Musical Satire Quotes

I was immersed in popular songs of the time, of the '30s and '40s. I was writing songs, making fun of the attitudes of those songs, in the musical style of the songs themselves; love songs, folk songs, marches, football.

If you go back to 'Pretty Fly,' it was a very popish song, but there was a satirical side to it, and I think that's cool. I like the idea that it's making people think just a little bit.

If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English Opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it.

Music can be witty, but it's not funny unless it's conceptually funny.

There are bands that make parodies of being in a band, like Spinal Tap. That's a big influence. They're making fun of a rock band, but they write lyrics that are better than real rock bands.

Uncle Dave Macon was a great balladeer and banjo player from the early part of the 19th century... He would take a social problem or something that he was looking at and make up a clever little song about it, you know, in a language everyone understood, a man of the people.

You might be a redneck if you think a chain saw is a musical instrument.

Guitar solos, to me, should be a really articulate way to make fun of guitar solos.

Humphrey Searle writes music that sounds like the theme from 'Star Wars' played backwards through a washing machine.

In 'Spinal Tap,' there's the fake historical quality of 'Stonehenge.' It's something the musicians look at with a mystical reverence. In folk music, it's the seriousness with which these people approach their 'art.'

Not any specific one, but I was a huge fan of Frank Jacobs, I guess he wrote the plurality of the song parodies for MAD, Sam Hart, a few others, but that was also where I was first exposed to the art form of song parodies.

We're the court jesters of rock.

Whenever I do a parody it's not meant to make you hate anybody's music really.

Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.

I would say, generally speaking, though it is not always the case, comedy is probably the least gratifying for most composers because it is more specific about what the music needs to do.

I want to be taken seriously as the type of musician that plays stuff like an electric rake. I mean, how seriously do you take someone like Spike Jones? They take him pretty seriously - a really good musician who made a great contribution in terms of humor, which is part of what I try to do too.

Somebody under 30, if the name Frank Zappa came up, they would just say, "Who?" To me that didn't sit well, because I felt my dad's accomplishments in music should be better known, not just in a popular way, but better understood.

It's very difficult to be funny musically. I think I achieved It with 'The Pink Panther.'

Well, basically there are two sorts of opera," said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. "There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh I am dyin', oh oh oh, that's what I'm doin'", and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely.

It's hard to really articulate what the parameters are that make one song parody-able and another song not, but if I can come up with a good enough idea for it, I go for it, and if not, then I have to move on.

If Hitler were alive the best punishment would be to put him out-of-town with a new musical.

I enjoy all kinds of music. But it is kind of strange when I do parodies, instead of setting up drums and guitar amps.

It is easy to misunderstand what a comedy song is, or what its potential is. I'm used to musical comedy being maligned as an easy artform.

I'm not sure a lot of us in the music business or in rock 'n' roll are given credit for irony or humor.

... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune of Camptown Races. Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.