lyrics or sometimes it can be really funny because you change the genre, so like you take gin and juice. The rap song, and you put it in to bluegrass. Yeah, that was bluegrass band, the Gords.

That becomes a really popular hit, too. The bluegrass version of gin and juice, which is funny just because of the change in genre. Another category of funny song is when a comedian is deliberately writing a song that is full of jokes, and it can often be a legitimately great song. Yeah.

Marshabelsky, an incredible comedian, her song, 100 tampons, about the time when NASA sent

Sally Ride to Space for one weekend in Esther, if 100 tampons would be enough. That's an incredible song, a great parody song, well not a great parody, a great satire of the scientific world, not understanding women's health, and then also one of my favorite songs of all time is Bill Burnham's from God's perspective, I just think he's a truly beautiful musical song, but is also very, very funny and intentionally so.

“And then I think the other category that comes to mind is often times there is like”

a serious album or even a serious song that then has a funny lyric in it. So I think Taylor actually does this quite frequently, where she'll have a really funny lyric in otherwise serious song, like all too well, his fuck the patriarchy keychain on the ground, that's very funny, that's like a very funny image and it's intentionally funny image.

I find these categories pretty compelling and I think we should break them down individually starting with the parody genre, moving to the funny songs that actually are kind of pops and then finally the quote unquote, "serious songs" with some funny lyrics in them.

And for this last category, we have an amazing range of submissions from our listeners

as well. I'm so excited and excited to share with you. But yeah, let's dive right into this first category of the parody song. Could be really the weirdo Yankovic genre, like he is almost a genre unto himself. Kind of crazy, I don't think we've ever talked about him on the podcast before, is that

true?

“Chuck, like 10 years in, have we done a weirdo Yankovic episode before?”

I don't think so. I'm massive oversight. What weirdo I'll track do we want to start with to introduce both the fans and the uninitiated to his work? Well, I think one of those classic weirdo songs is Amish Paradise, which of course was

one of his most controversial as well, because Kulio did not like that it was parodyed, but it's a genuinely hilarious parody, and it takes a song that it's very serious and makes it very silly. And I think also in this day and age, I believe that we are still allowed to make jokes at the expense of the Amish.

We'll find out by pressing play on Amish Paradise. As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain, I think I look at my wife and realize

but the original Kulio song is based off of a Stevie Wonder sample past-time paradise. And that's kind of this unknowable song about the West's obsession with endless distraction in past times, and so in some ways, this feels like a response song to a past-time paradise of like the Amish River productive people and active contributors to society. Oh, Charlie, I love that you were able to go so deep into this song that we got back

to, like, this is its actual true core meaning, but this is what Stevie Wonder intended for eventually there to be a song glorifying the Amish lifestyle to his melody that was used. Exactly. You know what I will say listening to this, like, despite whatever umbridge Kulio took with weird owl parading his song, Gangstas Paradise.

This song and maybe all of weird owl's parodies never really take shots at the song

that he's parading. No, he never criticizes the song or criticizes the artist in any way. He really just uses it as a template to do something funny.

“I think there's a real kindness to his humor. It's it's an homage. I think it's it's a generous”

homage. And honestly, I also think that listening to this, it just makes you realize how rarely you hear shoutouts to people named Jeba Daya and Ezekiel in pop music. And that is a huge loss for pop music. And also just in the very first line where I harvest my grain is such a perfect phrase. That is so funny. Another lesson we can draw from weird owl perhaps is that a lot of the same

principles that go into writing a great song of any stripe go into writing a great comedy song. Absolutely. And you know, you all think a lot about like structure and how things are put together and what the building blocks are. One thing I'll say that I noticed is one of the rules of comedy

“is that you should always put the funniest word last that you want to make sure you end and then”

there's a pause after the funniest thing. And so where I harvest my grain just on a structural level is so much funnier than where I'm grain harvesting. And obviously that doesn't work because it wouldn't fit the theory. But it's a funnier sense if you end on the word grain. And I think that there's kind of a musicality to comedy that weird owl has captured and taken into literal music. One of the lyricist skills is creating compelling, surprising, dexterous rhymes.

