Parody Songs Should Make a Comeback, But If Not, Do ‘Em Yourself

Back in the 1980s, pop music’s king of the parody song was “Weird” Al Yankovic. He left no stone unturned. Big hits like Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” (which became “Eat It”), Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” (“Like a Surgeon”), and the Greg Kihn Band’s “Jeopardy” (“I Lost on Jeopardy!") were not safe in the “Weird” Al World. Well, to a lesser extent, neither were big country hits, thanks to the comedy duo of Pinkard & Bowden. They may not have had the same level of success on the country charts that Yankovic had on the pop charts, but their titles were no less funny.And I say “titles” because, sometimes, the titles were the funniest parts of the songs. For example, “She Thinks I Steal Cars” is the hilarious spoof of George Jones’ classic “She Thinks I Still Care.” The song’s amusing, but that title…Then you have “Blue Hairs Driving in My Lane” (Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain”),  “Mama She’s Lazy” (The Judds’ “Mama He’s Crazy”), and my personal favorite, “Somebody Done Somebody’s Song Wrong” (a parody of B.J. Thomas’s “Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song”). Pinkard & Bowden  never had the kind of chart success enjoyed by “Weird” Al, but they brought the laughs nonetheless. I’ve already linked you to to a couple of Pinkard & Bowden videos but I had to be careful linking you to other videos or sites; they can be a bit profane and you just never know, you know? But the whole reason I started thinking about these guys in the first place was my penchant for spoofing songs when I’m listening to them while in the WBKR studio. I mean, I don’t have whole songs written in my head, but I have altered some song titles. And, actually, I think the choruses are pretty funny with merely a song title change, if I do say so myself. Example: the other day I was playing Keith Urban’s “Without You.” I was singing along and when the chorus came up, I sang, “The travellin’, the singin’, it don’t mean nothin’ without shoes…” I cracked myself up. I guess sometimes I’m easily amused. And then I was singing to myself with Kenny Chesney’s “You and Tequila” and came up with “You and Aunt Sheila make me crazy, you run like poison in my blood…” Where those two songs with the augmented titles could go from that point, heaven only knows. Or maybe you know. I’ve been doing this a long time. When I was in college, my friends and I used to do it all the time. Try your hand at it; it’s fun. Who knows, maybe you can write an entire song and become country’s next answer to “Weird” Al Yankovic.