Fun with Song Lyrics

I come from a family with a sense of humor. The thing I miss most from them when I'm away from home is their individual laughs; When we're together we're always quoting lines from What About Bob?, Galaxy Quest, and ¡Three Amigos!; Our earliest family videos show us being silly and joking with each other. It seems like there's always an unspoken contest to see who's next to make everyone laugh.

One of the things my brother and I like to do on the fly is make fun of songs that are playing. I realized that there are at least three ways we like to do this.

1. Change the Pronoun

Changing the pronouns of the song works best with story songs, because it completely changes the angle the story is being seen from. The personalities and emotional connections of characters blur, and usually it's a really easy way to make a story funny because of all the pronouns and verbs to change. It may screw up the rhyming scheme, but it's still funny. Here are some examples.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams
by Greenday

He walks a lonely road
The only one that he has ever known
Doesn't know where it goes,
But it's only him and he walks alone.
He walks alone, he walks alone.
His shadow's the only one who walks beside him.
His shallow heart's the only thing that's beating.
Sometimes he wishes someone out there will find him.
Till then, he walks alone.

You'll Be in My Heart
by Phil Collins

Come stop his crying, it'll be alright.
Just hold her hand. Hold it tight.
She will protect him from all around him.
She will be there, he shouldn't cry.
For one so small, he seems so strong.
Her arms will hold him, keep him safe and warm.
This bond between them can't be broken,
She will be here, he shouldn't cry.

'Cause he'll be in her heart.
Yes he'll be in her heart....
No matter what I say.
He'll be in her heart, always

2. Add Crude or Twisted Humor

This is a classic for all immature moments in our lives, but I've never been a fan of something so lowbrow as fart jokes. No, the "crudeness" of the humor we weave into our song parodies mostly revolves around throwing up, obesity, or something equally hilarious (think of Weird Al's countless food-themed parodies). Still shocking and funny, but not so common and ordinary as what an 11-year-old can come up with. This type of song changing can be very funny, but requires extra effort and wit to come up with clever substitution words and phrases that rhyme or sound similar to the original. When in doubt, change one word to a slant rhyme, and see the rest of the song in a new light.

Frosty the Snowman

There must have been some magic in that white powder they found,
For when they sniffed it up their nose he began to dance around.
Oh, Frosty the Snowman was an acid trip they say.
He was made from "snow" but the children know how he came to life that day.
Oh, Frosty the Snowman was as high as he could be...

What Makes You Beautiful*
by One Direction

You ask for more,
Eat off the floor.
You won't stop making trips to the refrigerator.
Just want to sup
And drain your cup.
Don't you think that you've eaten enough?
Everyone else at the table's finished.
Everyone else but you.
Baby, you've eaten way more than anybody else,
The way that you lick your plate makes me overwhelmed,
And when you belch in my face it ain't hard to tell,
You don't know oh-oh
You don't know when you are full.


3. Dumbing Down Adjectives and Adverbs

This is one I personally find very easy to have fun with. I love to modify just certain, select descriptive words in a song that don't even change the meaning drastically. It's the subtlety in this method that can make a powerful song about passion just be a mediocre and halfhearted song, or add a measure of uncertainty and hesitation to an otherwise assertive lyric. In order to use this method effectively, make sure to watch for superlatives and comparatives, which make prime targets, such as "always," "very," "best," etc.

Never Had a Dream Come True
by S Club 7

Lots of people got something they had to leave behind
One regret from yesterday that just seems to grow with time
There's little use looking back or wondering
How it could be now or might have been
Most of this I know but still I'm having trouble findin ways to let you go
I've rarely had a dream come true
Till the day that I found you
Even though I pretend that I've moved on
You'll most of the time be my baby
I hardly ever found the words to say
You're the one I think about most days
And I know no matter where life takes me to
A part of me will sometimes be with you

_____
*Credit for this one goes to my little brother Keaton Ballard