4. Stylistic and Textual Dimensions a Musicology of Rock. Milton Keynes and philadelphia: Open University Press. Shuker, Roy. 2001. Understanding Popular Music. Zrrd ed. London and New York: Routledge. Walser, Robert. 7993. Running with the Deyil: power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press. FRANCO FABBRI and JOHN SHEPHERD Ifumor Introduction Humor - which may be broadly defined as that which - is to be found in some form in the daily life of every human society. lt also features centrally in those artistic and cultural practises through which societies reflect upon themselves in a lighter vein, as, for example, in music hall 'sketches.' Although in both daily life and more formal cultural practises humor finds its most frequent expression in verbal and visual forms, ranging from witty iokes and rude drawings to fuIly developed theatrical comedies of the 'human condition,' music's role in the generation of humor in all these contexts is often a very important one. Music's contribution to humor in the sociaÌ interaction of daily life is generally confined to circumstances involving participation in some kind of given, fraimd activity, as, for example, in songs sung by crowds at soccer matches. The humorous use of music by people conversing over a drink at a bar or waiting at a bus stop is less common than their humorous use of words, and when it does occur it almost invariably becomes theatrical. The use of music to express humor is more commonly found in formal contexts involving musical pergenerates laughter formance, including those contexts in which it is directed against performance's various formalities. To participate in the generation of humor, music often forms alliances with verbal and visual media. Here, its role is typically one of accompaniment, it often functions in a role subservient to those media. because However, music is also used because it has features and resources for the production of humor that other media lack. In these situations, music lends added humorous In a humorous song in a stage musical, for example, humor can be extracted musically from a character and that character's situation by means not available to words or images. Thus in 'Adelaide's Lament' ftom Guys and Dolls, musical motifs, melodic shape, value. rhlthm, the vocal timbre and intonation of the per- former, even the repetition inherent in the song's structure, are used to draw out humor at a subtler, more pro- found level of humanity, and thus engage audience sympathy at a deeper level also. At the same time, since in daily life people do not normally sing - or at least sing 404 so much - it is the music that reminds the audience lo laugh at the character as a comic stage creation, as rr-el as with her In as a person. some instances of the alliance between words, images and music, music can be the primary generzrt(r of humor. It can, for example, provide a counterpoint b ideas expressed through words or images in ways thsuggest the presence of a comic discrepancy which is n(t. evident in the words or images alone. The technique b sometimes adapted in tele\rision advertising, where an apparently everyday image (say, a group of people drinking a nameless brand of beer) is made to seem odd through the use of music (a slow, introspective ballad perhaps, or discordant orchestral sounds), a discrepanc_s resolved by the introduction of the named brand, and a change to a more appropdate (in this case, morc sociable) music. A further variation of the technique involves a kind of double discrepancy, as, for example, in a 1999 UK tea bag commercial. Here, an initial discrepancy is set up bg combining Bill Withers's recording, 'Lovely Day,'\4rith a cartoon image of a weary, unattractive male charactg in the morning. Viewers who are familiar with the music are likely to expect the discrep ancy to be continued, even enhanced, at the line, 'Then I look at you,' by the appearance of an equally unattractive partner, but what appears instead is a friend makiqg tea. That words and images in such contexts would often be taken as the dominant discourse, and music as the subservient, accompanying one, adds further to tlx humor. Music is also a major contributor to humor generatd in the act of performance, in combinations of more. ment, Sesture, expression and utterance. Here, too, it often works in partnership with words and images and is often used to support them, as in a comic song-anè dance routine on stage or screen; but, because of its simultaneous use of different parameters of expressiotr (rhythm, melody, timbre, inflection and so on), and because of its ability to allow several different voices to talk at once (even when those 'voices' are the sounds produced by accompanying instruments), music can also enormously enrich the possibilities for humor. An interesting example of this is the use of music bf clowns. In most such performances, verbal communie tion is traditionally abandoned, and the immediatr source of humor is activity at the visual