This is something that weird owl yank of it is one of the greatest at. Not just in the realm of humor music, but just in general. I mean, being able to create a chorus that takes you from turn butter once or twice to hard work and sacrifice to sell quilts at a discount price.

And then it goes on, right? We get a second chorus. He doesn't reuse the same lyric.

We're just plain and simple, guys. We're all crazy men and nights. There's no coughs or traffic lights, but you'd probably think it bites. It's really impressive to do that. The constraints are

“challenging because you have to match the exact cadence you have to get the rhymes. That's right.”

You have to get the feeling of the original. I don't know. I feel like this is a new kind of New York Times game. They should have like read you the song right whole new lyrics. Same melodies, same cadence, make it funny. This is also sometimes I've occasionally had the experience of

watching someone perform comedy in another language. A language I don't speak. What's incredible

is that you can understand whether they're funnier or not without understanding any of the words. You know like, oh, that rhythm is that's a great joke or that joke is not polished yet. And I think that in a way we're now highlights something similar with his parody lyrics, which is you know whether they fit, but it also highlights how good the original lyrics are. This is why I think he's really doing an homage. The fact that the joke fits in there

the serious words with the funny word and still have a really compelling fun song to listen to. I feel like another principal I'm extracting now is weird to all executes these songs really well. Right. His vocals are pitch perfect. He's obviously a masterful musician. One of our great accordion virtuosi that that we have today. And the production on all of these songs is so immaculate. Part of the reason they're funny is because they're so perfectly executed.

Hmm. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna close the weird owl circle with one of my favorite tracks. My Blownie. Classic. Original.

What else would be like to buy my guy? I'm incredible that he's saying Ballona too. I love that.

But he's going and he's like I'm gonna say the full correct Italian pronunciation. There's an argument that what our society needs is more song parodies. I'm gonna say processed meat. I'm gonna put a call out to everyone listening. You know, we're out can't do it alone folks. We need we need more song parodies out there running running wild. And now let us move to Chris's next category, which I thought was really interesting.

It's something I hadn't really considered. But a funny song that also stands on its own as a great song.

“So Chris, you mentioned some examples. What was the the first one, 100?”

Oh, yeah. So Marshall Belsky, a comedian who I love, has this incredible song called 100

tampons and it is the story of Sally Ride being sent to space by NASA for one weekend and I'm asking her if we give you 100 tampons will that be enough. And she wrote a song about this. That is I think both hilarious as a joke and also truly just an incredible piece of music. I can be sure now. Wow, a little modulation though. I can picture it now is so good. What's so good about this is the the minor key quality of it in the beginning. It has this

seriousness to it. But the levity of the lyrics and then contrasts in with the modulation that you get where if I does go into the major key. Pretty funny writing. Oh, she's a genius. I really think

my Spellskis genius. I'm Sally Ride and I'm going to space for the first time walking tall. I feel so

“proud. Then I see a man running panicked through the ground. It's holding a large bag. I think what can this be?”

I mean, it's so good. I'm thinking about how this bit wouldn't work as just like a spoken comedy bit. I feel like it would be kind of short and kind of maybe more bitter or angry when it becomes a song. It becomes more funny and more more sensurious of the people at NASA will also being more gentle at the same time. It hits a little bit harder because it has this beautiful central melody. I give Marsha credit that I think she could make this funny if she was just saying it. But I think

so much of the beauty is it captures what music is so good at, which is like giving us an emotional experience, giving us a really vivid image and getting us invested in that and I think just saying to someone you don't feel it in the same way and she really crafts this where we are there with her and we are feeling it. And then music allows for repetition of the absurdity in a way where you can say so many times one hundred tampons and it gets funnier every time you just say it out loud.

“Eventually you're just repeating yourself. I think in music we're like we've got to hear”

this chorus again. The other example you shared with us was Boburnaum from God's perspective legitimately one of my favorite songs not even in the comedy category. Who needs 1,000 metaphors to figure out you shouldn't be a dick and I don't watch you when you sleep.

