Music is a powerful force, capable of stirring a vast spectrum of emotions. While many songs make us want to dance, cry, or sing along, only a select few manage to make us burst out laughing before we even hear the first note. Sometimes, the title alone is a comedic masterpiece. Get ready for a chuckle, a giggle, or perhaps a full-blown guffaw as we explore ten song titles that are hilariously memorable.
10. “You Can’t Have Your Kate and Edith Too,” The Statler Brothers (1967)
Back in October 2020, Twitter was abuzz as people realized they’d been misremembering a well-known idiomatic expression. The classic English proverb is “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” According to the Cambridge Dictionary, this means you can’t enjoy two good things simultaneously if they are mutually exclusive. In simpler terms, “you can’t have it both ways.”
Some internet users amusingly claimed the proverb was actually “you can’t have your Kate and Edith too.” One bewildered user tweeted, “So the saying is really you can’t have your Kate and Edith too? I know I ain’t the only one saying, ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too.’” Another expressed surprise: “How am I just now learning this at 23?” Yet another was skeptical: “It’s definitely the cake one. ‘Kate and Edith Too?’ It don’t make no sense.”
This charming confusion stems from a 1967 song by country and gospel group The Statler Brothers, which cleverly puns on the proverb. The song tells the story of two friends on a double date with women named Edith and Kate. The situation gets complicated at the drive-in: “You were kissing on Kate/ She wouldn’t let you go/ I looked at Edith, started feeling bold/ I found your big hairy hand holding on/ to the hand I was trying to hold/ You can’t have your Kate and Edith too.”
The narrator is sent for popcorn, and upon returning, finds his date, Edith, in the back with Kate and his friend. The song humorously concludes, “Years have passed since that first date/ I married Edith, you married Kate/ Now every night when I come home/ Your car’s in the driveway, Kate’s in the car/ And you and Edith are in the house alone/ You can’t have your Kate and Edith too.”
9. “It’s Hard to Be Religious When Certain People Are Never Incinerated by Bolts of Lightning,” Mayday Parade (2018)
The alternative rock band Mayday Parade is known for its dark, sometimes very dark, humor and clever turns of phrase in their song titles. Many of their titles could easily feature on a list like this, including gems like “Happy Endings Are Stories That Haven’t Ended Yet,” “I’d Hate to Be You When People Find Out What This Song Is About,” and “If You Can’t Live without Me, Why Aren’t You Dead Yet?” Some titles are so bleak they almost drip with darkness, such as “The Torment of Existence Weighed against the Horror of Nonbeing.” However, one particularly intriguing and humorous title stands out: “It’s Hard to Be Religious When Certain People Are Never Incinerated by Bolts of Lightning.”
Songwriter Derek Sanders has admitted this song was “a little more angry than anything we’ve done before. I wrote it shortly after the 2016 presidential election when Trump won. I was just kind of horrified something like that was even possible—not that it’s all directed towards him, necessarily, but that’s kind of the mindset I was in.” While Sanders doesn’t specify who the anger is aimed at, the song is undeniably a ballad of disillusionment and disappointment.
The very long title is actually a quote from Bill Watterson’s book, Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons, from the Calvin and Hobbes series. You won’t find this phrase repeated in the lyrics, but the title itself leaves little doubt about the song’s theme. Despite its somber undertones, Sanders is quick to point out, “it’s not all dark. There is, at least to me, a hopeful outlook towards the future and trying to appreciate what we do have. It’s not all angry.”
8. “(I’d a Wrote You a Letter But) I Couldn’t Spell !✱¢#!,” Wayne Carson (1968)
Originally penned and recorded by country singer Wayne Carson Thompson, known professionally as Wayne Carson, “I Couldn’t Spell !✱¢#! [often represented by a raspberry sound]” was quickly picked up and covered by the pop novelty act Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Sam’s band had already achieved two Billboard Top 10 hits with “Woolly Bully” and “Li’l Red Riding Hood,” along with covers of classics like The Coasters’ 1958 hit “Yakety Yak.” Sam and the Pharaohs transformed Carson’s song into a novelty pop number, which is the version most remembered today. However, it was 1968, and lighthearted novelty songs were beginning to be overshadowed by Vietnam protest anthems. “I Couldn’t Spell !!*@!” didn’t make Billboard’s Hot 100, stalling at #122. Sam’s band broke up shortly thereafter.
