Pastiches/parodies/satires in music.

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   Once upon a time (in the  early 60's) the Barron Knights could be relied on to come up with singles hits in the UK, each of which consisted of 4 or 5 piece of current hits with alternative lyrics. The "joke" wore off fairly quickly and besides the jokes didn't travel too well. In the 80's Weird Al Yankovic in the USA and the Heebee Geebees in the UK, did a  far better job. Weird Al is still active and there are some gems in his back catalogue although the pictures on the associated video are most important to his music. My favourites are the RHCP's patiche Bedrock and the very clever take on Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues with every line  a palindrome. However, I do believe the Phil Pope-lead HBGB's  had the edge wrt cleverness but because of legal action didn't get passed a second (very quickly deleted) LP. The Heebees were first heard on the BBC Radio 4 comedy series Radioactive (one of those post-Python Oxbridge derived shows), when each week Phil Pope (with Angus Deaton and others) came up with an often, wonderul piss-take on a hit of the time (Pope's lyrics to a tune sort of based on Squeeze's Up The Junction - Up The Duff - was a masterpiece of comedy, e.g.  "When I saw the swell of her belly, rubbery like Pirelli, wobbly like a jelly, a look like Lisa Minelli", etc, and the punchline : "I took always precautions, I gave them a false name"). They eventually  had a minor hit with the Beegees parody The Meaningless Song (In Very High Voices). An album followed Never Mind The Originals Here's The Heebee Geebees, of which the Status Quo (here Status Quid) Boring Song is a real gem. Apparently a second album was released but was on the shelves of record shops in the UK for less than 24 hours before a court injunction , made them pull those records off those shelves. Rumour had it that an unamused Sting or Phil Collins or others acted as the plaintiffs (the tunes apparently contained lyrics too close to the truth....). BTW if you have the second Heebees' album it should be worth a few bob. However, the court injunction didn't stop Pope and co continuing with their parodies on Radioactive - and there are two relatively safe ones on the Radioactive LP, BBC Enterprises issued in the late 80's or early 90's. As the Heebees were essentially developed for radio, visual images are not important and you are left to your own devices to come up with any related pictures.

Now of course many other bands did patiches - I always wondered why Neil Innes & Co never got sued for Beatles plaguarism for the Rutles soundtrack - but I suppose having George Harrison involvement in that project helped.

So what is you favourite musical parody/patiche/satire?