A Problem I Have With A Lot Of Al's Songs

[Big Spoon]

Al’s great, we all know that. But like anyone else, he has flaws. There is one major flaw in his work, though, that I feel is overlooked. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even heard it mentioned on here before. I guess that this problem can be seen as across the board for comedy artists, but with Al it seems stick out more. This flaw is the titles he gives to his songs.

A lot of the time Al will start off the song going in one direction, then twist it. The title in a lot of cases gives away the joke. An example of this is Ringtone. The song starts, having one wonder what it is that made the person lose all respect, with the reveal being that it is something as mundane as his ringtone. Another example is I Was Only Kidding, where the first few lines set up a love song, only to have Al turn it around and say that it was all a lie.

There are countless other examples, but the greatest in my opinion is Why Does This Always Happen To Me? A hilarious song, definitely one of my favorites. But the title totally gives away the big reveal. Whenever I play the song for a friend for the first time, without telling them the title, they laugh their asses off. But knowing that Al’s going to make it all about himself ruins the joke.

Anyone else agree with me on this?

[TMBJon]

Yeah but what else would you title "Ringtone"?
"The Reason So Many People Lost Respect For Me"?

Or what else would you call "Why Does This Always Happen To Me?"
"Three Different Situations"?

[Big Spoon]

Right, you really can't give them other titles. I'm not saying Al should have done differently, it's just a problem that I've always had with Al's work.

And I guess it's just more of a flaw in comedy music as a whole as opposed to just Al's songs.

[TMBJon]

I agree with the latter sentiment. The same is true of Flight of the Conchords, Tenacious D, etc.

[Big Spoon]

Actually, I feel that FOTC are very good at not having a joke revolve around the title of the song. Looking through my library of their songs now, there really aren't any (unless you count Leggy Blonde, which I wouldn't).

[scottidog]

This is why all first listens should be live. Then the joke isn't spoiled by giving away the title, and after that... the joke is out of the bag.

[Killingsworth]

yeah, I agree...it is a problem with Al's work...but it's kind of inevitable and unavoidable because any other posssible titles that don't give away the joke sound really lame as titles...what are ya gonna do, huh?

I think the more relevant angle of this problem was right when PH came out. It had seemed like naming a parody so you could tell what the what it was parodying just by looking at the track listing were LONG over...that all changed with SOL, but still...

[Well, Well, Well]

He should pull a Sigur Rós and release an album only with untitled songs.

[JCM]

He should just not put the titles on the back of his albums.

[dynaboyj]

The only song that seems to have a non-giving-away name is Good Old Days.