What's so damn funny?

Bob-Dubery

I recently got the latest Loudon Wainwright III album. 10 Songs For The New Depression. He sang a couple of them when I saw him in London earlier this year.

Now it's often struck me that good songwriters can crystalise something that I'm feeling (and that probably lots of other people are feeling). And it's often struck me that Wainwright is pretty funny (when he's not being depressed or angry, and even then...). An so here we have, as promised, ten songs about how worryingly bad everything is right now. Why does it put a smile on my face?

Lines like

You know that job I always said that I hated?
Well yesterday they gave me the sack.
Loving your work is so damn overrated
I sure wish to God I had that job back!

The last guy in DC he got eight years
The whole damn country's in arrears
one, two, three, four wars going on
All I can do is sing this song

Spot on! We're all in it up to our necks, and there doesn't seem much we can do. Oh wait! Wainwright's got an idea, we should hang "Bernie whats-his-name" and invite Alan Greenspan along.

He even chucks in a couple of old songs from 1930-or-so, just to remind us that depressions have been here before. Should I take comfort from this?

I was listening to this lot last night when I went out to get takeaways (the wife had had a long day at the office). By time I got to Doppio I was in an outrageously good mood - because of all the cackling on the way. all the slapping my knee and shouting "you got that one right!".

It didn't feel like laughing to stop from crying.

I checked some on-line reviews. Nobody seems to cry more because of this album. The Guardian even found it to be "uplifting".

What's so damn funny? What is this thing we call humour?

Squonk

i know what you mean Bob. there is this fine line between good wit and cynicism.

Mr Wainright has that ability to touch you with a lyric, even if it is depressing, you always seen to chuckle. Take white wino's for instancel always puts a grin on my facel yet written in one of his darkest periods.

I have worked out "Smalltown Romance" by RT and even though the lyric is quite humourous, the delivery is more cynical.

Bob-Dubery

Squonk wrote: i know what you mean Bob. there is this fine line between good wit and cynicism.

Mr Wainright has that ability to touch you with a lyric, even if it is depressing, you always seen to chuckle. Take white wino's for instancel always puts a grin on my facel yet written in one of his darkest periods.

Well I don't see that as a dark song, though it is one of several he wrote after his mother passed away, so it came from a personally dark period.

Wainwright notes on his latest album that his own personal depression has been a rich source for him over the years. There's a joke about the songwriter who went through a painful divorce: at least he got a couple good songs out of it. Wainwright often makes you feel like he's lying on the couch letting it all out and you're the shrink having to listen to it all. Yet he can be very tender and frequently side-splittingly funny.

My question this morning is more about humour and what makes us laugh, because, let's face it, the depression is no joke, yet last night I was laughing my ass off as Wainwright was singing about it. And I don't think it's a case of me being weird or sick, I know a lot of other people find this sort of thing amusing. I could work out some of those songs and take them to TJs and people would have a good old cackle.

What's really funny is what people will laugh at.

Maybe humour levens things a little, makes them more digestible. On the same night I saw Wainwright his Thompson-ness was also on the bill. He's got a couple of new songs about the current state of the world but they're not funny at all, just vicious and angry. I prefer Wainwright's efforts - and he's got a whole CD of this stuff.

PeteM

That's the art of satire - using irony and sarcasm to get one's point across rather than through blatant hopeless criticism. The way one says it - the inflection and timing - is as important as the subject itself.

[deleted]

I think it's always such a relief to share one's fears and sadness with another, that often you'll laugh a little harder than at another type of joke. It's true that there's nothing much we can do about wars and economic depression, but at least we can laugh about it! It's a little empowering and that's why we enjoy it I think.