Tag: comedy

Dentist! (from “Little Shop of Horrors”)

“… Even if you aren’t a fan of musicals, please don’t instantly dismiss Little Shop. There’s so much more to it than people describing the minutia of their lives through song,” (The Guardian). “With nods to sci-fi and B-movies, as well as its effective self-mockery, it’s an easy way to get acquainted with the musical comedy genre. Directed by Frank Oz, the 1986 film is based on the 1982 off-Broadway stage show of the same name, which in turn is based on a 1960 Roger Corman film, which it largely honours in terms of story.

… Howard Ashman and Alan Menken are to be thanked for the lyrics and music respectively, with Ashman also writing the screenplay – though their names are probably more associated with late 80s and early 90s Disney films such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin … (the show) draws on 60s rock’n’roll, doo-wop and swing, and I think there might even be a bit of calypso in there. Little Shop is a love story. It’s also a story about conquering your demons and discovering the best you can be – even if it takes a blood-guzzling talking plant to get you there.”

The uptempo tune “Dentist!” is immortalized in the film version of the musical by comedian Steve Martin, whose strong musicality has never gotten enough notice — perhaps because his comedic skills are even better. A textbook whole-step key change hits exactly where you’re hoping to hear it — about 60% of the way through the tune (1:34).

Frank Zappa | Dancin’ Fool

“The disco era that brought us Saturday Night Fever, spoons on chains, and satin everything spawned an unintentional subgenre: ‘disco sucks’ music,” (MixOnline). “Rockers laughed and cheered for Steve Dahl’s parody of Rod Stewart’s ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy’ (‘Do You Think I’m Disco?’ 1979), and for that brilliant iconoclast Frank Zappa’s first bonafide hit, the #45 song ‘Dancin’ Fool.’

‘Fool’ debuted in the artist’s live set in 1975 and was first captured as a concert recording, but the song didn’t appear on record until he reworked it in The Village Recorder with the help of his then-engineer, Joe Chiccarelli (1979). ‘The live basic tracks were recorded by Pete Henderson, who produced Breakfast in America for Supertramp—I think with the Record Plant Remote truck,’ Chiccarelli recalls. ‘Frank felt at the time that his band played great live, so he loved the feel of the drum tracks, but 80 to 90 percent of the work, including the mix, was done at The Village, mostly in Studio A.'”

Perhaps just as much as his one-of-a-kind compositions, blistering guitar work, and precision bandleading, Zappa is best known as having been an astute social commentator — and his editorial on the burgeoning disco scene of the late 70s was certainly no exception. The tune’s intro and verses are built in A major, but the choruses are in C# major (starting with the short pre-chorus, heard for the first time at 0:25; the chorus begins in earnest at 0:29). At 0:54, we return to the original key for the lead-in to the next verse via a boisterous unprepared modulation. The pattern continues from there. Zappa played a hilarious prank with this track: while the tune was moderately danceable overall, the “IMayBeTotallyWrongButI’mA” interjection (1:54 and 2:56) adds a full beat to each line of the chorus where it appears, providing more awkwardness than most dance floors ever asked for.

Tim Minchin | Three Minute Song

“Tim Minchin is an Australian musician, comedian, composer, actor, writer and director,” (artist website). “He has toured extensively in the US, UK and Australia, performing solo, with bands, and with symphony orchestras. He’s released five DVDs, the most recent recorded with the Heritage Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. He is the composer lyricist of two hit West End / Broadway musicals, Matilda and Groundhog Day, both of which won the Olivier Award for Best West End Musical and garnered nominations for Best Score and Best Musical in Broadway’s Tony Awards.

Minchin wrote, produced and starred in the Sky Atlantic / Foxtel TV series, Upright, in 2019. Other screen-acting credits include Atticus Fetch in Season 6 of Californication, a Logie Award-winning Smasher Sullivan in the ABC’s Secret River, and Friar Tuck in Lionsgate’s Robin Hood reboot. Stage highlights include Judas in the UK / Australian Arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar in 2012, and Rosencrantz in the Sydney Theatre Company’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead the following year. He has published two books: the graphic novel, ‘Storm,’ and the illustrated childrens’ book, ‘When I Grow Up’. He is a member of the Order of Australia, a philanthropist and a mediocre juggler. ‘Simultaneously an excellent stand-up comedian, a purveyor of physical comedy, an accomplished musician and a lyricist of diabolical ingenuity. Witty, smart, and unabashedly offensive.‘ (The Age, Melbourne)”

Minchin’s “Three Minute Song” needs little description, as it tells its own story. This 2011 performance of the tune was composed specifically for the BBC program Ruth Jones’ Easter Treat. 2:28 brings a whole-step key change, shoe-horned in among a huge number of syllables per minute and plenty of fast piano riffs.

