Why Musical Comedy Is a Serious Art Form

And why hardly anyone sees it that way

Bill Bailey once described musical comedy as some kind of horrible social leprosy. Stewart Lee added that nobody thought it was a good sign when a comedian pulled out an acoustic guitar.

Last time I performed at a comedy open mic, my set went as well as anyone else’s, with the volume and frequency of laughs. But I was still made to feel out of place, with the compère making passive-aggressive remarks about musical comedians being ‘statistically likely to be shit.’

As a genre, musical comedy has a low status in the comedy community, and an even lower one in music. But by process of elimination, it has become the artform for me, and I am determined to make the most of it.

Three Reasons Why Musical Comedy Is Worthy

The lyrics have to actually say something – Jarvis Cocker, one of the great lyricists, once described lyrics as unimportant, a mere contractual obligation. In musical comedy this is not the case.

At university, Professor Archie Markham taught our class that good writing is characterised by three things, linguistic vitality, formal innovation, and emotional truth.

When it comes to linguistic vitality, few songwriters are on the level of Australian bawdy balladeer Kevin Bloody Wilson, who coined a new word with his song ‘Dilligaf’, which encapsulates his entire attitude, and maybe even the spirit of a nation. His British counterpart Ivor Biggun showed similarly impressive agility with the English language through songs like ‘Mabel’.

Canadian musical comedian Jon Lajoie is a master of formal innovation. His parodies of rap songs, pop songs and other styles both subvert and enhance the genres with their watertight rhymes, flawless adherence to meter and dazzlingly creative lyrics.

One of the most prolific musical comedy acts around is Canada’s The Arrogant Worms. Their lyrics are bursting with social and philosophical insight, although the satire is not particularly hard-edged. Themes they cover include fatherhood (My Boy), technophobia (The Guy With Computer Know How), and the damage that consumerism is doing to the environment (Big Box Store).

As British politician Robert Walpole put it: "To those who feel, the world is a tragedy. To those who think, the world is a comedy." That is why there is so much emotional truth in the work of the above-mentioned artists. Unlike with other types of music, lyricists cannot hide behind pseudo-profundity, and they must evoke feelings.

It's a technical high trapeze act – While musical comedy is hardly the kind of thing they teach at the Paris Conservatory, much of the best of it is full of technical and vocal feats that only a proper musician could pull off. These include political humorist Roy Zimmerman's song "Barack Obama," Tom Lehrer's "The Elements Song" or Adam Sandler's "The Goat Song" (the Bohemian Rhapsody of musical comedy and easily in the top 5 songs ever written about a talking goat).

Creative writers generally agree that it is harder to be funny than to be serious. As songwriters, musical comedians cannot let a single dull line in. Radiohead are one of the great bands of all time, so are Pink Floyd, but by gosh do their lyrics contain a lot of flab.

It's thought-provoking (when done well) - One of the most famous musical comedians in history is Tom Lehrer, a Harvard mathematics professor who pursued music on the side. His songs about nuclear war "We'll All Go Together" and "So Long Ma" are as original, evocative and life-affirming as other anti-war songs of the same era such as Donovan's "Universal Soldier" Edwin Starr's "War" and John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance."

Satire has always been an effective form of protest: from Hugh Laurie's "Protest Song" (about political impotence) to Jon Lajoie's "Very Super Famous" (about the cult of celebrity), and music is one of the most effective forms of persuasion ever invented.

None of these songs could effectively bring about social change the way some of the protest songs of the 1960s arguably did. But this is no bad thing. Music appeals to the emotions, good political ideas should appeal to the intellect.

Musical comedy can be facetious and much of it comes with a taste warning. "Don't Touch Your Sister" by Kevin Bloody Wilson is about paedophilia and incest. Wilson's management team make sure children do not attend his shows.

But the role of a artist is to break taboos. As George Carlin said: "I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately." We live in an age in which to be offended is seen by many as a badge of honour in showing how compassionate and enlightened we are.

