Novelty songs
| Novelty songs | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Popular music |
| Cultural origins | 1910s United States |
| Typical instruments | |
| Other topics | |
A novelty song is a comical or nonsensical song, performed principally for its comical effect. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs. The term arose in Tin Pan Alley to describe one of the major divisions of popular music. The other two divisions were ballads and dance music. Novelty songs achieved great popularity during the 1920s and 1930s. They had a resurgence of interest in the 1950s and 1960s.
Novelty songs are often a parody or humor song, and may apply to a current event such as a holiday or a fad such as a dance or TV programme. Many use unusual lyrics, subjects, sounds, or instrumentation, and may not even be musical. For example, the 1966 novelty song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" has little music and is set to a rhythm tapped out on a snare drum and tambourine.
A famous book on achieving an attention-grabbing novelty single is The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way), written by The KLF. It is based on their achievement of a UK number-one single with "Doctorin' the Tardis", a 1988 dance remix mashup of the Doctor Who theme song released under the name of 'The Timelords.' It argued that (at the time) achieving a number one single could be achieved less by musical talent than through market research, sampling and gimmicks matched to an underlying danceable groove.
Novelty songs were a major staple of Tin Pan Alley from its start in the late 19th century. They continued to proliferate in the early years of the 20th century, some rising to be among the biggest hits of the era. Varieties included songs with an unusual gimmick, such as the stuttering in "K-K-K-Katy" or the playful boop-a-doops of "I Wanna Be Loved By You" which made a superstar out of Helen Kane and provided the inspiration for the creation of Betty Boop, silly lyrics like "Yes! We Have No Bananas", Playful songs with a bit of double entendre such as "Don't Put A Tax On All The Beautiful Girls" and invocations of foreign lands with emphasis on general feel of exoticism rather than geographic or anthropological accuracy, such as "Oh By Jingo!", "The Sheik Of Araby" "The Yodeling Chinaman" and "Nagasaki". These songs were perfect for the medium of Vaudeville and performers like Eddie Cantor and Sophie Tucker became well known for these songs.
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