This is clearly a break-up song, with the singer expressing anger because their love interest was unfaithful. The singer’s actions escalate from drawing a “mustache on your picture” to finding the “tree where we carved our names and chopped that jive thing down.” Still not satisfied, the singer then “burned the tie you gimme” and wrote the ex-lover’s name and, presumably, phone number on the walls of 34 phone booths (a common fixture back then).
7. “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly,” Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty (1978)
Between 1971 and 1988, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty formed one of country music’s most celebrated duos, collaborating on 11 studio albums and a dozen singles. Their on-stage chemistry during love song duets was so convincing that many fans believed they were romantically involved. This perception was strengthened by many of their songs portraying them as a couple. One such memorable track is “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly,” where they bicker like a weary, life-worn couple burdened by too many children and too little money.
Conway would croon, “you’re the reason I changed to beer from soda pop,” to which Loretta would retort, “An’ you’re the reason I never go to the beauty shop.” They’d both lament: “I guess that we won’t ever have, everything we need, ’cause when we get ahead, it’s got another mouth to feed.” Loretta sings that the kids are “the reason my good looks and my figure’s gone.” Conway chimes in, “and that’s the reason I ain’t got no hair to comb.” Despite the playful jabs, they both affirm: “An’ you’re the reason our kids are ugly, little darling/ …But I love you just the same.”
6. “Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued,” Fall Out Boy (2005)
Many people mistakenly think Fall Out Boy’s name comes from Vault Boy, the mascot of the online role-playing game Fallout. However, the band actually named themselves after a character from The Simpsons. Introduced in a 1990s episode (“Bart the Genius”), Fall Out Boy is the sidekick to the 1920s movie serial superhero, Radioactive Man.
This influential pop-punk band could have contributed several titles to this list, such as “Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over,” “A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More ‘Touch Me,’” and “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race.” Their lyrics are also quite spectacular, with a standout line from their 2005 hit “Sugar, We’re Going Down”: “I’m just a notch on your bedpost, but you’re just a line in a song.”
Fall Out Boy’s 2005 track, “Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued,” might sound like a clever gimmick to grab attention, but its story is perfectly legitimate. A rumor suggested the lawsuit-provoking original title was “I Loved You So Much More Before You Were a MySpace Whore,” but that was just a joke printed in Rolling Stone magazine. The actual original title was “My Name Is David Ruffin, and These Are The Temptations.”
The Temptations formed in 1960 but saw only minor success by Christmas 1963. This frustrated member Elbridge “Al” Bryant, who disliked the rigorous rehearsals and, after two altercations with bandmates, was fired. David Ruffin, who aspired to join the group, got his chance in January 1964. Ruffin soon became the lead vocalist on hits like “My Girl” and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” However, fame and cocaine inflated Ruffin’s ego, and he demanded the group’s name change to David Ruffin and the Temptations. The outraged group fired him. Ruffin had some solo success but tragically died in 1991 after collapsing in a crack house.
Songwriter Pete Wentz intended the song as a cautionary tale about fame’s perils. “[It] was kind of supposed to be our nod at a bio piece on the Temptations and David Ruffin and where the separation lies between superstar and a megalomaniac.” Fall Out Boy’s lawyers correctly anticipated that Ruffin’s estate might sue, leading to the humorously transparent title change.
5. “I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home,” David Frizzell (1982)
Country music boasts a rich tradition of novelty songs with thigh-slapping titles. Consider Hank Thompson’s 1966 song “He’s Got a Way With Women (And He Just Got Away With Mine)” or Charley Walker’s 1967 un-PC track “I Wouldn’t Take Her to a Dog Fight (Even If I Thought That She Could Win).” There’s also Deana Carter’s “Did I Shave My Legs for This?” and Charlotte “Charly” McClain’s “Lay Something on My Bed Besides a Blanket.” And who could forget Johnny Cash’s “Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart”? But if “I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home” has you puzzled, a little context might help.
Written by the legendary Dewayne Blackwell, who penned hits for Roy Orbison and Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places,” the demo for “I’m Gonna Hire…” was initially passed over. David Frizzell, who had lived in the shadow of his famous older brother, Lefty Frizzell, eventually heard it. “I think anybody who’s a brother of a walking legend is liable to feel a little inferior,” David once said.
After some success with duets, David decided to pursue a solo career. When he heard Blackwell’s demo, he secured the rights to record it. It became David’s first and only solo number-one hit.
