So here’s the story. About two years ago, my friend Jon Waterman finished his master’s degree in the history of disaster songs, and as part of a practicum on writing disaster songs, I penned “The Wreck of the Chicken Piccata”, in which, because I’m a professional smartass and I can’t take anything seriously, nothing particular disastrous happens.
Now fast forward to last month, when Jon let me know that he and Steve Rapson were putting together an album of holiday music (you can read all about it on Dan Cloutier and Kim Jennings’ excellent local music blog). I don’t know what it is about Jon that brings out the contrary bastard in me, but the first song title I thought of – I kid you not – was “Shlomo the Dreidel Shark”. Which I’ve now written.
I have no idea whether “Shlomo the Dreidel Shark” is going to make it onto Jon’s compilation album. The criteria he lists are “under 5 minutes, reasonably well recorded, inoffensive, and respectful of the holidays and associated traditions”; I can guarantee the first two, but the last two are, well, anybody’s guess. After all, while I respect the Dalai Lama, I’m pretty sure that if I had the opportunity to place a whoopie cushion underneath him, I’d jump at the chance.
When you’re trying to be funny, things like “inoffensive” and “respectful” aren’t virtues – they’re the shoals on which you founder. In fact, the things I value in a funny song are very, very different than the things I value otherwise. For instance, the structure of “Shlomo the Dreidel Shark” is nothing to write home about – the rhyme scheme and verse/chorus alternations are the same as every other million songs you’ve ever heard. Musical originality is actually a detriment – it distracts from the point of the song. The style, too, has to be utterly, completely predictable. It can be part of the joke – “Shlomo the Dreidel Shark” is basically a klezmer song – but again, no originality required. The two most important things are: is it funny? And will people get it?
My problem with “Shlomo the Dreidel Shark”, if there is one, is the last question. See, if you don’t know anything about Hanukkah – and there are a lot of, as we say, goyim in Boston – you’re probably not going to have the faintest idea what I’m talking about. And the last thing you want when you’re playing a novelty song is a bunch of people staring at you like you have two heads – or, in this case, I suppose, horns.
Here’s the chorus:
When I wrote “The Wreck of the Chicken Piccata”, I could at least rely on the fact that most people knew that chicken piccata is a food, and could probably infer, from the song, that it contains pepper and parsley as two of its prominent ingredients. In this case, if you haven’t been exposed to enough Judaism to recognize that the third line of the chorus is a goading reference to Bar Mitzvahs, the song will probably be almost entirely lost on you.Oy vey
Guess this just ain’t your day
You were boys and now you’re men
So feed the pot and spin again
You’ll probably lose your yamulke
And I’m pretty sure you’ll find
Wherever Shlomo shleps his dreidel
The gelt ain’t far behind
But I wrote it anyway.
I guess the moral of the story, if there is one, is that my muse is a mysterious and ruthless mistress, which a sense of humor almost as perverse as my own. And if you’re going to invite me to contribute to a holiday album, next time you might get better results if you actually assign me a topic, say, biker nuns.