August 3rd, 2007
Laughter, as Reader's Digest once said, is the best medicine, but in some places, its presence is questionable: funerals, Carrot Top concerts, pop songs. Inspired by a question posed in this week's Ask The A.V. Club column, The A.V. Club examined giggles, cackles, and guffaws through pop history to determine which add character to songs and which are simply silly. If the songs themselves don't inspire laughter, the accompanying YouTube clips might—some are straight-up music videos, but most are fan-made tributes.
1. David Bowie, "The Laughing Gnome" (available on London Boy)
David Bowie is no stranger to odd musical diversions, but the novelty single "The Laughing Gnome" stands out as more pandering-weird than authentically Bowie-weird. The lyrics tell the story of Bowie's meeting with a giggly little creature with the processed voice of Gus Dudgeon, who titters chipmunkishly over terrible puns about "gnoman's land," "ecognomics," and "a metrognome." His giggles and the "ha ha ha, hee hee hee" chorus are calculated and artificial, but toward the end, when Bowie himself breaks into laughter, he sounds like he's losing it over how ridiculous the song is; it's basically his own personal version of Leonard Nimoy's dignity-destroying "Ballad Of Bilbo Baggins."
2. Lily Allen, "Knock Em Out" (available on Alright, Still)
On her debut, Alright, Still, Lily Allen sounds like a teenager desperately trying to come across as tough and world-weary, even though she's barely seen the world outside a narrow little life of clubbing and mooning over boys. Her giggles on "Knock Em Out" suggest how young she really is—faced with a series of unsuitable guys hitting on her, she can't help but snicker both at them and at the lame excuses she invents to put them off, ranging from "I have herpes!" to "I have to go, my house is on fire!"
3. Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, "The Message" (available on The Message)
Sometimes a laugh in a song isn't really a laugh, it's a cry of desperation. In "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, rapper Melle Mel wonders how he keeps from going under, but his maniacally stilted laugh suggests he already has.
4. Karl Valentin, "The OKeh Laughing Record" (available on Flashbacks Vol. 2: Novelty Songs 1914-1946: Crazy & Obscure)
This 1922 record is simplicity itself. First, a guy starts laughing. Then another person joins him, then another, and another, and on and on for three minutes straight. That's it—it's no gimmick or all gimmick, depending on how you look at it, but either way, it's one of the biggest transnational hits ever made. Valentin was German, but laughter is the universal language.
5. Slim Gaillard, "Laughing In Rhythm" (available on Laughing In Rhythm: The Best Of The Verve Years)
Jazz's clown prince, Slim Gaillard, was a guitarist, singer, and nonsense scatter who was equally wry and silly. This jaunty signature tune is a perfect example of both those modes: The chorus is "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" and by the end of the song, he and the band are breaking up for real.
6. Flipper, "Ha Ha Ha" (available on American Hardcore: The History Of American Punk Rock 1980-1986)
Criticized at the time for being a rip-off of The Dicks' "Lifetime Problems"—another early hardcore single featuring menacing, near-suicidal laughter—Flipper's 1981 anthem "Ha Ha Ha" stands on its own as a masterpiece of brutally unfunny business. In typical Flipper fashion, suburbia, sex, and consumerism are skewered with a self-deprecating sneer as scuds of grungy noise howl overhead. It's all about the chorus, though—a bitterly expectorated, almost strangled snicker that speeds up sinisterly as it tapers off into the existential void.
7. 50 Cent, "Back Down" (available on Get Rich Or Die Tryin')
Like Eddie Murphy's laugh, 50 Cent's is seductive, infectious, and instantly recognizable. And like 2Pac, 50 isn't afraid to double-track himself to create his own admiring Greek chorus. On the Dr. Dre-produced dis track "Back Down," that percussive laughter serves two purposes: 50 is modestly admiring his own cleverness, and he's laughing derisively at Ja Rule, the object of his well-wrought scorn and "Oh snap!"-worthy disses. Literally and figuratively, 50 is all about getting the last laugh.
8. Morrissey, "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" (available on Your Arsenal)
On this single from Your Arsenal, Morrissey expounds wittily on a series of painful truths. "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" nails the ugly, mixed emotions that come with a friend's success and the bitterness and resentment such accomplishments engender. At his bitter best, Moz articulates that the success of friends is "truly laughable," then proves his point with a joyless approximation of said laughter, which is the kind of bitter, angry chuckle of barely repressed hate that gets stuck in the throat.
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