Musical shitposts with depth.

Welcome back to the I Really Like This Thing series, where I do my best to introduce something I, well, really like. They could be music, movies, games – anything, really. The point is for me to share. Worst case, you think my taste sucks. Best case, you learn about something cool.

For this fourth installment, I talk about the music/comedy trio The Lonely Island.

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I’m really pretty lucky. I get to do what I like (writing) for a living, which means that the core experience of my job keeps me going even when projects pile up and deadlines start looming large.

But of course, at the end of the day these projects all involve serious and quote-unquote “normal” things. Not that that can’t be interesting – and I certainly have a few articles that I’m particularly proud of – but for someone who just wants to roll around in some mixture of music, movies, video games, and memes all day long, I enjoy myself the most when I’m writing about something I’m personally enthralled by.

That means that sometimes, there’s a shitpost itch to be scratched. The dad jokes I put up weekly go some way towards expressing the humour within me – albeit usually in a way more palatable to “normies” – but I probably wouldn’t get too far with the unadulterated madness that’s there in some form in my psyche.

Which is why I’m a big fan of The Lonely Island.

Musical meme merchants

The Lonely Island is an American comedy trio, formed in California in 2001. Mainly known for their work on Saturday Night Live (and in Samberg’s case, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), I think I can sum up their general body of work as “musical shitposts”.

Getting paid to produce great music with joke lyrics, there’s not many things better than that.

Just about all their music is about making fun of musical tropes and themselves. I’m really no music expert, so I can’t comment properly on their musical influences or the music theory aspects of the tracks they produce, but they are generally catchy-as-hell hip hop numbers. They form the very solid foundation for the part that I *can* comment on with some insight – the lyrics.

The construction of the “stories” within each song is extremely well-thought-out for what are essentially three-minute vehicles for inappropriate, non-sequitur, and /or self-deprecating jokes. The words used work both musically (they rhyme!) and in conveying specific emotions, plus they sometimes aren’t just jokes in themselves, but also build toward another joke later in the song. As a writer, this multi-layer approach is extremely satisfying and makes for a bigger payoff.

I don’t think I’m explaining myself very well (that’s right, the writer can’t write), so I’ll just point out a few select lines from three of my favourite songs of theirs.

Top tracks

[With honorable mentions to Jizz In My Pants, Diaper Money, and We’ll Kill U, among others.]

Motherlover

We start this list off strong with a song about having sex with your best friend’s mother.

In this follow-up to Dick In A Box (a classic in itself), we learn that our protagonists’ mums are widows who don’t have anyone to, um, keep them company in the bedroom. And with Mother’s Day coming up, they come up with the genius idea to do the mum version of wife-swapping.

The best parts:

• I’m callin’ on you cos I can’t do it myself / To me you’re like a brother, so be my mother lover (at the 1:24 mark)

This implies that, if it were legal/possible, they’d fuck their own mothers. Also, what about being “like a brother” makes it any more appropriate?!

• We are so cool and thoughtful (1:41)

The sincerity in Timberlake’s statement kills me every time. This character’s such a narcissistic dumbass without a shred of self-awareness, and it actually comes across as endearing (and very funny).

• My momma loves bubble bath with chamomile / Give it to my mom d-d-d-d-d-d-doggy style (yeah) (1:47)

I love the contrast here: One romantic, thoughtful piece of advice, followed by pure vulgarity that’s also funny because of how forced it sounds (all the Ds to fit the music structure).

IHOP Parking Lot

Firstly, apologies for the non-full nature of this video – there doesn’t seem to be an official video of this particular song.

This one comes from The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, a 30-minute “visual rap album” about (but not really) Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, two Major League Baseball stars of the 80s and 90s, who came to be known as the Bash Brothers because they… celebrated with forearm bashes instead of high fives.

(I’m not a baseball fan, don’t ask me.)

There’s also a lot of steroid controversy with the two of them, which will come up a bit more in the next song. But for this one, it’s just sheer silliness.

The best parts:

• Ooh, welcome to the parking lot / Where there’s dancin’ all the time (Alright!) (0:22)

This satirizes the random locations that music videos or musical numbers are set in. “Yes this is the parking lot of an IHOP, we dance here all the time. It’s completely normal.”

Also, I absolutely love the “alright!” the guys respond with – it’s just so pure and sincere and out of place.

• You, nasty boys / Keep shaking those nasty butts (We are!) (0:43)

The “we are!” gets me so good. It’s an example of a lyric that wouldn’t normally be used in ‘serious’ songs.