It's like a funnier version of what have God or one of us? Absolutely. Oh it really is and I mean

“you can hear like I think this is one of the reasons why Boburnaum has such a rabid fan base is because”

technically he is just so talented. I mean this is a person who could clearly just be a serious musician but also is one of the most creative comedians of our time. There's something very clever he does here which is usually in a song you'll have roughly the same like syllable count from

line to line but if we look at you know just the first couple of this the books you think I wrote are

way too thick. Who needs 1,000 metaphors to figure out you shouldn't be a dick. It's like that second line kind of goes on in this way. You expect it to end a little earlier, expect the rhyme to come about halfway through and then he like makes it kind of run on in this way that catches you off guard and you don't see where it's going and then when it finally ends it's such a satisfying payoff. And I think that this is a song where you could look at every single lyric and it would work as a

written joke. You would laugh just at it as a written joke and I think you could take all of the

lyrics out and just replace them with nonsense, gobbledygook and you would still think it was a

“beautiful song. So that's why this is to me such an impressive example of the comedy song category.”

I feel like you really knocked that out of the park that feeling with the song that funny feeling from his film inside. Oh yes. This is the prime example. I feel like of the combination of music and humor helping us deal with the absurdity of the world. The song is funny. It talks about Stevie Oki and Logan Paul and then immediately equates it to the disaster of mass shootings at malls. It's like it's deeply tragic and humor

underlies the tragedy. Perhaps one of the great light moments of the whole song is that it ends up being covered by Phoebe Bridgers to even better version and they end up dating.

Hi. Yes. This isn't an incredible. We love a love story. Yes. You do. There's another

Boburnum track from inside called FaceTime with my mom. There's one line that is burned deep in my brain. I don't know why she'll tell me all about the season six but now they have the black list. It has proven so unforgettable but that line pops in my head all the time for some reason. Oh and the song is a Bob to your head. Yeah. I just want to listen to this song. The sense is cadence. It's such a good track. I also think that this ties it back into both like a much

older tradition and maybe like for millennials there was this definitive moment when tenacious D was like a legitimately very popular band with a very successful album. That was all

“the joke song. And then you know now Jack back is the superstar of all superstars and movies. I think”

they were for our generation a really big moment but it also ties it back to like in the 30s in the 40s. Funny songs were very much a thing and there wasn't really like a bright line between comedy music and serious music. I think people wouldn't have said like well that's a silly song. That can't beat pop music. A song that makes you laugh could be the most popular song and it wouldn't have struck people as unusual. We do happen to have a jazz scholar with us. Are

there any great funny songs of that era that come to mind date? I mean there are plenty of songs with very funny lyrics. I don't know if I would call them comedy songs per se but Lorenz hard of Rogers and Hart comes to mind as someone who had some real singers in his song. I wish I were in love again. He writes when love cangeals it soon reveals the faint aroma of performing seals. The double crossing of a pair of heels. I wish I were in love again.

That cool porter has some very funny songs. I mean let's do it has lines like in shallow shoals English oh my god is that in shallow shoals English souls do it goldfish in the

in love of life from that very long time. Also a song that I love that's from I believe originally

“written in 1939 and has had a kind of a new life because it became a little bit of a social”

media thing recently is are you having any fun sung by Elaine Stritch but the original was written in

1939 if I'm impressed. It fell out with a million smackers and nervous and I just tried.

Eating milk and crackers I ask you one question. Are you having any fun? What's your getting out of living? Oh my god. That's fun. That's fun. Two something so much fun. I love when you can hear a singer smile when they actually have like a little laughter in the way that they're singing. It brings a little that contagiousness to your own experience. I mean now that we're talking history we could

you know take it all the way back to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who had what some very funny songs.

“Oh that's what I'm always saying about Wolfgang. What are the great comedians in a very juvenile way?”

I would say I mean there's a song of his called "Lec Mi'im Arsh" and he guesses what that might mean. Oh my goodness well Arsh I'm I'm Lec Mi'im Arsh seems pretty glad to be in Wolfgang. Oh my

day. Yes. Nate is reviving our classical master segment for seven years ago. So we've always

been drawn to humor in music. I have the only thing we've been drawn to. I love to get to tell you. Various registers perhaps. Various brass. We've explored the categories of parody songs of comic songs that also have to be great songs unto themselves. Let's take a quick break and then come back and visit some serious songs with funny lyrics. The master's song is called "Lec Mi'im Arsh" and he's a master's master. He's a master's master.

