Thanks for the note! I once saw comedian Ed Byrne having everyone in stitches by tearing this song apart... Ironic? What's f---ing ironic about rain on your wedding day? That's just f---ing inconvenient! and so on and so on.
While comedians have been making gold off of this for a while... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb0YoRMXIY0#t=10m3s
Just thought I'd throw this out there. You'll need to watch for a few minutes to get the full point, but that's the world we live in. The whole video is great though.
tl;dw: The song's lyrics are about irony, just not situational irony, which is everyone's favorite kind.
No, I've studied the three types and there are only a couple times when the singer meets the other two, but not in the way she intended. However, most of the song is unfortunate events that are closer to situational than the other ironies, but not actually ironic.
VSauce is awful. I'm pretty sure his channel started off as a grab bag of stupid video game garbage and pranks. I'm pretty sure he just reads whatever script he's handed now.
Yes, the song is called "Ironic" yet none of the lyrics describe irony. Which is the ironic part. In a song called Ironic, you would expect irony in the song
Ed Byrne eventually signed off this routine by summing up, the only thing that's ironic about the song 'Ironic' is that it's sung by a woman who doesn't know the meaning of the word!
One of the modern classics! Slight error in one clue - it's *a* death row pardon. Also, on the 10 year anniversary acoustic version, she sings that she meets the man of her dreams 'And then meeting his beautiful husband'. Should accept 'beautiful husband' as an answer on that last one.
That seems dumb ... not for any social reasons, but because it doesn't rhyme with "knife". While Alanis is at it, she might as well change the line where the guy says "Well isn't this nice" to something from Brodie Bruce's airplane story in Mallrats.
I think it's great. Someone listening, regardless of whether they know the lyrics, will expect "wife" because it's an easy rhyme. Hearing "husband" subverts expectations, which makes it both funny and memorable. Humans tend to enjoy being misled like that- it's why so much comedy hangs on misleading the audience into being surprised by the punchline.
It's ironic Alanis Morissette's lyrics are parodied when she's more unintelligible than Bob Dylan. I'm not sure I've understood anything she's ever sung.
No, the cigarette break would have to ironically be the reason that you couldn't smoke. The smoking sign is fully intended to stop smoking. The better, more ironic alternative to this is: "You're working on a hard, long day
Your boss decides to let you take a little break
His reasoning is that he wants a quality job and he'll need attention to pay
Excited, you walk right across the concrete that you'd just paved". That has nothing to do with the cigarette, a rather challenging example, and it's way to long. However, it's a pretty basic example of real situational irony.
The guy whose plane went down, she insinuates the flight was being taken to conquer his fear of flying. If that's the case, then that ONE example is ironic...the rest? Nope.
That example does have situational irony, but not exactly in the way you described. The better one is he waited his whole life to fly because he was scared the plane would crash, and that actually resulted in him being on a crashing plane. There is also a minor example of verbal irony when he says "Well isn't this great".
Until taking this quiz just now I always thought she was singing, "It's a green light when you're already late" instead of "It's a free ride when you've already paid." Also I get that a black fly in your Chardonnay, rain on your wedding day, and a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break are just inconveniences and not at all ironic, but how are the others not examples of irony?
Because irony is when the result is the opposite of or absurdly incongruous to the expected or intended results. As it is, these are all situations that might be the opposite of what you want or hope for, but not the opposite of what would be expected.
For instance, the 98-year-old man winning the lottery and dying the next day would've been ironic if he'd won a potion of immortality, but the excitement of winning gave him a fatal heart attack. Similarly, the death row pardon would've been ironic if the executioners took the ringing phone as the signal to start the execution. In both cases you would expect the event to save/extend someone's life, but it ends up actively killing them instead. Or, it would be ironic if being late caused you to take a detour that let you avoid the traffic jam everyone else was caught in, letting you get to your destination earlier than everyone else. Being late, in and of itself, made you earlier.
Just thought I'd throw this out there. You'll need to watch for a few minutes to get the full point, but that's the world we live in. The whole video is great though.
tl;dw: The song's lyrics are about irony, just not situational irony, which is everyone's favorite kind.
It's a black fly in your blue Chardonnay
It's a free ride when you're already there
It's the good advice that you just can't take
Your boss decides to let you take a little break
His reasoning is that he wants a quality job and he'll need attention to pay
Excited, you walk right across the concrete that you'd just paved". That has nothing to do with the cigarette, a rather challenging example, and it's way to long. However, it's a pretty basic example of real situational irony.
Skinner: How ironic.
For instance, the 98-year-old man winning the lottery and dying the next day would've been ironic if he'd won a potion of immortality, but the excitement of winning gave him a fatal heart attack. Similarly, the death row pardon would've been ironic if the executioners took the ringing phone as the signal to start the execution. In both cases you would expect the event to save/extend someone's life, but it ends up actively killing them instead. Or, it would be ironic if being late caused you to take a detour that let you avoid the traffic jam everyone else was caught in, letting you get to your destination earlier than everyone else. Being late, in and of itself, made you earlier.