Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Writing Song Parody Lyrics
    Writing Song Parody Lyrics
    Writing Song Parody Lyrics
    Ebook119 pages1 hour

    Writing Song Parody Lyrics

    By Rex Ungericht

    2/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Ever want to write a song parody? There's more to it than you might think. In "Writing Song Parody Lyrics", Rex Ungericht puts four decades of parody writing experience down on paper to show you the ins and outs of creating your own lyrics. Twelve chapters cover topics that include The Legality of Parody Lyrics, Writing for Print vs. Performance, and where to publish your parodies. And of course, the nitty-gritty of parody lyric writing is covered -- including rhyme, meter, humor, and formatting. As a bonus, Rex takes you though the actual writing of a parody from start to finish.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRex Ungericht
    Release dateJun 21, 2012
    ISBN9781476157535
    Writing Song Parody Lyrics
    Author

    Rex Ungericht

    Writer, editor, song parodist, game inventor, technology enthusiast, and proud poppa, Rex Ungericht can be found at www.parodyman.com.

    Read more from Rex Ungericht

    Related to Writing Song Parody Lyrics

    Related ebooks

    Music For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tips For Creating Melodies

      Mar 21, 2023

      Coming up with a memorable melody is key to writing a decent song, yet this part of the process is often the hardest hurdle to overcome. Melodies can be elusive creatures - sometimes they appear fully-formed when you least expect it, other times you

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Principles Of Songwriting

      Sep 19, 2019

      The Principles Of Songwriting
      9 min read

    • Article

      Paul Statham

      Sep 19, 2019

      Paul Statham
      12 min read

    • Article

      How Do I Get A Foothold In The Music Industry?

      Jul 13, 2022

      It‘s not always easy - especially in the music business. Being successful as a music creator requires a lot of investment, luck and the right contacts. We have summarized for you what you can do to gain a foothold in this industry. And even if this a

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tech House

      Mar 5, 2020

      Tech House
      2 min read

    • Article

      How to Record Pop Vocals, Pt II — Editing

      Oct 25, 2018

      Column: Peter Holz Last issue, we went over what it took to get the best vocal takes for Peking Duk’s multi-platinum singles. In this part, we deal with the raw materials you’re left with once everybody else has walked out the studio door. During the

      4 min read

    • Article

      Songwriting Pro Advice

      Sep 19, 2019

      Songwriting Pro Advice
      11 min read

    • Article

      the 6 WAYS TO TURN INTO SONGS

      Sep 19, 2019

      the 6 WAYS TO TURN INTO SONGS
      3 min read

    • Article

      1O TIPS For Better Synth Pads

      Aug 15, 2019

      1O TIPS For Better Synth Pads
      3 min read

    • Article

      #1 Tips For Creating Melodies

      Mar 25, 2020

      Coming up with a memorable melody is key to writing a decent song, yet this part of the process is often the hardest hurdle to overcome. Melodies can be elusive creatures – sometimes they appear fully-formed when you least expect it, other times you

      4 min read

    • Article

      More Similar Than Similar

      Jun 27, 2023

      More Similar Than Similar
      5 min read

    • Article

      6 Tips For Better Texts

      Sep 27, 2023

      Before you start writing a text, you should think about a topic or message. Think about what you want to talk about - be it personal experiences, social issues or emotions. A clear theme will give structure to your text before you start writing. The

      5 min read

    • Article

      Word Playing By Ear

      Jul 6, 2023

      Word Playing By Ear
      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Mar 7, 2023

      Thank you, Jim Austin! You’re a cool dude! Buzzcocks appearing on your lists! I always thought they were special: smart, funny, and creative. Like the Beach Boys with fuzz guitars! I love their three albums and especially the last three singles, whic

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Who As Advertised!

      May 24, 2021

      Released in December of ’67, The Who Sell Out, judged against the flower power psychedelia of albums like Sgt. Pepper by The Beatles, Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones and Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane, was an outlier,

      17 min read

    • Article

      Crying By The Pool

      Sep 15, 2021

      Crying By The Pool
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Forums

      Jan 21, 2020

      Of all the new gear, albums, and bass videos which No Treble shared this month, there was one bit of news that dominated the site: Rage Against The Machine are back. The revolutionary rock band cryptically dropped the news that they’ll be performing

      5 min read

    • Article

      WILL SHEFF of OKKERVIL RIVER

      Apr 3, 2018

      WILL SHEFF of OKKERVIL RIVER
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Writing Song Parody Lyrics

    2/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Writing Song Parody Lyrics - Rex Ungericht

      Writing Song Parody Lyrics

      by

      Rex Ungericht

      Smashwords Edition

      May 2015

      Copyright Rex Ungericht

      All rights reserved.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      * * * * *

      Introduction

      I've been writing parody lyrics since the mid 1970's, and publishing them for over a decade. So, occasionally someone will ask me about the craft of parody writing. This ebook is the answer. It contains lessons learned from decades of experience and years of exposure to the work and opinions of other parodists. I hope you'll find the information here valuable as you work on your own parody lyrics. And to see and hear some of the parodies I've penned, visit www.parodyman.com.

