February 20: Weird Al

I went on a ridiculous YouTube/Google rabbit hole yesterday while doing some research for next week's jeo-party. It went from researching the song "Mandy" by Barry Manilow, to discovering that Barry Manilow also wrote the theme song to the State Farm Insurance commercial (I love these crazy coincidences I keep experiencing) to listening to a few different versions of the Copacabana song by Barry Manilow, which ultimately led me to listening to the Weird Al parody of it, Star Wars Cantina. Weird Al is one of my favorite musicians because of his hilariously clever parodies, and Star Wars Cantina is one my favorite songs of his. I vividly remember my first experience with Weird Al, listening to Amish Paradise, his parody of Gangsta's Paradise, on my favorite local radio station back home in the midwest, 97ZOK. I appreciate Weird Al's artistry, creativity, musicianship, and his personal rule to always seek permission to parody a person's song before recording it. (Though he probably wouldn't have to since many artists have considered being parodied by him to be a badge of honor.) I have always delighted in parodies, and created quite a few, especially when I was young (including several hilarious versions of songs by Hanson). I love how parodies engage with the creative side of my brain. I often find myself singing to my cats, making up new lyrics to songs I have stuck in my head (that might be because I don't actually know the original lyrics, but I have definitely been influenced by the fact that my dad did this very thing when I was a kid.)

I decided to do a little research about parodies, and learned that according to Aristotle, a guy known as Hegemon of Thasos was the inventor of a kind of parody (probably around 400 BCE). He slightly altered the wording in well-known poems to make them "ridiculous". The word parody comes from the Greek word παρῳδία (parodia), using two roots: παρά para "beside, counter, against" and ᾠδή oide "song" to mean "an imitation that is set against the original". Greeks used the word parodia to refer to a narrative poem imitating the style of the epics in a satirical or mocking way. It is delightful to learn that people have delighted in parodies for thousands of years. 

With delight,

♥Jamie