The song is about a husband who spends his evenings and paychecks at the bar. One morning, he returns home to find his wife has a brilliant idea: she’ll turn their home into a bar to keep him (and his money) at home. “We’ll take out the dining room table, and put a bar along that wall/ And a neon sign, to point the way to our bathroom down the hall.” She continues, “We’ll rip out all the carpet, and put sawdust on the floor/ Serve hard-boiled eggs and pretzels, so I won’t have to cook no more.” To sweeten the deal, she adds, “You’ll get friendly service, and for added atmosphere/I’ll slip on something sexy, and I’ll cut it down to here/ Then you can slap my bottom, every time you tell a joke/ Just as long as you keep tipping, well, I’ll laugh until your broke… And when you run out of money, you’ll have me to thank/ You can sleep it off next morning, when I’m putting it in the bank.”
4. “The Weather is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful,” Jimmy Buffett (1981)
Jimmy Buffett built a career on witticisms that often find their way onto wall posters. Some of his lyrical gems include: “Laugh till You Cry, Cry Till You Smile” (Boomerang Love, 1989), “Wrinkles Only Go Where the Smiles Have Been” (Barefoot Children in the Rain, 1995), and “Is it Ignorance or Apathy?… I Don’t Know, and I Don’t Care” (I Don’t Know and I Don’t Care, 1999).
His song titles are equally clever: “Happily Ever After (Now and Then),” “What If the Hokey-Pokey Is All It Really Is About?” “A Lot to Drink About,” and “If the Phone Doesn’t Ring, It’s Me.” Buffett even shares his wisdom in his books. “Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party,” he wrote in his autobiography A Pirate Looks at Fifty.
Playing on the classic postcard line, “The weather is beautiful, wish you were here,” Buffett titled his song about being in the right place with the wrong person—“The Weather is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful.” The song describes a man living a hectic city lifestyle who wants a tropical vacation. His girlfriend, however, is too busy to join him. He goes alone, has a fleeting fling, but falls in love with the vacation spot. He quits his New York job and moves there. The song’s final line likely reflects Buffett’s personal philosophy: “And if it doesn’t work out, there’ll never be any doubt/ That the pleasure was worth all the pain.”
As for the title’s origin, it wasn’t particularly romantic. “Graffiti in the bathrooms of good bars has always been a great source of material,” Buffett said. “I think this one came from Captain Tony’s or the Napoleon House in New Orleans.”
3. “Thanks for the Killer Game of Crisco Twister,” Minus the Bear (2002)
Crisco Twister, a party game where participants grease a Twister mat (and sometimes themselves) with Crisco or butter to increase the challenge, has been around for decades. There’s even a YouTube video showing members of Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins playing a casual game of Crisco Twister at Bill’s Bar in Boston on September 23, 1991. Nirvana enthusiasts might recognize this date as the day before the release of their monumental album Nevermind. Smashing Pumpkins had also recently released their debut album, Gish. It’s intriguing to watch Kurt Cobain quietly engaging in the greasy game the night before his world transformed.
The members of Minus the Bear were just beginning their musical careers when Kurt Cobain, a fellow Washingtonian, tragically died in their native Seattle. Whether their song title “Thanks for the Killer Game of Crisco Twister” relates to the infamous Nirvana vs. Smashing Pumpkins match is unknown. What is certain is that the title perfectly captures the essence not just of the song, but of Minus the Bear’s debut album, Highly Refined Pirates, on which it appears. One reviewer noted that the album’s songs “revolve around drinking, partying and general kicking back.” In short, the songs are the ideal party soundtrack.
Tracks like “Wanna Throw Up? Get Me Naked” and “Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse” signal the album’s upbeat, party atmosphere. The song “Thanks for the Killer…” itself opens with evocative lines: “And then we all bought yachts/ And raced up to the islands/ Moored them at the docks/ Leading up to our cabins/ We raced up just to slow down/ And we drank some, man we always do/ Sunglasses to the water/ Our girls are lookin’ so good.”
If you’ve ever pondered how bands choose their names, Minus the Bear’s origin story is quite enlightening. “A friend of the band had gone on a date,” Jake Snider explained. “And one of us asked him afterwards how the date went. Our friend said, ‘You know that TV show from the ’70s [called] B.J. and The Bear? It was like that…minus the bear.’”
2. “Get Off the Table, Mabel (The Two Dollars Is for the Beer),” Bull Moose Jackson and the Flashcats (1984)
The origins of this joke are murky, but its earliest known musical appearance seems to be in December 1949, when a studio band called The Pearl Boys released “Get Off the Table Mabel,” written by pianist and singer Larry Vincent. His version tells of Johnny, whose wife Mabel, a burlesque dancer, earns money for him by dancing on their kitchen table. “The twists and turns that you invent will help us pay the rent,” the husband sings, ending with the plea: “Get off the table Mabel, shake your whatsits anywhere but here. Get off the table Mabel, my two bucks are for beer.”