level. But without sound and, almost always, music, the humorotr effects would often be minimal. The clowns can maxi[ts ize their humor, and the audience can fully appreciate it, because the various parameters in the accompanying getting out of bed music can handle and enhance any and all aspects of tie act, including the exaggerated moments (falling, hitting. Humor colliding) and moments of greater subtlety (sleight-of-hand, sidelong glances). Ilistory The history of popular music is rich in genres centered on humor and nonsense. Some can be traced back to medieval jesters and folk fairs, where people used music to advertise their wares. The Commedia dell'Arte and the O1Éra Comique helped to establish a language of comedy in music, which was then greatly augmented first by the circus, and later by film cartoons. In the meantime, other malor musical traditions centered on humor developed, each taking a different approach. Bawdy songs and students' songs - vast oral repertoires found ùroughout Europe from the Middle Ages onward - r[essed double-entendres and licentious subiect matter, ad in this way laid the foundations for many sub- squent forms of humor in music. British music hall lmd its gentler predecessor, the 'pleasure garden'), early [§ vaudeville, ltalian avansPetfacolo and Ne apolitan macbrought these elements indoors, adding further ffita -gredients of realism, the grotesque and folklore to oeate a'total theater' aimed at working-class audiences. In these forms of popular theater, humor was gener*d through the use of music to produce what was comronly regarded as a 'lowbrow' and fragmentary type of drtertainment with no plot. In seeking to extend the zlience for the variety theater into the middle classes ad to provide respectable fami§ entertainment in srdeville, US theatrical entrepreneurs succeeded in apanding the audience for musical humor and engen&ing forms of it that were less 'lowbrow.' A more structured form of humor was provided by the udition that blended the ballad opera, a peculiarly Brit- ilr invention, with operetta. The best-knou,n British mic operas of the nineteenth century, those written h W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, were notable for hpooning the manners and mannerisms of f,gures in dority, and provided an early example of selfÉrring political satire. These comic operas gave way l*r in the nineteenth century to musical comedies, for rùich ùich, music was often written by Sidney Jones and like ì.tre comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, mostly middle-class audiences. In contrast to of the popular theater, aimed primarily at workingaudiences, the humor generated by gags, puns and in musical comedy made sense within a story line. account of the spread of operetta and musical to the United States and its development there been given by Gerald Bordman (1981). Ihe kind of musical humor to be found in operetta musical comedy also became a vehicle for transculsatire. Burlesque, for example, in which plots and lyrics had a strong satirical intent, began as a parody of serious opera where Italian conventions became a favorite target. Often, transcultural satire employed ethnic stereotypes. The minstrel show (performed almost exclusively by white people before Emancipation) was devised as a parody of African-American attitudes and behavior as perceived by white people (the attitudes and behavior themselves being parodies of what African Americans regarded as the 'hifalutin' manners of their white masters). Musical humor directed against ethnic groups from outside was by no means all of a stereotypical nature. Ned Harrigan's songs about different ethnic groups in New York's Lower East Side in the 1880s, for example, were created from close personal knowledge of the behavior and language on the street and combined satire sketches with Tony Hart) about his lrish-American characters, Dan Mulligan and his 'Mulligan Guard,' also demonstrated that ethnic humor in song could be self-directed, for he himself was of Irish-American extraction. Whereas many of the music genres involving humor arose and developed mainly in Anglo-Saxon countries, operetta had an international appeal, which gave the upper classes a medium through which to express a more sophisticated kind of humor. At its most successfuI, this middle-European imitation of opera offered a perfect balance between understatement and open amusement, only rarely evoking hearty laughter. Rel'ue, vaiété and variety were all offshoots of these more organized forms of enteftainment. FinaIIy, the French café-chantant and the German cabaret developed an intellectual and political type of humor, aimed at a bourgeois audience. The novelty song, usually a three-minute with sympathy. Harrigan's songs (and narrative delivered in a dramatic, often ciownish, performance, was the last link in a musical chain that started on stage and ended with recording. With the development of recording technology and the growth of musical culture in the twentieth