      * * * * *

      Table of Contents

      Chapter One: What Is A Song Parody?

      Chapter Two: The Legality Of Song Parody Lyrics

      Chapter Three: Where's The Big Idea?

      Chapter Four: The Match Game

      Chapter Five: Writing A Parody

      Chapter Six: Meter

      Chapter Seven: Rhyme

      Chapter Eight: Writing for Print vs. Writing for Performance

      Chapter Nine: Publishing Your Parodies

      Chapter Ten: All The Stuff That Didn't Fit In the Other Chapters

      Chapter Eleven: Rex Writes A Parody

      Chapter Twelve: Many Voices

      Appendix: Credits and References

      * * * * *

      Chapter One: What Is A Song Parody?

      What is a song parody? Not everyone agrees on the definition. But in my experience, the majority of song parodies can be described as:

      Humorous lyrics written to a pre-existing tune

      However, folks have written serious lyrics to a pre-existing tune and called it parody, and folks have written humorous music to pre-existing lyrics and called it parody, and folks have changed the style of pre-existing lyrics and music and called it parody...so what, really, is a song parody?

      Let's look at definitions of parody from various dictionaries on the Internet (pulled on April 15, 2012):

      From Merriam-Webster.com:

      - a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule

      From Macmillandictionary.com:

      - a literary or musical work that copies a serious work in a humorous way

      From Oxforddictionaries.com:

      - an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect

      As you can see by these definitions, a parody (not just a song parody) is a copy or imitation of an original work, in a comic or humorous style (although some would add clever or insightful or other adjectives), with deliberate exaggeration. A song parody simply puts the parody to music.

      Or maybe not so simply. There are actually four elements of a song that can turned into a song parody: the lyrics, the music, the lyrical style, and the musical style. This book focuses on lyrics (hence the title Writing Song Parody Lyrics). If you are interested in modifying music or musical style to make a parody, you might want to review Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine, Spike Jones, Weird Al Yankovic, Victor Borge, P.D.Q. Bach, and Ray Stevens, among others. (For Spike Jones, I recommend his renditions of Cocktails for Two and The Charleston; for Ray Stevens', his song I Need Your Help Barry Manilow; and for Weird Al, check out the list of his parodies at Wikipedia -- the right hand column in the table says if a parody was done in a particular style.

      Song Parody Topics

      Any topic is fair game for a song parody, but some topics have become so popular that they have spawned their own genre. For example, filk is parody with a science fiction/fantasy topic. There is also a huge amount of Christmas-related song parody, which I suggest calling noelody.

      If you research song parodies (because, for example, you are writing a book about parody lyrics), you would discover that many parodies fall into a relative few topic groups: politics, sports, food/drink, current events, relationships, TV & movies... it's not my intention to provide a comprehensive list here, just to point out that there are certain topics that seem to lend themselves well to parody. And as a parodist, you might choose to focus on popular parody topics or buck the trend and write something more unusual.

      An Exceedingly Brief History of Song Parody

      Song parodies may have started in classical Greece. At the very least, the word parody is derived from the Greek parodia, which is from παρῳδία, a burlesque song or poem. However, song parodies as we are most familiar with them today (new, humorous lyrics to popular tunes) may have started in the military, with soldiers making up marching song lyrics. Or perhaps they started in the theatre.

      In any case, it was the introduction of broadcasting that gave song parodies a large audience. Artists like Allan Sherman, Spike Jones, Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, Bob Rivers, Weird Al Yankovic, and others all found success with parodies and helped to popularize song parody on a national and international stage. They also inspired a legion of writers and performers to develop new parodies. A huge number of these parodies were, and continue to be, introduced to listening audiences by Barret Eugene Hansen, better known as Dr. Demento, on The Dr. Demento Show. And with the rise of the Internet, streams and podcasts have appeared that provide a world-wide outlet for parodies. Just do web searches for song parody podcasts and song parody streams and you'll find them.

      In addition to all the folks creating original recordings of song parodies, there was (and is) a legion of folks writing parody lyrics with no means to record them. And it was the Internet that finally provided these folks with a platform for sharing their work. The websites AmIRight.com (making fun of music, one song at a time), TheFump.com, and others provide online communities for song parody writers.

      Almost all of the parodies from all parody writers fit the definition from the beginning of this

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1