• I said hey, you, nasty boys / Shake four halves of butt (Phrased weird) / It’s not phrased weird at all / Shake four halves of butt (Okay) (0:47)

“Four halves of butt” is one of the best examples of a Lonely Island comedic turn of phrase. And the women arguing back that it’s not phrased weird, all while keeping in tune and in song, is hilarious.

Uniform On

I like this one so much I’m gonna do a running commentary, verse by verse, of the full lyrics:

She said she wanna fuck me with my uniform on
She grabbed me by the bat, now it’s going, going, gone
I never finish sex cos I’m so juiced out
But she nutted three times then we bashed then I bounced

The usage of “going, going, gone” is inspired, and the thought of ‘bashing’ (like mentioned earlier, a hyper-macho equivalent of a high five) after sex is just amazing.

I reside in Blackhawk in a big fucking house
My community is gated cos I don’t strike out
Got a room with a chair, got a room with a couch
Got a framed photograph of the time I met Alf

“Got a room with a chair, got a room with a couch, got a framed photograph of the time I met Alf” is so stupid-funny and all the former line is there for is to set up a lackluster reference to Alf. This is super indulgent writing that I wish I could get away with sometimes. It’s funny exactly because it’s so stupid and meaningless.

You know I’m not a hamburger but they call me Big Mac
Got the one ton Jimmy and the itty-bitty sack
My ball shrinky-dinky cos the ‘roids so strong
But it makes the aforementioned Jimmy-jam look long

This might just be a writer thing, but the simple thought of using “aforementioned” in a rap song is the absolute best part of a verse that makes self-deprecating jokes about steroid use, shrunken testicles, and calling a penis a “Jimmy-jam”.

The name is Mark, and no I’m not Mork
And yes, I eat pork cos it’s tasty on my fork
And no, I’m not a jork but I’ll jork it out the pork
Cos Noah should have had the Bash Brothers on his Ork

This verse is the pure product of tortured pronunciation logic and I love every line. None of it makes sense except to establish the Bash Brothers as Noah’s Ark-worthy specimens.

We are the perfect pair to start a new society
Filled with home-run hitting gold glove Goliathes

[Interlude]
Here’s what I found on the web for “What is the plural of goliath?”: Goliaths

A deliberate misuse of language to come up with “Goliathes” for the sake of making a fourth-wall breaking joke (and for the words to rhyme), just to add a dash of meta to the humour.

Oh, we’re goliaths, baby boy
Kirk Gibson’s a pariah, baby boy
I work out with a tire, baby boy
I wonder who can lift it higher, baby boy

Ahh! Lift that tire, bitch
Put your back in it and lift it higher, bitch
Stab that needle in my ass till I am rich
Make me a god with the chemical sciences

As with “aforementioned”, the usage of “chemical sciences” in a rap song, especially one this aggressive, is *chef’s kiss*.

Ahh! Baseball, baseball, He-Man hit the baseball
By the power of Grayskull
Rip the skin off and eat the brains out the baseball
Gonna run a motherfuckin’ train on the baseball

Pure indulgence! The He-Man reference comes totally out of nowhere and is a joke for the sake of a joke – grade A purity in its usage and intention.

Ahh! Don’t tell me to be fucking calm
Whip out my dick on the Jumbotron
Rip out my bones cause my muscles so strong
Now the pain’s so bad that my motherfucking heart stop-

You’ll also notice that with Alf, Mork, and He-Man, the pop culture references are in abundance. Besides being good non-sequitur jokes, they also help to further drive home the time period that the whole show is set in, so there’s multiple points to it.

Coupled with an aggressive, driving beat, these silly lyrics stand out even more. There’s balance to be had in comedy, which is what separates this inspired, hilarious nonsense from the kind of ‘jokes’ you’d find on r/iamveryrandom.

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The previous I Really Like This Thing pieces all ended on a somewhat somber or emotional note, for one reason or another. But this time there’s no reason for that – the trio hasn’t split up and their whole thing is comedy instead of drama or tragedy.

If you only know of Samberg from B99, I hope this post has introduced you to the fact that he does much funnier, more fucked up (in a good way) stuff. B99 is about as good as sitcoms get, but sitcoms are inherently unfunny (or less funny than they could be) in my opinion, due to the medium’s limits.

(I might explore that more in the future.)

I also didn’t touch too much on how the music videos themselves have some pretty good visual gags, but you can see those for yourself.

Anyway, for me, I’ll just try to keep finding ways to express my own humour. I really would like to get good with music or music production in some form to expand the repertoire I have at my disposal, but till then, I’ll enjoy these musical shitposts as a member of the audience.