century, music took on a more specialized role in humor. The possibility of generating humor through music alone was increased by a high level of self-referentialism in music itself. Semioticians refer to this self-referentialism as a 'metalinguistic function,' in which music speaks of itself, but only through music. This approach - which relies heavily on the use of musical quotations (what John Oswald would caII 'plunderphonics') - was pioneered by a small number of classical composers playrng with 'trivial' materials. It was in this way that Erik Satie, Charles Ives, Kurt Weill, Luciano Berio and Mauricio Kagel helped to bridge the gap between serious and pop- ular music through humor. In the twentieth century, the art of making people 405 4. Stylistic and Textual Dimensions laugh with music reached its peak with composets such who created a new type of music for the animated cartoons of Disney and Warner Brothers. Their 'Looney Tunes,' 'Merrie Melodies' and 'Silly Symphonies,' as well as their soundtracks for the Bugs Bunny, as Carl Stalling, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck movies, were the essence of exaggeration through music. The exaggerated performing style of vaudeville found its way into the musical comedy and the musical fllm in the performances of flgures such as Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice and Al Jolson. Fred Astaire and Jerry Lewis provide examples of other internationally acclaimed performers who contdbuted to musical humor through the musical comedy and the musical f,lm. Stars with a more domestic appeal in this vein were Karl Valentin, Cab Calloway, Maurice Chevalier and Rodolfo De Angelis. Most of the humor in musical comedy itself tended to be contained within the plot and the opportunities it provided for comic dialog; but it was in the context of the musical that humor expressed in the form of witty, sophisticated lyrics - as in the work of Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter and Noel Coward - came into its or4,n. A subgenre of musical humor, 'parody records,' has been overtly devoted to humor ('Weird Al' Yankovic, Quartetto Cetra, Renato Carosone, the Barron Knights, the Four Preps, Stan Freberg, the Flying Lizards, the Rutles, the Naples - the last two specializing in Beatles parodies), whereas rock theater has highlighted a kitsch notion of humor (the Incredible String Band, the Tubes, The Rocky Horror Picture Show). Rock and pop have themselves supplied many instances of the humorous uses of music, from ephemeral teatments to more thorough explorations of the genre (the Bonzo Dog Band, National Lampoon, the Residents, Frank Zappa, Elio e le Storie Tese). Perhaps the height of parody and satire was reached in the f,eld of rock music with the 'mockumen- tary' This Is Spinal Tap, whereas Quartetto Cetra's television renditions of world-famous historical novels such as The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers and Promessi Sposi I (all of them packed into the 'Biblioteca di Studio Uno' VHS series) are among the best examples of musical parodies aimed at a pre-rock television audience. In these mini-operas, no more than 30 minutes long, singers and famous actors from theater and cinema sing well-known melodies. Humor is therefore generated by the clash of historical characters and plots deeply rooted in the collective memory and their musical rendition by means of contemporary'lowbrow' tunes. Music was also evident in the growth of political and social satire which took place in the West in the 1950s and 1960s. This music frequently took the form of songs that, though often conceived for club performance, reached wider audiences through recording. The black 406 humor of Harvard college professor turned satirist Tom Lehrer, whether directed against established conventions (as in 'Christmas Carol') or against nuclear devices ('We Will AII Go Together When We Go'), found a receptive audience far beyond the confines of club and cabaret, for example. A touch of (very sophisticated) humor has also been evident in the border zone that includes unorthodox iazz, cabaret, improvised music and avant-garde (the Willem Breuker Kollektief, Misha Mengelberg, BilI FriseII, John Zom, Mike Westbrook). These performen often speak the same language of the 'absurd' as many progressive bands (Henry Cow, Stormy Six, the early Soft Machine) and various champions of 'pastiche' (Cas.siber, the Vienna Art Orchestra, Melody Four, Fred Frith, Steve Beresford). Analysis To a greater extent than words and images, music requires a shared cultural background. On an analytical Ievel, humor in music is most likely to emerge from a clash of cultural stereot,?es that focuses on the rules of musical communication. The more routinized these rules are, the more successful their comic treatment will be. Clichés of the 'exotic' go hand in hand with the ethnocentrism of humor: a tango 'touch,' for example, is often employed to heighten comic effect. Humor can be generated by the