Around the same time, a subgenre of Rhythm and Blues known as “Dirty Blues” was gaining traction in American nightclubs. These songs dealt with topics usually considered too obscene for recording, but some brave artists did put them on vinyl. An early example is Gertrude “Ma” Rainey’s risqué “Shave ‘Em Dry” from 1924. In 1943, bandleader Lucky Millinder hired a 24-year-old saxophonist named Benjamin Jackson, whom he thought resembled a bull moose, and the nickname stuck.
Bull Moose Jackson went on to release solo projects like “I Love You, I Do”—considered the first R&B single to sell a million copies—and the dirty blues hit “I Want a Bowlegged Woman.” In 1952, he released “Big Ten-Inch Record,” a suggestive title referring to 10-inch vinyl records, where he sang about his woman who loved his “big ten-inch…record.” Aerosmith famously covered this song on their Toys in the Attic album.
In 1984, Bull Moose Jackson and his songs experienced a minor resurgence when a Pittsburgh band, The Flashcats, recorded “Get Off the Table, Mabel (The Two Dollars Is for the Beer)” with the 65-year-old Moose. This version differs significantly from Larry Vincent’s, describing a “diner on the edge of town” where Mabel is a waitress. Bull Moose sings that Mabel, with her stripper past, needs reminding she can’t dance at the diner: “Get off the Table, Mabel, the two dollars is for the beer/ The service is good, I would if I could, but you can’t do that around here.”
1. “2021: A Personal Space Odyssey,” Pet Symmetry (2021)
When Evan Weiss, Erik Czaja, and Marcus Nuccio formed Pet Symmetry in 2012, they were already well-established figures in the Emo revival. Nuccio and Czaja were members of the Chicago-based band Dowsing, while Weiss had played in various emo and underground punk rock bands, as well as pursuing his solo project, Into It. Over It., for over a decade. From its inception, Pet Symmetry established a signature style: serious introspection delivered through clever wordplay and light, playful choruses.
Their band name is a pun on Stephen King’s 1983 novel Pet Sematary, and their song titles are often delightful groaners. Examples include “Cereal Killer,” “Window Pain,” “Ends With Benefits” (a play on “friends with benefits”), “Boldly Going Nowhere” (riffing on the Star Trek phrase “boldly go where…”), and “Simply Irresponsible” (a nod to Robert Palmer’s 1988 hit “Simply Irresistible”).
Their 2013 debut EP, Two Songs About Cars, Two Songs with Long Titles, showcased another of their trademarks: lengthy song titles. True to its name, the EP featured “Please Don’t Tell My Father That I Used His 1996 Honda Accord to Destroy the Town of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania in 2002” (thankfully, Willow Grove remained intact) and “A Detailed and Poetic Physical Threat to the Person Who Intentionally Vandalized My 1994 Dodge Intrepid behind Kate’s Apartment.”
The latter song begins by describing the Dodge Intrepid: “A silver surface worn into rust/ From nights in a neighborhood I started to trust.” After the car is vandalized, the perpetrator leaves a note: “To you, it’s just Scotch Tape and a heightened sense of cowardly pride/ A U-lock, some entitlement to keep by your side.” The singer then melodically and sweetly inquires: “Have you ever felt your perfect teeth make a connection with Chicago concrete?”
Fast-forward eight years to 2021, and the band shifted from personal, introspective songs to more outward-looking interpretations of the chaotic preceding year in their third LP, Future Suits. This album includes tracks like “Bootlicker” (addressing law enforcement), “Simply Irresponsible” (on political gridlock), and “Pet Synergy” (critiquing economic irresponsibility).
The COVID pandemic is also addressed in the song “2021: A Personal Space Odyssey.” The song suggests the world is crumbling as we, like Nero, idly observe. “The Earth wants what it wants, and it’ll take what it gets,” Pet Symmetry sings, adding ominously, “once the wheels leave the ground, we all own the ride.” Meanwhile, we “sit on the sidelines and place your bets” “while we wait in pajamas for further news.”
Music certainly has a way with words, and these song titles prove that humor can be found in the most unexpected places within the art form. From clever puns to outright absurdity, these artists have given us an extra reason to smile.
Which of these titles made you laugh the most? Do you have any other hilariously named songs to add to the list? Share your favorites in the comments below!
