In fact, there is only one area in which English sadmüzik is terminally lacking: a sense of humor. Lord knows, Cure frontman Robert Smith tries. The word laughing—which our favorite English singers pronounce as loffing—shows up in many a Cure song. It’s never quite funny, however. Try as Smith does to make us chortle, his attempts fall flat.
In the song “Let’s Go to Bed,” he shares a humorous anecdote about “laughing at the Christmas lights/You remember from December.” Hahaha! Wait. What? Okay, so I’ve never laughed at the memory of Christmas lights. Maybe it’s one of those “you had to be there” scenarios. Maybe it’s even one of those “you had to be on heroin” scenarios.
Let’s see if Robert Smith does better in another song. In the 1979 hit “Boys Don’t Cry,” he keens about lost love accompanied by an uncannily catchy guitar hook:
“I tried to laugh about it,
Cover it all up with lies.
I tried to laugh about it,
Hiding the tears in my eyes. . .”
Again, truly “loffing” is a tall order for everyone’s favorite male lipstick aficionado. Someone should have told Robert that he’d have better luck if he tried laughing at a joke instead of heartbreak.
Despite the lack of humor in his songs, there may be hope for Robert Smith’s funny-bone. Try Googling some notable quotes by Robert Smith and you find some pretty sharp zingers. Here are just a few of his on-record wisecracks:
“You can't drink on an eight hour flight, pass out, and then go onstage... well you can, but then you're Spandau Ballet.”
“I could write songs as bad as Wham's if I really felt the urge to, but what's the point?”
“I'd rather spend my time looking at the sky than listening to Whitney Houston.”
"The press try to categorize me a 'gloom-and-doom' singer. But, take a look at Morrissey! That man's a professional moaner!"
I’ve finally got a bead on Robert Smith’s sense of humor. He’s a hater. A trash-talker. In Smith’s head, amidst all the drug-inspired hallucinogenic imagery, there lurks an inexhaustible well of an English musician’s equivalent of the yo mamma joke. Yo mama wears Doc Martins. Yo mama is so depressed she listens to the Disintegration album on repeat. Yo mama’s lipstick is so messy, it looks like it was applied by Robert Smith. By the way, have you noticed that Robert’s whore-red lipstick looks as if he applied it while dirt biking?
Not only is Robert Smith’s humor insult-centric. He can only find his loffing place when he’s speaking. As he said in a 1997 “Rolling Stone” interview: "I've always spent more time with a smile on my face than not, but the thing is, I don't write about it."
Hmmmm. Let’s try another introspective English band on for size: The Smiths. Smiths frontman Steven Patrick Morrissey is known for his acerbic wit. Perhaps more belly laughs may be found in the Smiths’ sizable catalog.
In “Suffer Little Children,” a song about a horrendous spate of child murders, Morrissey takes on the voice of a juvenile ghost, saying, “We will haunt you when you laugh.” Here, laughing is not only decidedly unfunny, it brings on poltergeist activity.
Another song that addresses the subject of laughing is the tellingly titled, “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore.” In this song, Morrissey speaks to the devastating effects of humor at someone else’s expense:
“When you laugh about people who feel so
Very lonely
Their only desire is to die
Well, I'm afraid
It doesn't make me smile
I wish I could laugh
But that joke isn't funny anymore
It's too close to home
And it's too near the bone. . .”
Apparently, when Morrissey’s musical muse is unleashed, he, too, has a crippling deficiency in the laughter department. Reading his interviews, however, one finds him unleashing his acid wit in the vein of 19th century satirist Oscar Wilde:
“All I said was 'bring me the head of Elton John', which would be one instance when meat would not be murder, if it was on a plate.”
“There are indeed worse groups than Modern Romance. But can anybody seriously think of one?”
