Song Parodies

Song parodies . . . how we love them. It gives us a way to safely comment about our social condition, our mores, our worries and fears, and laugh at the same time. From Mickey Katz to Allen Sherman to Weird Al Yankovic we laugh about the issues they write and sing about.

I’ve always loved song parodies. My friend Bob Schwartz and I would make up lyrics to popular songs of the day. I remember first hearing “Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh,” Allen Sherman’s Camp Grenada song for the first time and laughing my tuchis off. I wasn’t really exposed to Mickey Katz until I started researching “Goys and Dolls.” His style is quite different from mine, but for his time, he was amazing. And then there’s Weird Al. Genius!!

And hopefully someday, people all over the place will be talking about Meshugeneh Mike Lange and his hilarious song parodies. But let’s not forget that at the root of any good parody is a truth about the human condition. It’s not just the laugh I’m going for, it’s the sharing of my small experience of life with others, hoping to find a connection, to stir up some feeling and realization that underneath our cultural experience, our primal fears, our wants, needs, loves, hates, we are all made of the same stuff. And hopefully, we CAN all get along one of these days. A lot to ask of a little comedy, huh?