Parody in Popular Music
Popular music has used parody in a variety of ways. These include parodies of earlier music, for comic or (sometimes) serious effect; parodies of musical and performing styles; and parodies of particular performers.
Before the 20th century, popular song frequently borrowed hymn tunes and other church music and substituted secular words. "John Brown's Body", the marching song of the American Civil War, was based on the tune of an earlier camp-meeting and revival hymn, and was later fitted with the words "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord", by Julia Ward Howe. This practice continued into the First World War, with many of the soldiers' songs being based on hymn tunes (for instance "When this lousy war is over", to the tune of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" and "We are Fred Karno's Army", to the tune of "The Church's One Foundation").
Folk song has often been written to existing tunes, or slight modifications of them. This is another very old (and usually non-humorous) kind of musical parody that still continues. For instance, Bob Dylan took the tune of the old slave song "No more auction block for me" as the basis for "Blowin' in the Wind".
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Famous quotes containing the words parody, popular and/or music:
“The parody is the last refuge of the frustrated writer. Parodies are what you write when you are associate editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The greater the work of literature, the easier the parody. The step up from writing parodies is writing on the wall above the urinal.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Lawyers are necessary in a community. Some of you ... take a different view; but as I am a member of that legal profession, or was at one time, and have only lost standing in it to become a politician, I still retain the pride of the profession. And I still insist that it is the law and the lawyer that make popular government under a written constitution and written statutes possible.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air; thence have I followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)