He's a master's master. He can't say that. You're a master's master. But you don't believe it. Egal. It's a very famous song. It's a very famous song. It's a very famous song. And if you then work, it's a song. That's right. Save. It's a song. Hold it. Thank you. Now we're going to try it. Glory is a song that isn't funny. You wouldn't find it filed in the humor section of Amoeba Records. Say, it is just a song that is meant to move and excite and stimulate people.

But it also might contain a line that makes you genuinely laugh or at least snicker. Chris, are there any that come to mind for you like sort of individual lines that have stood out from a song that really tickled you in some way? Well, I gave you that one of my favorites, which is from Taylor Swift's All Too Well. I love the line about the patriarchy keychain on the ground. That's a great one for me. The other one is I'm a big fan. They're not the most recent band.

But I love the Berenaked Ladies and the Berenaked Ladies have a lot of legitimately great songs that also have very, very funny lyrics. Like the song, if I had a million dollars, is I would not say a comedy song. And yet it is structured in many ways like a premise with punchlines. What would I do if I had a million dollars? And that was a pretty big hit for them. If I had a million dollars, lied by an exotic pet, yeah, like a lama pouring me.

It isn't the band fundamentally a humorous band that they title themselves the Berenaked Ladies to probably put on a marquee in the 90s when that kind of humor was more okay. And you know, try to get people into the venue and trick them into, oh no, that's a bunch of guys playing some years. Oh, that you know what? It's so funny because as soon as you say it, I'm like, that is what the

name of that band is. Wow, I hadn't even registered that. And that's of course never put that together.

I know a guy wants to had a band called a free pizza and beer for this reason. That's really funny. Okay, that's that's much funnier and really good. Real let down.

“Yeah, I also think it's really important when we're talking about songs that are serious, but that”

have funny lyrics in them to acknowledge that I think like the longest history of really funny,

history, right? Like the blues have so many funny lyrics in them. Yeah, rap is like predicated on an

incredible linguistic twist or a use of language and similarly in a way that you don't expect.

“So I think there's probably like no greater history of serious music with really funny lines.”

Then black musical history. So it shouldn't be any surprise that when we asked our listeners to share some of their funniest song lyrics from us, I would say the vast majority were from the genres. You just mentioned Chris R&B blues and hip-hop especially. I mean the very first one that popped up on Substack when we posed this question was from listener Mike and he just had one line from Kendrick Lamar's, "Not Like Us." That's devastating. That's a devastating roast.

Upon so savage, it rewrote the course of pop history. I mean that's, we had to start with that because it's not only a very funny line, but it's impact was so massive, utterly reshaped the career arc of

“some of our most notable pop stars of the 21st century. But then there's so many more. I mean,”

I can't even do all of them. We'd be here all day. Let's just hit some of the highlights. Listener Sandy wanted us to highlight some of M&M's lyrics. He has so many kind of unforgettable burns. Will Smith don't have to cut his rap to sell records. Well I do, so fuck him, it's like funny. You know, this actually does queue up for me another genre of funny music, which we probably are not going to get into because probably not. But I will say there is a whole other genre that

is music that is funny and intentionally funny because it is so rude. Like songs that are just intentionally as graphic and disgusting as possible. And that is, at least for me, can often be very, very funny. Like you don't have to play them. But if you're a listener and you want to go into them, I will tell you that the rapper Afroman has some great lyrics in his song called 45 or

there's also an incredible country song called Dick Down in Dallas. That is about the filthy

song you can ever imagine. And yet so catchy that I have to stop myself from singing in a public. And there's many, many others in that genre as well. Another submission from our listeners that might belong in that more rude category, Chris, is from Geneva. She wants us to highlight a line from two chains birthday song that has been making her kiggle for nearly 15 years now. That's, you know, sometimes the name should be as literal as possible. And I do love that.

It's kind of like the Sir Mix a lot tradition right now.

I think booty. So I call it a big booty. That is really funny. I've never noticed that before.

