30-Day Song Challenge, Day 25 - A Song that Makes You Laugh
So many songs make me laugh. Pretty much anything from Monty Python, Adam Sandler or Weird Al Yankovic, and if you don’t know Tom Lehrer, you have to check him out, too (he’s older, from the 70s). But for sheer silliness, and also because they are my homeboys from Philadelphia, I have to go with Dead Milkmen for this one.
Okay, first of all, that name is going to seem very strange to most of you. I’ll explain: Back in the 80s, there was a punk band called Dead Kennedys, because punk culture is about being snotty and obnoxious, and the Kennedy family had suffered many tragic deaths (the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were not the only horrible things that happened to this family--many accidental deaths occurred, and continue to occur). So I’m guessing Dead Milkmen wanted to show that they were punk, but that they were fun, not mean.
“Punk Rock Girl” is probably their best-known song, although there are many, many really hilarious songs by Dead Milkmen that I would highly recommend. My favorite exchanges from “Punk Rock Girl”, about a day spent with a cute punk chick, are when they go to a record store and ask for Mojo Nixon (another punk artist) and the clueless clerk replies “He don’t work here,” to which they reply, “If you don’t have Mojo Nixon, then your store could use some fixin’!”, and also when they go to leave in her car, and this conversation ensues:
--
We got into a car
Away we started rollin'
I said "How much d'you pay for this?"
She said "Nothing, man, it's stolen"
--
As you can imagine, this song is fun to sing along to!
Watch the Punk Rock Girl video
Picture of Dead Milkmen in concert from Wikimedia Commons. Where did all that hair go?
Here's the last one, in case you missed it!
Day 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral
Image Credit » commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Milk1.jpg
Comments
micksy1983 wrote on March 19, 2015, 9:00 AM
very interesting, my dad was big into the punk scene.
1AliCanary wrote on March 19, 2015, 9:05 AM
I think this was punk's funnier side.
1poddys wrote on March 19, 2015, 4:00 PM
Some of the ones that make me laugh are good old songs from my younger days. Included in that list "My Old Man's A Dustman", "Right Said Fred", and some classics from Fred Wedlock like "The Vicar & The Frog", "Robin Hood" and "Talking Folk Club Blues".
1I doubt you will have heard of Fred, but look him up on Google, he was truly funny. Saw him perform a couple of times, sadly he passed away a couple of years ago.
FourWalls wrote on March 19, 2015, 6:40 PM
My favorite line (other than the final verse) from that song was, "We'll go slam dance, we'll dress like Minnie Pearl." The joke in that line was probably lost on 99% of the listeners who had no clue who Minnie Pearl was. Too bad, it's a great line.
1I saw the Dead Milkmen in 1987. I was easily the oldest person in that audience....by a good ten years....and I was 27 at the time! They are a funny band. "Bitchin' Camaro, bitchin' Camaro, donuts on your lawn, bitchin' Camaro, bitchin' Camaro, Tony Orlando and Dawn!" Maybe the best non-sequitur in history.