Jokes/puns/shaggy dog tales in songs?

[thewayne]

Let us consider The Beatles' Rocky Raccoon:

Rocky Raccoon checked in to his room only to find Gideon's Bible.
Rocky had come equipped with a gun to shoot off the legs of his rival.
His rival it seems had broken his dreams by stealing the girl of his fancy.
Her name was McGill, and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy.
Now she and her man, who called himself Dan, was in the next room at the hoedown.
Rocky burst in, grinning a grin, and said "Danny-boy, this is a showdown!"
But Daniel was hot, he drew first and shot, and Rocky collapsed in the corner.

The doctor came in, stinking of gin, and proceeded to lie on the table.
He said "Rocky, you've met your match." Rocky said "Doc, it's only a scratch.
And I'll be better, I'll be better Doc as soon as I am able."

Rocky Raccoon, fell back in his room, only to find Gideon's Bible.
Gideon checked out, and he left it no doubt, to help with good Rocky's revival!

You have a subtle use of the word 'revival' that's pretty cool. You also have potentially the first reference to an obscure Firesign Theatre line in 'everyone knew her as Nancy'. In Firesign's 'The Further Adventures of Nick Danger', you have Nick looking for his old flame and talking to the butler.

Nick: "I'm looking for Audrey Farber"
Butler: "Audrey Farber?"
Nick: "Meloney Haber?"
Butler: "Meloney Haber?"
Nick: "Susan Underhill?"
Butler: "Susan Underhill?"
Nick: "How about... Betty Jo Bialofski!" (cue dramatic organ music)
Butler: "Oh, you mean Nancy! She's in the aviary stunting trees. I shall fetch her immediately. You can wait here in the sitting room or sit here in the waiting room."

I'm curious if Proctor & Bergman got the idea for their line from The Beatles.

So, the question is: do you know of any other songs that have subtle humor like this in them?

Comments

[magic-rat.livejournal.com]

I just checked my copy of "All Hail Marx and Lennon" (vinyl, not cd) and couldn't find a copyright date. But the Firesign Theatre were releasing their albums in the early to mid-Seventies, and the Beatles broke up in 1969. So I'd say that it's a case of another in-joke by Firesign Theatre (something that they did very well).

As for musical groups that insert subtle humor in their songs, how about Bare Naked Ladies?

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

Nothing comes immediately to mind -- and several over-the-top or sly humor items *do* -- but I suspect you could find slippery-tongued wordplay in Irish and Celtic lyrics if you did some digging. I don't have Wicked Tinkers, but it seems to me there was one song or another on one of their albums (helpful aren't I?) that was particularly clever.