Top 10 Songs You Didn't Know Were Parodies

Top 10 Songs You Didn’t Know Were Parodies

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for those musical pastiches or parodies where the inspirational source might feel a little arcane. We’ll only be including artists that aren't specifically known for parody, so sorry! No Weird Al for this list.

#10: “The Bad Touch” (1999)The Bloodhound Gang

It’s honestly a little difficult to differentiate the parodic elements behind The Bloodhound Gang’s “Bad Touch.” This is thanks largely to the video clip that accompanied the song, a “viral” sensation before that term had even taken hold within the public consciousness. This undeniably silly song was designed not only to mock self-important Euro-pop dance music, but also to intentionally bait critics with a visual aesthetic that reveled in…well, let’s go with “monkey business.” The Bloodhound Gang was always a band that held humor in high regard, but “The Bad Touch” basically became the same sort of one hit wonder that it was skewering in the first place.

#9: “4th Time Around” (1966)Bob Dylan

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” This might be what folk icon Bob Dylan was musing to himself after finishing his work on “4th Time Around” back in 1966. The tune was composed as something of a “clap back” track, only decades prior to when that term would take hold within the social media zeitgeist. Dylan was basically telling The Beatles, “hey, I saw what you did with ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),’ but I do it better.” The Fab Four seemed to knowingly “pull a Dylan” with regards to their own experiments with folk-rock, so it only seemed right that the man himself would show Liverpool’s finest what’s up.

#8: “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)”

Ylvis

The members behind Norway’s Ylvis weren’t really musicians, but comedians. Their resulting single, “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” was deliberately composed by Bård and Vegard Ylvisåker as a pop-chart tax write-off, a song they surmised would fail, based upon its parodic nature. The Ylvisåker siblings ultimately proved themselves wrong in the best way possible: The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” achieved EDM hit status by doing all of the tricks those earworm EDM tracks do best. Ylvis have released other tunes that have done well in the duo’s native Norway, but it remains to be seen if their “fox” has anything else to say on the pop charts.

#7: “Hook” (1995)Blues Traveler

Somehow, we don’t really feel that John Popper and Blues Traveler feel too bad about how their knowingly self-aware parody of the music industry, “Hook,” became their biggest musical calling card. The group was probably just as happy jamming and writing the music they wanted to write, despite how “Hook” brought chart success to their proverbial front door. This song was a hit because it possessed its titular “hook,” an immediacy that brought a lot of fans to the Blues Traveler fold. Did all of those same fans stick around? Maybe, or maybe not. Blues Traveler seemed content that the lyrics of “Hook” felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

#6: “Thick as a Brick” (1972)Jethro Tull

It’s interesting how certain artists react to critical appraisal of their work. The blues and folk influences behind the music of Jethro Tull have never really gone away, but this also hasn’t stopped the progressive rock tag from being slapped on them by fans and magazine journalists. “Thick as a Brick” was Jethro Tull’s response to those accusations, a deliberately “deep sounding” concept album that was mocking Tull’s prog contemporaries from the 1970s. The thing was, “Thick as a Brick” was also a pretty darn good prog album in its own right, and resulted in Tull continuing down this musical path with albums like “A Passion Play” and “Heavy Horses.”

#5: “Song 2” (1997)Blur

The lion’s share of Blur’s music does not sound like the group’s biggest hit, “Song 2.” That’s because this usually melodic Britpop act decided to intentionally skewer popular grunge rock tropes of the day via this in an’ out riff attack. Frontman Damon Albarn’s joyous “woo hoos” are intentionally juxtaposed against lyrics about “feeling heavy metal,” and there’s even some sly musical jabs within the guitar work. Take the undistorted beginning section that leads into “Song 2’s” fuzzed-out main riff. Sound familiar? [1] The fact that Blur couldn’t even be bothered to give this song a proper title speaks volumes to the breadth of their satirical wit. And you know what? It’s kind of genius.

#4: “Valley Girl” (1972)Frank Zappa

One of the dangers of parody is that not everybody is going to be in on the joke. “Valley Girl” by Frank Zappa, for example, was intended to poke fun at a Southern California culture that Zappa found vapid and insufferable. The thing was, this musical collaboration between Zappa and his daughter Moon Unit became a hit, and caused “Valley Girl speak” to become even more popular, nationwide, than it already was in California. Then again, maybe this madcap musical genius could find the humor in it all, since Frank Zappa was also the sort of musician who could expertly skewer muscular arena rock arrangements with 1979’s “Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?”

#3: “Back in the U.S.S.R” (1968)The Beatles

There are a lot of layers behind the parodic elements of “Back in the U.S.S.R.” by The Beatles. For starters, there’s the reaction of songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney against the patriotic “I’m Backing Britain” campaign of the late sixties. There’s also a bit of homage/parody towards two of The Fab Four’s influences, Chuck Berry and The Beach Boys. “Back in the U.S.S.R.” is composed with the Beach Boys’ bright ‘n sunny style, complete with vocal harmonies. Meanwhile, the lyrics swap out the pro-American words from Berry in favor of lyrics that play a bit on then-popular spy tropes and gags.

#2: “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” (1986)Beastie Boys

This one’s tough, with a lot of back-and-forth conjecture online attempting to discern how many levels of parody the Beastie Boys were dropping back on 1986’s “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!).” The “License to Ill” album, from which this song is taken, features a lot of similarly-themed irreverence, while the Beastie’s public profile around this time seemed to back up this youthful edginess. On the other hand, members of the group have consistently gone out of their way to remind fans of how “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” started its life as a parody of frat/jock life of the 1980s. If that’s true, though, then maybe the Beastie’s career during this time was a case of life imitating art?

#1: “Gangnam Style” (2012)Psy

Music may be a universal language, but how many of the millions of people that have streamed Psy’s “Gangnam Style” do you think are cognizant of its lyrical themes? Granted, the fact that “Gangnam Style” is performed in Korean probably inhibited a lot of people from delving into its deeper meaning, which speaks to elitism and materialist tendencies within South Korean culture. It was probably enough for the rest of Psy’s listeners to watch the video, do the accompanying dance and sing the “heyyyyy sexy lady” part of the tune. Or was that just us?

What song, to you, serves as a perfect example of parody? Let us know in the comments!