Liza Minelli | Liza with a Z

“It already seems like yesterday’s news but for the sake of perspective, we are now at the point in human civilization where we can plug different artist names and keywords into a computer and Artificial Intelligence technology will render a new piece of music sounding like whatever you can think of. Drake and The Weeknd collab? Biggie rapping Nas songs? A new Beatles song? It’s all happening now,” (Decider.com). “And people dig it. Some say this is where we’ve been headed all along, ever since the advent of multi tracking and Auto-Tune and that Tupac hologram. It’s a far cry from the days of old when entertainers could sing and act and dance all at the same time in front of a live audience, holding them in the palm of their hand. People like Liza Minnelli.”

Songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb (better known as Kander and Ebb) wrote scores of songs together, but perhaps among the best known were those from the classic musicals Cabaret and Chicago. Liza Minelli became one of the performers most associated with both shows. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Kander and Ebb later wrote a tune custom-designed just for Liza and her famously big personality, “Liza with a Z” as part of a 1972 show of the same name.

Just as the lyrical stream of this over-explainer of a tune morphs into a tsunami, the key of “Liza with a Z” also ratchets up a half step (2:42).

Mickey Woods | They Rode Through the Valley

The 1961 release “They Rode Through the Valley,” performed by Mickey Woods, was “The first Motown writing credit for (Motown founder) Berry Gordy’s brother Robert, aka ‘Bob Kayli,’ this is – rather unbelievably – a second weak ‘historical comedy’ record about the Battle of the Little Bighorn, apparently a vein Gordy didn’t feel was tapped out yet following Popcorn Wylie’s baffling ‘Custer’s Last Man.’ Oh, except this isn’t just a comedy record – it’s a comedy country record. Sweet Jesus … Seriously, if you don’t want to jab knitting needles in your ears when we get to the (charitably-named) ‘chorus’ and he jauntily announces ‘Sittin’ Bull and his Injuns / At the little bitty bitty Bighorn!‘, you’re made of sturdier stuff than this listener,” (MotownJunkies.co.uk).

“Anyway, it’s a story about how Custer got all his men killed by telling them to wait until they saw the whites of the Native warriors’ eyes, only to be foiled because ‘all them big bad Injuns / have big red bloodshot eyes!‘ That’s it. That’s the punchline. A borderline racist joke at the end of a comedy song about a mass slaughter during a vicious war of racial extermination. Fantastic.

(It’s bleakly entertaining in one way, and just one: bitter irony. The company which the whole world would come to identify as synonymous with the smashing down of racial barriers, the shining, all-conquering jewel of racial integration in Sixties America, putting out a casually racist joke record. It’s now starting to dawn on me why, if Mickey Woods really was Motown’s first white solo vocalist, it’s not a landmark that’s been publicised more; it’s almost as if Motown worked hard to erase this jejune blip from their history) … This is utter, utter, utter crap, and best forgotten by all involved. Let’s move on.”

The key changes for this “least Motown-sounding” of all possible Motown tunes hit at 0:52 and 1:40. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Stan Freberg | The Yellow Rose of Texas

Bandleader Mitch Miller (“follow the bouncing ball!”) scored a #1 hit with “The Yellow Rose of Texas” in 1955. Actor and comedian Stan Freberg couldn’t resist taking aim at such a plump and corny target and released his own parody version soon thereafter. Freberg wrote many such goofy song parodies, and recorded comedy albums lampooning American culture. To this writer, his crowning achievement was the “Great American Soups” commercial for Heinz, done up as a Busby Berkeley-styled extravaganza, featuring dancer Ann Miller.

In Freberg’s parody, also released in 1955, the “Yankee drummer” drowns out the rest of the band and his singing. In fact, the session drummer was Alvin Stoller, who played on Mitch Miller’s hit version. Stoller was primarily a jazz drummer, playing with many prominent artists during his career; in particular, he backed Frank Sinatra for much of the 1950s. The session banjo player also gets in on the overplaying. There is a half-step upward modulation at 0:40.