“I think Band Aid was diabolical. I think Bob Geldof is a nauseating character. Many people find that very unsettling, but I'll say it as loud as anyone wants me to. In the first instance the record itself was absolutely tuneless. One can have great concern for the people of Ethiopia, but it's another thing to inflict daily torture on the people of England.“
“Long hair is an unpardonable offense which should be punishable by death.”
On rap music: "I really do think it's a great musical stench. I find it very offensive, artless and styleless. To me it's very reminiscent of thuggery, pop thuggery. I don't want to hear it at all."
Like Robert Smith, Morrissey is a hater of the first order. Let’s try a few more examples and see if this pattern holds with other disaffected Brits (unfunny songs, cruelly funny wit in conversation).
Going back in time a bit to the 1977 album Never Mind the Bullocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, vocalist Johnny Rotten actually laughs at the start of the song “Anarchy in the U.K. This auspicious start, however, is followed by lyrics that are an ode to hope-crushing dissatisfaction.
It’s hard to join Rotten’s laughter as he warns us, “Your future dream is a shopping scheme!”
But catch Johnny Rotten sitting down with a journalist over tea and he gets cattier than the late Richard Blackwell crafting his annual worst-dressed celebrity list:
“Every time I see Bono in those big fly glasses and tight leather pants I just can't hack it. I can't see that as solving the world's problems. He's crushing his testicles in tight trousers for world peace.”
Apparently, the somber song/barbed-tongue talk carries over into the world of punk music.
Moving forward again, Ian McCulloch, frontman of the atmospheric post-punk group Echo and the Bunnymen, demonstrated what is perhaps the most ambivalent attitude towards laughter. When he is singing, laughter is bittersweet at best and just plain bitter at most.
In “Lips Like Sugar,” the title temptress has “flown to other shores/to laugh at how you break.” In “My White Devil,” Ian describes our monkey brains as being “content to laugh/when laughing wanes.” Each of these situations—laughing at someone’s misfortune and laughing when no one else is laughing—is more odd than funny. In fact, one of the symptoms of mental illness is inappropriate laughter.
Yet get a reporter’s notebook or a tape recorder anywhere near McCulloch and he blooms into a world-class mocker.
On touring with the blokes of Gene Loves Jezebel:
“Yeah, I hated the shites. I wanted them thrown off the tour. The dumb bastards. And they were ugly as well. If you’re gonna throw the makeup on, you need to have the plastic surgery first.”
On the drummers of Liverpool and why Echo and the Bunnymen chose to employ a drum machine:
“We couldn’t find a anybody in Liverpool because drummers here are always too old and thick and drunks in the bargain."
On “the honor” of meeting Coldplay’s Chris Martin:
“I didn't meet Chris Martin . . . He met me.”
Yes, British musicians demonstrate a fascinating dichotomy. Despite their ability to turn a clever phrase and their propensity for using the word “loffing,” their music is largely somber and glowering. In conversation, however, they are singularly adept at roasting their fellow musicians and, in general, all the fools they are forced to suffer.
I can only conclude that musicians who sing knee-slappers such as Herman’s Hermits droll cover of the dance hall song “Henry the Eighth, I Am” are dull as a diet consisting exclusively of beans on toast. And that if funnyman Benny Hill—who made wacky physical comedy and the dirty joke his own on “The Benny Hill” show—could write some truly glum songs if he took a serious crack at it.
Whatever the case, I suggest that all of us who are professional moaners—whose CD collection could be construed as an aural suicide note—take a leaf from our heroes’ books. When we’re feeling downhearted after listening to too much down-in-the-mouth music, we should have a breezy chat with one of our mates. While doing so, we should rip everyone we know who’s not in the room a metaphorical new one. Ridicule them. Reprimand them. Ream them. Roast them. And make it funny. It’s a sure way to cheer up.
We’ve all heard of the tears of the clown when there’s no one around. How about the arch smile of the depressive when there’s no one around? Ready to elevate your mood like nobody’s business? It’s dead easy. Ready, set, mock!
—post by "No Air Guitar Allowed" contributor Sarah Torribio