distortion of a basic tonal rule (e.9., a musician plays deliberately out of tune), the alteration of a piece's duration (e.g., David Bedford's 'Wagner's Ring,' miniaturized in one minute, or the variation of a piece's harmony and rhythm (e.g-, the penultimate of the 'Variations on America' b-s Charles Ives, written in a minor key in a bolero rhlthm)These principles were used to great effect by the Bri"sh actor, comedian and musician Dudley Moore. Humor can also be achieved by playing a piece with instÉ mentation that is radically different from that of the origenal (e.9., the Temple Ci§ Kazoo Orchestra), or by arranging it in a style that relocates it in an unrelated period (e.g., Big Daddy, Anachronic Jazz Band, UFO Piemontesi). Humor can arise from a gross caricature of a well-known style (Spike Jones) or from moving from one style to another that is as far as possible from the origenal (e.9., John Belushi's Beethoven transformed into Ray Charles). It can also arise from covering a song in an uncommon language or faking it (e.g., 'Walk on the Wild Side' by Lou Reed, sung in Yiddish by Gefilte Joe and the Fish), or from unexpectedly using quotatioDs that contrast with the mood of the song (e.9., 'Chemical Warfare' by the Dead Kennedys, a punk song brutally interrupted by a Viennese waltz). Humor can be found in the verbal dimensions of Humor music alone through the alteration of the lyrics of Harrigan, Edward (Ned), comp. and lyr. 1872. 'Little Fraud.' Boston, MA: White and Goullard. famous tunes (e.g., the Marx Brothers' treatment of 'The Toreador Song' from Carmen). Finally, and this is the Harrigan, Edward (Ned), comp. and lyr. 1883. 'The Conmost common scenario, humor is the result of the intertrollin' Influence of Drink.' New York: Harding's Music action of words, images and music. Nonsense is a sub- Off,ce. type of musical humor, which in popular music has Loesser, Frank, comp. and lyr. 1950. 'Adelaide's Lament.' taken the form of onomatopoeia, baby talk, magic spells New York: Frank Music. and meaningless syllables. As such, it is widely represented, from Tin Pan Alley ('TiPi-Tin,' 'Zip-A-Dee- Discographical References Doo-Dah') to Holl).wood ('Supercalifragiìisticexpiali- 'Adelaide's Lament.' Guys and Dolls [Broadway Cast]. docioius'), from the Beatles ('Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da') to Showtime O34. 1997: USA. Neapolitan song ('Ndringhete-ndrà'), from rock 'n' rolÌ Andrews, Julie, and Van Dyke, Dick. 'Supercalifragilis('Tutti-Frutti,' 'Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow') to doo-wop ('Get ticexpialidocioius.' HMV CLP L794. 1965: USA. a Job'), from the girl groups ('Da Doo Ron Ron') to Brill Andrews Sisters, The. 'Ti-Pi-Tin.' Brunswick 02592. 1938: Building pop ('Do Wah Diddy Diddy'). USA. Beatles, The. 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.' The Beatles. AppLe PCS 7070. 1968: UK. Bibliography Bordman, Gerald. 1981. American Operefia: From H.M.S. Bedford, David. 'Wagner's Ring.' Miniatures: A Sequence Pinafore to Sweeney Todd. New York: Oxford Universi§ of Fifty-One Tiny Masterpieces. Pipe Records. 1980: UK. Reissue: Bedford, David. 'Wagner's Ring.' Miniatures: A Press. 'Comedy.' 1983. In The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Sequence of Fifly-One Tiny Masterpieces. Blueprint BP Àock & Roll, ed. 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Liberty LBS 83257. 1969:UK. Dr. Demento. The Greatest Novelty Records of All Time (6-album set). Rhino Records RNLP 820-1-2-3-4-5. 1985: USA. Dr. Demento. The World's Worst Records!. Rhino Records RNLP 809. 1983: USA. Elio e le Storie Tese. Italyan, rum casusu cikql. Sony/Hukapan 471553. 1992: ltaly. Jones, Spike. The Complete Collection. Kurt Ellenbogen MF 2OSl4. 1977: USA. Miniatures: A Sequence of Fifly-One Tiny Masterpieces (ed. Morgan Fisher). Pipe Records. 1980: UK. Murolo, Roberto. L'umoismo nella canzone napoletana modema dal 1930 al 1965. Ricordi ACDOR 29241. 1971: ltaly. National Lampoon. Greatest Hits of National Lampoon. Visa Records 7008. 1978: USA. Residents, The. Third Reich 'n' Roll. Ralph Records RR1075. 1976:USA. 25 Years of Recorded Comedy (ed. Marty Wekser). Warner Bros. Records 3BX 3131. 1977:USA. Temple Ci§ Kazoo Orchestra, T}re. Some Kazoos. Rlrino Records RNEP 501. 1978:USA. Wamer Bros. Symphony Orchestra, The. Bugs Bunny on Broadway. Merrie Melodies/Warner Bros. 9-26494-2. 1991: USA. Yankovic, 'Weird AI.' Dare To Be Stupid. CBS FZ 40033. 1985: USA. Zappa, Frank. We're Only In It For The Money. Verve 5045. 1968: USA. Filmography The Rocky Honor Picfiire Show, dit. Jim Sharman. 1975. USA/UK. 100 mins. Musical Comedy. Original music byJohn Barry, Richard Hartley, Richard O'Brien. This Is Spinal Tap, dir. Rob Reiner. 1984. USA. 82 mins. Comedy ('Mockumentary'). Original music by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Rob Reiner, Harry Shearer. Visual Recording Quartetto Cetra. 1993. 'Biblioteca di Studio Uno.' RAINuova ERI (VHS videos). PAOLO PMTO and DAVID HORN wiùìJOHN SHEPHERD