How to pick a song to parody

Know the parodist, but mostly know the song.

On this page I provide a variety of suggestions for song parodists on how they should choose what to work with.

Steps to follow in order

Step 1: Pick a subject for your parody

Which song you choose will determine the details of what you write about, but it is necessary to figure out some general themes ahead of time. There is no way to know how well a song can serve you without wanting what you want to do with it. For more details on this, see my advice on how to pick a subject. If you have not read that page already, now is a good time to do so.

See where everything falls into place

Once you have something in mind, start reviewing songs and see which ones remind you of the subject you chose. In essence, the characters in the story you want to tell serve as your guide. What you want are songs those characters can relate to, or at least come up with rhymes for. Pass on the songs that do not tick with them, even if they are by an artist you have a history of parodying.

Other things to take into account

1. Pay attention to song titles. Usually your first clue of how difficult a song is going to be is how complicated the words in the title are. If you see something like Restless Heart Syndrome or Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, you should probably consider looking for something with a title consisting of single-syllable words.
2. An important lesson for both the parodist and the audience: Never decide what will be parodied based on something that tells you more about the parodist than the song. For example, if you parody by album like me, you do not have to do every song you like off the album, just do the ones you want. Similarly, if you own multiple songs by an artist, parodying one or more of them does not give you an obligation to do them all.
   • Example of not succumbing to a connection within an album: The album Paradise Theater opens with the 1 minute ballad A.D. 1928, which presents two short verses introducing the premise of the album. At the end comes the musically similar and equally short A.D. 1958, with just one verse saying goodnight. I never even tried to parody either of these, and no one should blame me. YOU try to tell a story in four or eight lines! Especially when they have such a specific purpose and subject and were never meant to stand on their own. Also, they do not have their own tune, but rather use that of a full-length song by the title of Best of Times. So, if you parody this album, leave the bookends off. You are not missing anything, especially not if you do Best of Times.
   • Example of not succumbing to a connection between albums: After I parodied Kilroy Was Here, Paradise Theater and American Idiot, the most direct connection I could have made was 21st Century Breakdown, as it was another Green Day album, and the last concept album I own. However, any idea to parody it was quickly laid to rest by the realization of what I would have to try to rhyme and what concepts I would be trying to work with if I did that. One need only look at the titles of the songs to know parodists should avoid them. Viva La Gloria? Before the Lobotomy? Christian’s Inferno? Peacemaker? Last of the American Girls? The Static Age? American Eulogy? Who cares that the songs were brought to you by the same three guys as the protest songs and lyrics about bad relationships that have served me well before if this is what they themselves are like? As you can see, I did not miss anything.
3. I suggest you never attempt a bookend song that does not stand on its own or a song that is packed full of polysyllabic words. Such songs are easy to avoid anyway.

Things the likes of which you should never say or do

• _____ is the parody subject! Now what was the song?
• Of course _____________________ is next! It is the last of the (descriptor) albums, and the last of the (artist) albums!
• Take the litany of songs I mentioned in the example of not succumbing to a connection between albums above, and let your characters say, Surely the cartoonist will do them. They are full of rocky music, just the kind she likes.
• Passing on Don’t Let It End. Suppose I could do it, but it is a bit slow and a bit sad for me.

None of these has anything to do with the two things you really need to know - namely, what the song is about and what you want to do with it. Really, these are just assessments of how inclined you are to casually listen to the songs, which is something else entirely. Besides, if a song with a simple title like Don’t Let It End was dubbed a worse choice than songs with titles mentioning lobotomies, infernos, peacemakers, static, eulogies, and the names Christian and Gloria, you would not even need to know the songs to be able to tell this was all backwards.