It’s hard to get respect in the Music Business. Especially if humor is a big part of what you do. Which it has to be, or you go crazy.

   So I go to the audition and the man in the suit is reading my resume’ and goes, ‘I see here you say you take comedy very seriously.’  So I roll my eyes and go, ‘I was JOKING!!! Duh.’

    I never understood stand-up comedians because anybody can tell a joke, or a story.  I laugh at people all the time, and they aren’t even TRYING to be funny.  That’s not so impressive. 

    But when you have to keep track of the beat, the changes, the arrangement, play an instrument and then while you do all that, tell a joke, THAT’s my idea of evolution.  You can train a Chihuahua to tell a joke or to play a piano but doing both at the same time is strictly a human endeavor.

    Tom Lehrer did it well. Frank Zappa of course, and Jim Stafford.  Jim in particular could train a Chihuahua. Musical comedy goes way back though.

   I’m not sure about this, but I think it started on sailing ships.  I mean, you’re out at sea and someone has a squeezebox or ‘musette’ (French for small musk-maker, I believe) and they would make up songs to amuse themselves. The open ocean permitted the luxury of free speech and so the novelty song was invented.

   Or maybe not.  Doesn’t matter, the point is you need free speech to write a really good comedy song.  Then, you have to have good subject matter.  Politics is OK if you are prolific, because the subject matter gets dull really quick.  Barry Goldwater jokes don’t work so well anymore, which is why Mark Russell has to be constantly writing political satire even while he’s in the bathroom.

   I prefer songs about things that are eternal.  Love, work, travel, sex, wealth, health and food are all comedy treasure troves.  But I don’t like dirty songs.

   Yeah, OK, I listen to them, sure. But I don’t like it. So I try not to write too many.

    You know who likes dirty songs? Women. Go figure. The older they get, the dirtier they like ‘em.  Grandmothers all know the filthiest jokes, it’s embarrassing.

    But I digress.  Comedy music doesn't get played over and over, like a workout mix does.  You get the jokes, put it away and then someday they break it out at a party and everybody gets to laugh at the jokes again. 

   Hopefully.  Blue material doesn’t seem to age well, maybe it’s because the words we didn't dare whisper in our own rooms once upon a time are now shouted on public television.  But stuff about the human condition, that never gets old.

   I wish George Carlin had played guitar, because a lot of his material was great lyric.  He did a lot of rhyming, free verse, his command of English was, like, y’know...good. Made a statement, he did. And with conviction.  He was wrong a lot too, but he was always funny to me, and he made you think.

   THAT’s what’s missing, by gum!  Thought and conviction. 

   Of course, that’s because today having thoughts can get you convicted.  Which is why music, by virtue of it’s insidious ability to provoke thought while lulling you with it’s intricacies of melody and rhythm into a nearly hypnotic state of susceptibility so that you get the message subliminally, might end up being the only way we can leave a message to the future about how messed up we are today.  

   And now, I’m off to write a song about peanuts. Which is what I expect to make from the effort.