Whereas Coldplay's attempts at political engagement in their lyrics such as in "Politik" and "Rush of Blood to the Head" are so vague as to be meaningless, Roy Zimmerman's "To Be a Liberal" and "Vote Republican" are undeniably grappling with the issues of the day without climbing onto a soapbox or pulpit.

Jon Lajoie in the video for ‘Pop Song’

Becoming the World’s Unlikeliest Comedian

I have never been a funny person. I was never a class clown or an office jokester. If I were a kid now, I might well have been diagnosed as non-verbal. The positive side is, being a consummate listener (or eavesdropper), I overheard a lot of jokes that I could use when the time came.

When I was becoming old enough to drink, my brother had a friend called Davie who was the coolest person in town. Davie was a prolific pub-goer who everyone knew and was quick with a joke or a witticism.

In December 2002, my first Christmas back from uni, I tried to ‘banter’ him. But the look of hurt that came over his face will be seared into my psyche till my dying day. So my barroom banter career was over within a year of becoming old enough to drink. It seems my attempts at good-natured ribbing come out like Eddie Hearn’s roast of Chabuddy G. And the reaction is like the episode of ‘The Simpsons’ where Homer gets barred from Moe’s for a sugar prank.

My first attempts at writing comedy were at university. I just transcribed the barroom banter I had overheard over the years into stories and scripts. The grades were not good.

After getting a Master’s in creative writing, which was a big turnoff for employers, I moved to China. The subsequent creative journey led to writing songs in Chinese, and eventually figuring out that the genre for me was musical comedy. In 2012 and 2013, I would play in expat pubs and other venues, enjoying much beginner’s luck as a performer. But then I needed a respectable job, which I did for four years, while music became a lesser priority.

In 2019, during a poor employment situation, I tentatively dipped my toe in Manchester’s open mic scene, and realised I should never have moved away from musical comedy.

For the first three years, I didn’t market it as comedy, because so many of the songs were me just writing down what I really thought and putting it to music (‘One Question’, ‘Sometimes’, ‘The Friend Zone’), though many people did find them funny.

The material I write sometimes leads to absolutely magical on-stage moments. The benchmark is when I debuted the song ‘Romance Tonight’ at Manchester Academy 3 in 2022:

Every new song is an attempt at something similar. Three years ago, I read an impossibly profound essay in Aeon titled ‘You’re Astonishing’, about ancestors and the unlikelihood of our existence. Last year I finally finished a song on the subject titled ‘You’re Amazing’.

Both ‘Romance Tonight’ and ‘You’re Amazing’ end up mentioning fellatio, and another song I wrote last year about the crisis of masculinity ends up being about sodomy. But only a pretentious tool would claim that touching on low-brow subjects precludes a work of art from being profound. Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ and James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ both contain passages that are far grosser than anything even I have ever written.

What kind of jerkoff describes themselves as a ‘serious artist’?

If my musical comedy persona were a business, it would be deep in the red, with no prospect of ever getting into the black. But I treat it as seriously as I would a company that I was responsible for. Even so, I am hardly in a position to throw a tantrum and shout “I’m a serious artist.”

It’s not for me to say whether my lyrics are profound, but what is certain is that most lyrics that gain a reputation for being profound are nothing of the kind. The music industry is so rich and powerful that it inspires pretentious people around the world to pontificate on the perceived profundity of popular music. And it’s hardly ever there.

Being a musical comedian is a far cry from my youthful dream, wandering through university libraries and fantasising about becoming one of those people who wrote much-loved masterpieces and whose name echoed down the centuries. But I prefer the way things have worked out to the way I wanted things to work out. Philosophical and historic insights are best when packaged as something that even a barroom boor could enjoy.

On that note, I'll leave you with the greatest song ever written for ending a set: "Bugger Off" by The Dubliners.