I love the idea also if someone's saying like, "How did you come up with that nickname?" And he's like, "Oh, well, it's quite simple. I call it a big booty because she has a big booty." That's where that came from. And there are so many more on this list that I would feel, oh, no, that Charlie. Charlie would, I would make him uncomfortable if I shared

“them. I wouldn't think of any discomfort, but I would bless you. All you have to do to go see”

some of these more lascivious entries is subscribe to our Substack and go to the chat and they're all there. They're really hysterical and safe Charlie, you know, the embarrassment of me saying them to his face. Thank you. A song that makes me laugh every single time because I just can't not miss hear it. Yeah. If you listen to the little John song, snap your fingers. Uh-huh. I swear that the man is at least once saying snap your bagels. And I think if you listen, you'll see why. I think that.

Let's find out. All right, you're coming up again. I swear at least once he's literally saying bagels. Bagels and things don't sound that similar. That's really uncanny, Chris. This isn't the Taylor Swift blank space unintentional humor. The Starbucks lover moment of blank space. What are you saying? Long list of X lovers is entirely just Starbucks lovers. That's so true.

a little too hungry. This is the kind of thing that happens. You're supposed to be saying fingers and

“on you're just thinking about bagels and it just comes out. He sees the producer eating a bagel and”

creatures and he's like snap your bagels. There's the bagels here. I feel like I want to invest to get the rest of the lyrics and look for some shrears and locks and suit suit. If you live and

get some clothes, this is stunning stuff. I never expected this conversation to take us here,

but this is yeah, this is revelatory. Snap your bagels. I feel like our last category. There's a lot of let's call them the current pop girlies who are making really funny music. I mentioned Sabrina Carpenter at the top of the show. A lot of people wrote in with funny Sabrina Carpenter lyrics.

“She has many of them. What about Olivia Rodrigo? Get him back.”

That's such a good line. That's an incredible line. I want to meet his mom just to tell her

sun sucks. Wow. That's so good. It's not delivered in a vindictive way. It's very humorous.

Yeah. And then there's Chapel Roan. Her song "Casual" has this indelible couplet. That was from Logan, a rhyme scheme. I don't think we've ever heard before. Need deep in the passenger seat and you're eating me out. It's a casual now two weeks in your mom invites me to her house in Long Beach. It's a casual now. The way we move from that graphic image to this like very tender encounter, it's really the funny and the musicianship is out of control.

Also, those two back-to-back are like a spectacular update on a much more sensitive version of Yomama jokes. Which is a guess. And then I wanted to highlight another artist that we just interviewed on the podcast a few weeks ago. Audrey Hobart. Oh yeah. Charlie, you talked with Audrey about the role that humor plays in her music. And she has so many lines that aren't necessarily trying to make you laugh, but they have this ironic sheen to them that is both funny and sad and

moving. I interviewed Audrey about the opening of her album, the song I like to touch people, where she pauses the question. If I were asked what do you like to do, she says I like to touch people. She's highly disturbing, but also it is the nature of music. We're trying to connect with people's hearts. It's not above a joke to open her album, which gets very tender and real from there. I mean, I love the opening of bowling alley. I stripped down south because I'm the naked

neighbor. I mean, where did she come up with that? It's such a funny image. And then the line that immediately follows. Is it a choice or am I cursed? It's a toss-up. It's really funny. She started her

“career as a Nickelodeon TV writer. I think that informs how she writes her songs. In our interview,”

we talked a lot about the translation from TV writer into songwriter. But I think that's a part of where she gets her humor, although it's also just like clearly in her bones and she's a very funny person. You know, another former switched on pop guest, who I think is really funny and fits in this category, too, is Jensen McRatt. I mean, her album, I have just listened to on repeat over and over and over again. I'm obsessed with it. But I think there's so many really funny lyrics that she

makes devastating. One of her first hit songs was kind of like a parody song in a way. It was

immune. This parody of a Phoebe Bridger's song about getting your vaccination shots for COVID-19. And it became so beautiful to be where we're like, "We got to hear that song." So she kind of straddles this line, too, of incredibly talented and incredibly funny

I mean, there's a clear trend emerging here, fellas. The funniest people in music right now are

