Well, yes and no. It all depends on artist or album. It seems like one of the hardest things for musicians to accomplish is to write songs that are both genuinely funny and musically valid-- something more than just novelties. Zappa did it on a few occasions (but then again, if you release dozens upon dozens of albums, you're bound to have a few successes), and then there's Ween and the Dead Milkmen, both of which frequently pulled off the balancing act.
On the other hand, there are bands like Barenaked Ladies who try to impress with a constant stream of pop culture references and end up with unforgivably annoying frat-boy sing-a-longs, and Ben Folds who half-assed his way through both his "serious" and "funny" songs, undercutting them both.
Of all the recent attempts to tread this fine line between quality and humor, Parker Paul does it better than almost anyone. A former member of the Charlottesville, Virginia-based band the Curious Digit (which also featured Adam Busch, currently of Manishevitz), Wingfoot is Paul's second solo disc. Piano and other assorted keyboards remain the musical fulcrum here, as they were on his debut, Lemon-Lime Room, but Paul has rounded out his sound on Wingfoot with help from a host of luminaries from the Chicago music scene like Jeb Bishop (Vandermark 5), Fred Lonberg-Holm, Wil Hendricks, the aforementioned Adam Busch, and Songs: Ohia guitarist Dan Sullivan. And as a bonus, the whole deal was committed to tape by Michael Krassner of the Lofty Pillars and Boxhead Ensemble.
On the surface, Parker Paul strongly recalls Ben Folds, if only because all his songs are piano-based, but a better comparison might be Randy Newman-- or, to go outside the realm of music, Woody Allen. His songs, like Allen's best films, use humor to explore themes of existential dread and anxiety. But whereas Allen's tone is neurotic and self-deprecating, Paul's is bemused and detached.
On Wingfoot, nowhere is this better exemplified than with "When I Got You at the Pound." Preaching salvation by means of a pet dog (and remember, dog spelled backwards is God), Paul sings to this canine messiah after seeing a show on pet therapy for the elderly: "Last night I dreamt of heaven/ All of our names on your collar." The song also features the best lyrics about sifting through dog vomit that I know of: "Night crawlers and blades of grass/ Shifting continents in egg yolk/ Lincoln's profile in the morass."
Elsewhere, Paul tackles the human condition with "Pain, Pain, Pain, Pain, Pain" (take a guess what it's about) where he reveals, "Catholics propose pain is the path we all should have chose/ But the Unitarians are much more interested in fun." Yet what saves this song is from being a simple joke is the same thing that saves Paul from being a simple novelty: the little lyrical profundities he tosses in the middle of everything, like on "Pain," which ends with the lines, "Hold something in your hand/ Set it down, say a prayer, walk away." Written here, it doesn't seem like much, but in the context of the song, it makes all the sense in the world, clicking like a Zen koan in the mind. If you're paying attention, most of the songs on Wingfoot have these little lyrical nuggets, but if you're not careful, they'll float right by like Marshall McLuhan's cameo in Annie Hall.
