“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.”
- Oscar Wilde
There are some songwriters who deftly use humor to help me deal with the challenges, vagaries and absurdities that life presents. “Comedy is tragedy plus time" it is said. At some point, laughing at misfortunes can be, as Barney Fife would say, “therapetic.”
It's easier to write a sad song than a funny/happy/upbeat song. It's harder still to write a funny song about a sad or difficult thing. I admire the folks who do it well. I feel pretty sure that most don't write them for us. They write them for themselves.
- When it comes to getting at the heart of the human experience, there's no one I know of more clever and sardonic than Warren Zevon. I know the idea of the tortured artist is cliche, but he was definitely tortured.
2. Hayes Carll goes to war. We have Dylan to thank for the song's structure.
3. Well, there is one guy who is neck and neck with Zevon on the tragicomedy scoreboard - Loudon Wainwright
III. *** Don't ask me why Selena Gomez shows up below. Two people could not be farther apart.
Got any of your own?