The art of the parody

I listened to an interesting podcast today--my favorite writer, Chuck Klosterman, interviewing the world's greatest parody artist, Weird Al Yankovic. You can listen to it here.

I was fascinated by the part where Al described his process of coming up with a new parody--mainly because it's so different from my own. This may explain why he's made millions of dollars with his songs and I haven't, but I suspect if writing parodies were my full-time job then I'd end up doing things more like he does.

Usually, I only work on one song at a time, and it's for a specific reason or event: a church talent show or film festival, a holiday, etc. Then, knowing that I will likely be performing the song in addition to writing the lyrics, I choose a song I can either do in my falsetto (like Avril Lavigne's "Complicated"), one where the lyrics are spoken as much as sung ("We Didn't Start the Fire," Young MC's "Principal's Office"), or where the song stays in a very low and limited range (see below). The expected audience usually plays a role in which song I select too--I usually get an idea for a chorus or maybe even just one good line, then build the story from there.

Once I get started, I make an effort to keep the rhyming sounds from the original song, and operating within those creative restraints allows the narrative organically, sometimes with unexpected results.

Last Sunday marked the debut performance of my most recent parody. On Father's Day 2009, my siblings and I gave my dad a coupon book. There were two coupons from me: one where I promised to make lunch and watch Wipeout together, which was redeemed quickly, and one for a personalized song parody, which was not.

I told my dad he could give me as much direction as he wanted--what the song should be about, which song to use, etc.--but that he at least had to pick a genre. By the end of that summer he told me he wanted a parody of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song, which seemed fairly simple, but for some reason I never started on it. And then, for a while, I forgot about it.

I remembered a few weeks ago that I hadn't delivered this gift yet, and I got to work. My dad is retiring at the end of the year, and then he and my mom are going on an LDS mission. Like me, my dad watches a lot of TV, and like me has yet to upgrade from VCR to DVR. That should be all the background you need. The lyrics are below, and here's a good version of the original so you can sing along (you can also note how true I stayed to the end rhymes and even the internal rhymes on many lines):

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Dad

Though sometimes austere, he is anything but bad

Then one day, done providin' for his brood

He up, told his boss, keep your W-2

No more toil, that is. Watch of gold, retiree.

Well the next thing you know ol' Dad's a missionar(y)

Prophet said, "You and Mom make quite a pair"

Said "South Pacific is the place you ought to be"

So they loaded up the boat and moved to Tahiti

Thrilled, Dad is. French in schools, Tiki bars.

 …

"Well now it's time to say goodbye," said Dad to all his kin.

"We're both really excited for our mission to begin.

It'll be a year until we’re back in this locality,

But I've got my VCR all set so don't touch the TV!"

Still silly, Dad is. Where he dwells, say cable and he'll scoff.

Happy Father's Day, y'hear?

Not my best work (I'm fairly disappointed in the two "Dad is" lines, but I couldn't come up with anything better), but I liked the story, and the TV part is especially funny within my family. Now I need to get back to work on an unfinished parody--last December I offered another personalized parody in a church service auction, and I'm about two-thirds of the way through a telling of the nativity to the beat of 50 Cent's "In Da Club." I really hope it doesn't take me two years to finish.