Postmodern Jukebox feat. Puddles Pity Party | Royals (Lorde cover)

Scott Bradlee, the primary force behind Postmodern Jukebox, remembers working with international clown phenom Puddles (of Puddles Pity Party) over a decade ago: “I first met Puddles when I was working as the music director at Sleep No More, the immersive Off-Broadway show in NYC … Puddles was one part Andy Kaufman, one part Tom Jones … Puddles wasn’t too familiar with Postmodern Jukebox or YouTube in general at the time, but he let me know in his own way that he was happy to contribute his talents.  

Initially, I had picked ‘Mirrors’ by Justin Timberlake (I imagined him singing to his reflection), but then a new contender began climbing the charts: “Royals” by the critically-acclaimed New Zealand singer/songwriter Lorde. It was almost too perfect: a song written by a 16 year old girl about being an outsider, sung by a giant sad clown.  There was irony in the title — sure — but beyond that, Puddles was the perfect character to convey this message; after all, he was the ultimate outsider … In some ways, Puddles was made for the modern Internet age. He’s a reflection of all of our loneliness and confusion in a world that sometimes seems to have grown increasingly lonely and confusing. At the same time, he reminds us that there is greatness inside of each of us, and we needn’t be afraid to show it off.”

Unlike Lorde’s original, Puddles/PMJ’s 2013 cover features a key change. After a short bridge at 2:55, a shift from Bb to C hits for the final chorus — all the more striking because it’s not quite complete, cutting off before the final line of lyrics and leaving an unresolved bVII chord ringing in our ears.

The Song That Goes Like This (from “Spamalot”)

“Would anyone have thought years ago that one of Broadway’s hits would be based on a wild and wacky Monty Python movie? Don’t be silly,” (TalkinBroadway). “On second thought, do. That’s what it’s all about … Certainly both fans and foes of big (meaning very big) Broadway musicals will relate to references to their excesses. ‘The Song That Goes Like This’ … mercilessly mock(s) de rigueur big, dare-I-say-pretentious, bombastic love ballads designed in their pre-fab way to press the emotional buttons and win applause … skewer(ing) the genre while illustrating and recreating every by-the-numbers recyclable cliche (‘I’ll sing it in your face/ While we both embrace/ And then we change the key’ … ).

Broadway can stand a self-inflicted piercing as sharp as one from the sword of a Round Table Arthurian … But just in case you’re distracted by just the jests and jousts, even in the CD’s lyric booklet it is pointed out that in the overblown key-changing ‘The Song That Goes Like This,’ there’s a character dramatically coming downstage on a boat and a chandelier descends! But it’s all for an evening’s amusement …” With music by John Du Prez and original Monty Python’s Flying Circus cast member Eric Idle, combined with lyrics by Idle, the musical debuted on Broadway in 2005 and saw a Broadway revival in 2023, with many national tours in the interim.

As the intro leads into the verse at 0:09, the first key change drops down two whole steps. At 1:20, we hear another modulation (this time up a whole step), duly announced beforehand in the lyrics. 2:02 and 2:24 continue the trend with more upward whole step shifts.

George Frideric Handel | Messiah (fail)

Now that the holidays are over, it’s perhaps the least distasteful time of the year to post this monumental gaffe by an organist accompanying Handel’s Messiah (1741). This error wouldn’t have been possible during Handel’s lifetime, when the “transposition” function on pipe organs was still a few hundred years in the future. It all adds up to a category of “unintentional modulation” — one which we hope won’t grow much over time!

“Performing under pressure is hard, and there’s no doubt that accompanying a full choir is stressful even for the most unflappable of musicians,” (ClassicFM). “But this is just… something else.

During a performance of Handel’s Messiah, at that crucial moment at the end of the ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus when the choir and organ come together in four glorious final chords, this organist completely loses it. It seems they accidentally pressed the ‘transpose’ function on their instrument, only-just-and-only-sort-of recovering it by adding an unexpected seventh at the end, before finally landing on the tonic chord. We can all agree the choir deserves a huge pat on the back for holding it together.” The video is only 0:44 long; in the interest of safety, make sure you’re sitting down by about the 0:20 mark.