03 April 2011

laugh, laugh

a song that makes you laugh


“God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.” -Voltaire

Laughter.

Infectious. Bellowing. Snorting. Child-like. Unrelenting.

Few things bring people together quite like laughter. It spreads like disease and fills a room with positive energy.

I have always enjoyed wordplay. And lyrical wordplay is a special creature all its own. I love cleverness put to music. An artist like Missy Elliott never seems to take herself seriously so everything she puts out seems to have a sense of humor. Other artists have this vibe too, like Cee-lo Green (and his deviation, Gnarls Barkley), the lighter side of Eminem, and even Lily Allen. See yourself through a songbook of Tom Waits, Joe Jackson, or Weird "Al" Yankovic, and you'll find plenty of gems, too.

That's one side of it for me, but in full force my humor is dark, twisted, and can not be fully shared with everyone. It is a special person with low inhibitions who gets to know the full breadth of the way my mind and imagination work. I understand the gravity of life, but take it in stride and not necessarily as others might think. In ways I am a contradiction in terms. I dream and work with both sides of my brain equally, sharing both the logical sense and the artistic. I weave myself through the world in the same fashion. I am very professional and responsible, on the one hand - quoting others and not being immodest - but I have a great ability to find the humor in damn near anything.

I think it helps create a pitch black sense of humor, which in my mind means all of the colors of the humor map are fully represented.

So, onto the music:

Country Death Song by Violent Femmes is like a backwoods blues song for the college radio, post-punk set with its limited chord progression and completely sober murder storyline.

On the other hand, we've got Know Your Chicken by oddball Japanese electronica duo Cibo Matto from their food centric Viva! La Woman album. It's not the strongest song of the set, but it's the most indicative.

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