“young women. I mean, that's the only conclusion I can draw from this exercise. If you want to know”

who's writing the funniest lyrics in pop right now, it's all these burgeoning, fantastic songers. Oh, chaplain, I forgot her as well. Oh, I totally agree with you. And I also think, you know, I'll tell you that in doing the research for my book, one of the things that I came across as kind of a big idea about humor, I think it actually translates to this exactly, which is I would say that like the right kind of humor, the kind of humor that I am in favor of is this generous, this like we

should all laugh more in our life humor. And just to get into a small real-sized study because I think it is connected is there was a psychological study that looked at dating apps. And they found

that across, cultures across continents, people almost all said that they were looking for a

partner with a great sense of humor. But then when the researchers drilled down and they said, what does that really mean? And they were looking at heterosexual couples, heterosexual women said, it means someone who I can laugh with. And when they asked men, they said, it means someone who

“laughs at my jokes. And I believe that is completely the wrong vision of humor, right? Like,”

I think humor should not be about the performative I'm getting attention. Instead, it should be about how do we all have a good time together, how do we laugh, how do we approach the world with an understanding of absurdity and a willing to laugh at ourselves? And it's not feel like we have to be impressive and perfect. But instead, we can laugh about how weird and unusual and idiosyncratically are. And I think that is reflected in who is writing the funniest music these days. That is fascinating,

Chris. And gives us a nice sort of moment to step back and think about what we've learned today for this exercise. We've by no means exhausted all the great song parodies, all the funny songs that are also bobs, all the the great lyrics that appear unexpectedly and then otherwise somewhat serious song. But I feel like nonetheless, we can come away with some conclusions like funny songs, they still need to be musically sound, right? They need to have great rhythm,

great rhyme, melodies, harmonies that that support what's happening, like a funny song can't just be tossed off. It has to have the same craft and diligence that you'd bring to any great song. Charlie, I really like what you said. You know, it can sometimes make your song more effective. If you have a serious, even sad song and then you have a funny line in there, it can actually deepen the the pathos of it. It can make it like stand out more. And probably the reverse is true.

If you have a kind of light song, maybe you put in like some some like sad real thing. And if you're concerned about a earth of funnier lyrics, just turn on the radio and find one of these amazing young women making pop music, Sabrina Olivia, Chapel, Jensen, McCray, like they are at the Vanguard of humor in music. So we're going to be fine folks. Don't don't worry about it. I feel like the title of Chris's book, humory captures that idea that humor is contagious

and that it is about something that we are doing together. It's not, I'm going to laugh at your jokes or laugh at my jokes. It's, hey, what a laugh with you, humor me. I really, I'm very

flattered and I always have a great time being here with you all. And I think I will say that the fun part

for me of thinking about it in this context and talking to you too who knows so much more about music than I do is to understand that like across mediums, we are finding the moments of joy and delight and surprise. And that is so much of honestly what makes worth life worth living for me is that where we can be connected to other people, where we can be surprised and delighted and laugh and be taken out of the endless stream of horrors that sometimes life can be. Great note to end on

endless stream of horrors. I said, "Oh, then with the funniest words." So endless stream of horrors. Where can, where should people procure your book, humor me, Chris? You can find it anywhere you buy books, but I always recommend your local independent bookstore or the local library. They often have a copy. You can also go to cristaffycomedy.com and I got lots of places you can click. I introduced Chris as the host of How to Be a Better Human, which I'll just go listen to.

Chris also has an awesome news letter, the sub-sack I guess, right?

“Yeah. I thought I looked forward to every week. You should go sign up for that.”

And he does a lot of live shows. So check out his website, see if he's playing in a city near you and go to switch on pop.com, register for our sub-sack so you can see all the hilarious lyrics there. I won't spoil it, but there are some little wane lines that are hysterical and incredibly inappropriate. What else? Credits, Charlie? Switched on pop is produced by Rana Cruz,

Leave the theme music by Josie Adams and Zack Naurio of Ark Iris.

“Remember the box meeting podcast network, part of Vulture, which is also part of New York Magazine.”

Subscribe it and on mag.com/pod on that website. Switched on pop.com. Not only do we have things like

newsletters and blah blah blah blah blah. We also have hats. If you are really into French

“filter disco and you like this podcast, which is on pop, you can get this hat that I'm wearing right”

now that combines those two great things. There's so many things to discover in the world

which don't pop, more of what you're going to find next Tuesday and until then, thanks for listening.